The corridor leading into the temple’s heart was lined with statues of men and women frozen in eternal, screaming agony. Their faces were twisted, eyes bulging, hands clawing at empty air. These were no mere decorations—they were the failed victims of the first Hive-Mind experiments, their souls trapped within stone by the sect’s ancient curse. Ratna gazed upon them with horror, her fingers tightening around her cracked blue jade. She could feel the echo of their pain, faint but unmistakable, thrumming from every carved face. “Do not look at them,” Lin Ye whispered, folding his hand gently but firmly around hers. “Fix your mind forward. They are long gone—their spirits freed long ago. Only the shell remains to suffer.” They reached the great doors of patinated green bronze, carved with a colossal sea beast coiled around the world. The doors swung open of their own accord as they drew near, revealing a vast circular chamber crowned by a domed ceiling etc