Lockdown Artifact, Defense Key

After nearly an hour of travel, they finally reached the deepest part of the temple—a vast circular hall, its surrounding walls covered in murals depicting the sun and the cosmos. At the center stood a stone platform, above which floated a strangely shaped key radiating rainbow-like light.

"The Spectrum Key," Vivi exclaimed. "It really exists!"

However, they soon noticed something unusual in the hall—dozens of corpses lay scattered around the platform. Some had already become skeletons, while others were relatively fresh, yet all had been frozen in different death poses. Some appeared to have fallen while fleeing, some seemed to have killed one another, and others still were reaching out to touch the key.

Most chilling of all, the same expression was frozen on every corpse's face—utter terror.

"These people all came looking for the key," Crocodile analyzed calmly. "Explorers, tomb raiders, perhaps even agents. But they all failed, and none of them died peacefully."

Vivi gathered her courage and approached the platform. "The key is right there. It doesn't seem to have any physical defenses."

"Careful," King Cobra warned. "The ancient texts mention that the key has its own defensive mechanisms."

Vivi slowly approached the key. When her hand was only a few centimeters away, a powerful invisible force suddenly hurled her back. She flew several meters, but fortunately, Crocodile transformed into a stream of sand in time to catch her.

"Are you all right?" Cobra asked worriedly.

Vivi shook her head and stared at the key in shock. "It... rejected me. I could feel a consciousness judging me, then deciding that I wasn't the person it was looking for."

Crocodile looked thoughtfully at the key. "The ancient texts mention that every key has a will of its own and chooses a suitable holder. It seems the Spectrum Key