Deep in a jungle in Vietnam, there was a cave with hidden entrance to a very old place where a legendary item – the relic of a disciple of the Buddha - was hid. Rumor and legend had it that a certain king from India sent his daughter with the relic and consort when his kingdom was losing the war. The princess ran and managed to reach the land now called Vietnam and settled there. She built the hidden place for the relic and for the purpose of worshipping ceremonial. Much later in time, the place was abandoned, and the people that guard the place was said to be missing and never found any trace of them.

Or so they thought…

Ming looked about the jungle with his compass on his right hand and an old map on his left hand. He had been searching the area for a week and now seemed getting close to his destination. He noticed a certain rock formation that looked like a person sitting in lotus position a few feet from him and went there to investigate.

He put his compass in his pocket and searched the rock. It was very old and moldy. There were chips and pieces of the original rock went missing, probably from the weather and animals that sharpen their tusks or claws. He brushed away some braches and wild grasses and noticed a circle-shape depression on the chest part of the rock. He fingered the depression and feeling sure that this was what he was looking for. He set his backpack on the ground and took out a brown leather pouch.

From the pouch, he produced a medallion made from a combination of gold and bronze. The medallion had a shape of heart carving on it. He placed the medallion and heard a faint click. He felt the ground rumbled wildly and stood up, getting ready for anything that would come up. A hole appeared on the ground not too far from the rock formation, revealing a set of stairs going down the darkness.

“You think that is?” Ask a man behind Ming. He wore a set of green safari clothes, a pair of white socks and a pair of green leather shoes. The man behind Ming looked about forty-ish and had a round belly.

The treasure hunter smiled and stood up. He brushed away the dust from his black jeans. “I’m very sure it is.” He walked toward the hole and the wild blew his white overcoat making it flowed like a superhero cape.

As he walked toward the darkness, he took out an electric torch and turned it on. His companion also did the same. They walked down for about sixty steps before reaching flat ground. It was an alley with three meters or ten feet wide and a long way straight. On the wall were carvings of Hindi letters.

Ming and his companion examined the letters briefly before continuing down the alley. It took five minutes of walk before they reached an enormous hall at the end of the alley. The fall had about eight pillars supporting the ceiling divided equally on the left and right. They (the pillars) void of ornaments or carving, but each had an old type oil lantern hung around the middle.

Ming took about his surroundings, a habit that saved his life many times in his adventure from traps. Each pillar was four meters or thirteen feet away separated from the other. From one column of pillars to the other was ten meters or around thirty-three feet. From a pillar to the nearest wall was about four meters or thirteen feet wide. He noticed that on each wall on the left and right side of the hall there were warrior statues with each holding a stone spear. He counted ten on each wall, making it about twenty statues.

On the far end of the hall was a set of stairs leading to a stone altar that had the carvings of the legendary Buddha and his disciples. He took a careful step toward the altar, making sure there were no hidden traps like poisonous arrows or holes ready to claim his life. His companion was ready to bolt for the altar, but Ming grabbed his hand and motioned him to be careful.

An eerie feeling hit him when he passed the first pair of statue. He thought there might be traps like poisonous arrows like in some hidden caves or temples that he visited before, where there were similar guardian statues with holes on their mouths shooting poisonous arrows, but nothing came.

The two hunters walk slowly but sure toward the altar. When they reach the first step of stairs however, they heard cracking sounds from each side of the wall. They looked about and to the amusement of Ming and the horror of his companion, the guardian statues came alive!

“Tom, go to the altar, but don’t touch anything until I take them down.” Said Ming to his companion whose gladly follow his order. He cracked his knuckles and grinned at the guardian statues walking toward him. “Well, well, not everyday I get to exercise like this.”

He somersault forward evading two pairs of spears thrown at him. He landed lightly and ran toward a guardian. He leapt and did a spin-kick that sent his opponent crashing at the wall and the guardian statue crumbled to dust. “That was easy.” Thought Ming.

He took out his gun and shot two of the nearest guardian with absolute precision. The bullets blew the heads of the guardians, but both statues kept coming at him. “Now that’s a surprise.” He ran toward a guardian and grabbed the attacking arm. He spun and sent the guardian hurtling toward another. The two collided and crumbled to dust. “Seventeen more to go.”

He avoided a spear meant to screw his chest and threw an energy ball toward a guardian and it was reduced to dust. Next, he took a stone spear that was dropped on the ground and launched at two guardians that were lined up in perfect position for the spear to thrust into their chest. He leapt high and performed one of his special moves called ‘Dragon Rider Kick’. He channeled his chi and a surge of red energy enveloped his right foot. He dashed downward and kicked a guardian, sending it crashing at two others. Eleven left.

He spent the rest of his four bullets at the guardians, exploding their chest and reducing them to dust. “So that’s the weakness.” He thought to himself. “Raiden!” He shouted as he performed another of his special moves. With his gloved fist enveloped in electric-based chi, he charged at a guardian. The fist hit the guardian’s chest and sent it crashing at the wall. Six more.

He took out a speed-loader from his hip-bag and reloaded his gun. He shot down five guardians and was about to shot the last one when he thought something. “Ah well, why not?” he thought and somersault. “Zaa!” A yell he usually shouted when he perform his Dragon Rider Kick technique. The kick crashed at the guardian’s chest and it was sent to the wall and turned to dust.

Ming scanned his surrounding. Finding no other threat, he walked back to the altar. Tom, who apparently was sure that Ming could handle all the guardians by himself was studying the altar and the carvings at its side. “So, what did you find?”

“Not the relic for sure. I don’t get it, where would they hide the relic? This altar cannot be opened.” Said Tom.

“What about the carving?” asked Ming.

“No indication of anything.”

“Well, there has to be something. Otherwise, there would be no point of building this hall.”

“Maybe it was already taken by others?” supplied Tom.

Ming shook his head. “If that’s the case, there would be no more of the guardians. There has to be something. Let’s search the altar again, you might miss something.”

They scanned the altar and the carving once again. On the other side of the carving of the Buddha and his disciples, there was another carving of animals, humans, demons, tortured souls, and gods and goddess. Ming took a look at them, pondered for a moment, tapped at the carvings, and smiled. “I get it.”

“What?” Tom looked up from the other side. He quickly went to Ming’s side.

“See these carvings?” Ming indicated at the carvings of the creatures.

“Yeah…”

“You know what these are about?”

Tom thought about it. “Yeah, they were about the Buddha’s teaching about the realm, right?”

“You got it.” Said Ming, grinning.

“So?” Tom looked at his companion. His brow wrinkled.

“Look again, there is something not right.”

Tom looked at it and thought for a moment and finally a thought dawn at him. “Oh, my. The order is wrong!”

Ming’s grin widened and patted Tom’s back. “Now, you really got it.” He pulled each carving of the creature out from the altar. He set the carvings from the top in the order of: gods and goddesses, humans, demons, animals, and finally tortured souls.

When he inserted the last piece of carving, a clicking sound can be heard from the inside of the altar. Ming and Tom stood up and saw the table of the altar split into two parts. From inside the altar, came up a glowing object placed on a small stone pillar. “The relic.” Said Tom, feeling amazed when he saw it. The same feeling was felt as well by Ming as he saw the small pillar slowly came up.

When finally the small pillar stopped ascending, both men still looked at it with the feeling of awe. The relic shined in golden aura, seemingly alighting the entire hall. Ming took out a small box prepared for this holy object. He carefully took the relic and placed it inside the box. When he shut the box with a click, a rumbling sound from somewhere inside the wall was heard.

They looked up and saw the ceiling opened up slowly. Ming could guess what would happen next. “I hate boulders.” He quickly pulled Tom descending the steps as the rumbling sounds became louder and louder.

True to his guess, from the hole on the ceiling, a boulder came crashing down, destroying the altar and begun to roll toward the entrance of the hall. The two treasure hunters quickly ran toward the entrance, racing against the speeding boulder. To Ming’s surprise, the boulder did not stop at the entrance, instead, it kept rolling down the alley, toward the hidden steps.

“Dammit, I hate boulders! Why do they have to put boulders all the time?” shouted Ming as he and Tom ran toward the exit. He could feel the ground rumbling hard against his feet. One misstep and they would be turned into squash meat. When they were closed enough to the steps, Ming grabbed Tom’s hand and pulled hard as he leapt high toward the steps. They cleared about half of the steps toward the exit hole and Ming quickly leapt again, giving all he got. They barely got out of the hole when the boulder hit the steps, crumbling them.

Both treasure hunters lay on the ground catching their breaths after running away from their deaths. Tom got up first. “You okay? What about the relic?”

“I’m fine.” said Ming. “And I got the relic here.” He showed the small box containing the relic.

“Good.” Said Tom as he took out a gun. He pointed the gun at Ming. “Now give it to me.”

Ming raised an eyebrow. “So, you want the glory or the money?”

“Money first, of course. The glory will come later.” Said Tom.

“Who is it?” asked Ming.

“None of your concern, Ming. Now hand it over, I may let you live.” said Tom.

“Sure.” Said Ming as he rose up.

“Slowly.” Said Tom.

Ming halted in his sitting position. He slowly rose up. In mid-standing, he swept his hand at Tom’s gun. The gun flew away and Ming quickly planted an elbow at Tom’s stomach. “You should’ve shot me when you got the chance.” He smiled menacingly as Tom doubled over and fell on the ground.

Ming took his own gun and unloaded the empty rounds, leaving only one live round in the chamber. “Now, we’re going to play a little favorite game from Russia.” He spun the chamber and timed its spin before pushing the chamber back to its place. He aimed at Tom’s head. “Now, you won’t stand a chance against me in hand-to-hand combat, so you don’t need to try to attack me. Your best bet is to answer my question quickly and truthfully. Your other option.” Ming pulled the hammer back. “Is betting with my timing skill as long as your luck runs. Now the question is, who sent you to get the relic?”

“You won’t be able to trick me with that empty-chamber-Russian-roulette game.” Said Tom.

Ming pulled the trigger five times and they were empty. He opened the chamber again and showed the live round to Tom. “Almost.” He spun the chamber again and timed its spin before pushing it back again to its place and pulled the hammer back. “My record is twenty times like this before I miss, you want to help me breaking it?” When Tom kept quiet, Ming pulled the trigger again five times. Empty.

Tom was beginning to break sweat. He saw in Ming’s eyes the determination to get the answer or he could die for all Ming’s care. On the fifth try, Tom finally broke “Okay! Okay! Stop it already!”

“So who is it?” Ming asked again.

“I don’t know for sure.” Tom began. When he saw Ming pointing the gun at him again he shouted “I swear! I don’t know who he is! This guy came up to me and brought a lot of money. Said I’ll get another load of pay if I can give him the relic. That’s all I know!”

Ming searched within Tom’s eyes. He asked another question. “So who is this guy? What does he look like?”

Tom was still breaking sweat. “I don’t know his name. But he looked like a Spanish guy. He is blond and very handsome.”

Ming pondered for a moment searching from his memory of anyone that he knew that might resemble the description. Came up with nothing, he shrugged. He might search for this guy from the Croft’s database. Lara and he had been collecting data of many villains from all over the world in that database, he sure he’d come up with names. “Well, thanks for the info, but I can’t let you live now, can I? You might be a nuisance for me in the future.” said Ming. He pulled the trigger five times. Empty.

Tom looked at Ming only to find seriousness in his words. “Wait! Wait! Don’t kill me! Please!” He saw Ming pulled the trigger again… Click… and he fainted