Orange and red fire burnt bright and lit up the entire small alleyway, Caroline’s motion of standing up was so powerful and sudden that the ground cracked beneath her and she launched herself in the air. She roared at the top of her lungs, which caused the fiery energy around her to explode.

Two obscured spirits with human’s flesh and skin on their bodies were instantly knocked away by the shockwave. Before they could adjust their positions in the air, one huge burning energy blade struck them both in the air, and both of them were cut in half and almost completely incinerated.

“Yeah!” Jason cheered, then he almost fell to the ground, since he just exhausted all of his Xuanli.

“Thanks a lot, dude, I owe you big time now.” Caroline swung her silver Xuanli axe around and sliced through two more obscured spirits that tried to enclose on Jason: “Let’s get away from here. Any more civilians around?”

“Not alive ones.” Jason coughed, and blood came out of his spit.

“Let’s go.” Caroline supported Jason up by his shoulders, Jason started drinking the last bit of wine from his flask, and after just a few mouthfuls, his flask was empty: “Empty already? Hang in there, let’s find a safe place, you can have a bit of mine.”

“Yeah. I don’t think yours is gonna help me much.” Jason wiped his mouth and put his flask back in his pocket: “Boss is still not here.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll come.” Caroline shook her head as she carried Jason through the alleyway and away from the direction of the SFPD precinct, she also took a few mouthfuls of drink from her flask - her minor but not unimportant breakthrough left her feeling weak because of the increased density of her Xuanli and thus her meridians felt less filled up, which also had some temporary negative effect on her flow of Xuanli as well.

“Help! Please help!” Just when Caroline jumped over a pile of cars and buses crashed into each other, she heard a young girl’s voice calling out from a half collapsed building on her right side.

“Let’s take a look.” Jason sighed, his Xuanli has recovered just enough for him to function normally - he was not confident he’d be much use in a fight, but he couldn’t just leave someone in this situation either.

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“Careful and stay behind me.” Caroline cast a true sight spell on herself and carefully walked to the entrance of the building.

Just before they completely set foot in the building, powerful beams of energy tore through and lit up the sky from different directions and converged onto the space above the SFPD precinct.

Bright light from the subsequent powerful explosion made Caroline and Jason think the sun had risen already for a brief moment, then painful loud screams and shockwaves followed. Building scraps, bricks flew from the center of explosion into the surrounding area - yet, it was something else that caught Caroline and Jason’s eyes: from the explosion, countless pieces of unknown object drenched in cold and dark energy shot through the sky and dispersed far and wide into the night.

The explosion affected this building as well, it was already in really bad shape, and when the shockwaves hit, more of its upper parts started falling down from above.

Jason conjured an energy blockade above them in time, but he was not able to cover much space as his Xuanli reserve was close to depletion.

“Are you okay? Are you still there?” Caroline pushed some fallen debris to the side and asked loudly.

“Please help!” the young girl’s voice was cracking like she was really shaken and started crying: “I’m here! Please! I am scared!”

Both Caroline and Jason were able to notice a foul smell as they walked to the inside of this building, it was the typical smell of unclean presence, so they both raised their weapons and walked in with extreme caution.

“Please! I’m here!” judging from the direction of the sound, Caroline and Jason knew they were close.

When they pushed a fallen shelf and fridge aside, they finally saw the one calling out to them - it was a bloodied and pale teenage girl hanging from the broken ceiling in front of them. Only her upper body was visible to them, and she was waving her hand at Caroline and Jason: “Help! Please! Help me! I am scared!”

“Just hang on a second! We’ll be over!” Caroline was just about to go over there, but Jason grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“What’s your name?” Jason gave Caroline a serious and cautioning look, then asked.

“Help me! Please! I am scared!” the pale and bloodied young girl continued waving her hand.

Caroline’s eyes narrowed, her true sight spell was still in effect, though she was not good a spell caster as Jason, when she focused and looked carefully she could still tell that the young girl did not look normal at all - she was shrouded with dark and unclean energy, black veins were crawling all over her face, neck and arms and her pupils were not focused at all.

Before Caroline could ask her question, the girl was dragged away by a sudden force, and a monster burst through the wall on Caroline’s right side and lunged at Caroline. Caroline swiftly turned around and faced the monster with her wooden shield. The attack from the monster clashed with a fiery energy shield, and both Caroline and the monster were knocked back.

It was a mutated lizard monster grown to the size of a tiger, its claws were sharp and tainted with blood, its scales and shells were rotten and half of them seemed to have dropped off, and its tail was abnormally long, with an additional segment at the end: the upper half of the young girl that just called out to Caroline and Jason. Even now, the half a teenage girl was still crying for help and waving her hands.