“What happened? ”When Aimee and Thomas came back to the civilian buildings that were closer to the restaurant building, they found that Jason, Caroline and Laura were nowhere to be seen, so Thomas immediately asked Josephine Wong and Blue.

“Don’t worry, they’re back at the inn.” Josephine Wong waved her hand, signaling the Division agents to head to different areas around her: “How many civilians have you evacuated?”

“About twenty of them.” Thomas thought for a brief moment and said.

“We swept almost the entire area, looks like there’s not many people in this area - but there are a lot of things that seemed to become paranormal from the energy.” Aimee said: “We encountered plants, paintings, statues and even anime figurines.”

“Okay.” Josephine Wong nodded, then asked: “Agent Hall and Agent Beckman reported that you came here because you were tracing the funneling of some sacrificial energy. Any idea how that kind of energy is stored inside that building?”

“We - we don’t know.” Aimee looked at Thomas then hesitated: “We just know that the energy was funneled into a stone tomb, where they stored the body of a powerful being - apparently it’s some kind of god, the lycans called it the ‘Night Lord’.”

“Yeah, and apparently they still believed in it.” Thomas nodded: “Some of them knelt and apparently prayed to it the moment the body was reactivated. But then it just sucked out their energy and started controlling them.”

“But it wasn’t their god, was it?” Josephine Wong took a look at the body of the worm creature and asked: “Don’t worry. You did good. You’re welcome to stay here and help, but you can go back to the inn if you’d like.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I - I want to stay for a bit.” Aimee raised her hand like an eager highschool student: “I’ve been here - in this district when I was still a detective. I want to stay and help.”

“Yeah, me too.” Thomas sighed, took a deep breath and took brought out his flask to check if there’s still wine inside - there was not, during the fights against the paranormal entities he had already used them all: “Well, we probably need some drink or food - ”

Josephine Wong clapped her hands lightly, and both Aimee and Thomsas’ flasks were fully filled: “Thank you, this will be on the house.”

“Where’s Mr. Yu?” While Aimee was taking a deep long gulp of her wine, Thomas took a quick sip and asked.

“He uh, he succeeded. He saved us all.” Josephine Wong put on a smile but her voice was still trembling: “And we’re still waiting for his message, his signal.”

“Message and signals of what?” Aimee let out a comfortable “aah” and asked.

“That he’s back with us.” Josephine Wong shook her head, handed her two students two temporary badges and started floating away: “Talk to Agent Hall and Agent Beckman, if you want to have a peek into the life of working for or with Division. If you can’t find them, just go and check the surrounding buildings for any remaining civilians.”

The arrival of Josephine Wong and Blue also meant that many others who worked for the Division had come as well - in just a matter of few minutes, many more vehicles came, as well as a few of the powerful but annoyed or bored looking mages.

“Hey! You’re here!” Just this moment, Agent Hall ran over to Aimee and Thomas’ side: “Glad you came out okay.”

“Where’s Agent Beckman?” Aimee asked.

“He’s with the reinforcements and organizing everything - now that we have some more folks from other branches and divisions here.” Agent Hall sighed: “They came a little late, didn’t they?”

“Well. It’s still help we could appreciate.” Thomas shrugged.

“Ms. Wong gave us these and told us we can ask you about how we could help.” Aimee showed Agent Hall her temporary badge and looked around, noticing that some of the new agents that came seemed to be somehow pushing the agents that came earlier to their aid out of their original position, even though the agents that came here earlier had everything under control.

“Oh, well. Good timing, because we are indeed REALLY understaffed.” Agent Hall sighed: “But, bad timing, because things are about to get ugly.”

“Ugly? How? The fight is over?” Thomas was confused, but only for a short moment: “Shit - are they for real?”

“Yeah! But come! There’s still plenty of work to do.”