“Go! Go down!” Just when Jason tried to cast a spell to form a wall to block the entrance into the second floor hallway, three shadowy figures already rushed through the door, with batons in their hands.

One of the figures attempted to bash Tim on the head with its baton, but Jason was able to block its attack with his wooden pen. But at the same time, the batons of the other two figures landed on Jason’s shoulder and chest, almost knocking Jason down and made him tumble down the stairs.

Jason could easily withstand a slash from a bone saw, but the heavy baton hits still shocked and hurt him to the bones - if it was any other person, they could have immediately been maimed.

With a heavy front kick, Jason was able to be temporarily rid of one of the shadowy figures, but then the other two figures swung their batons at him and again bashed him on his face and forehead.

Jason started seeing flickering lights and stars, his ears started ringing and buzzing, and he lost his sense of balance and direction for a short while. And before he could prepare for what was coming next, one of the shadowy figures jabbed at his chest with its baton and brought him down to the floor.

“Jason!” Tim and Adam tried to step up and help Jason but as they barely dodged a baton hit from a shadowy figure, letting the baton land on the handrail and saw that the part of the handrail was almost completely broken by one hit, they could not muster up any more courage to help.

A sudden loud yell emerged out of nowhere, the nurse with half her body burnt lunged from the shadows and onto one of the shadowy figures, and started scratching and biting her opponent. Her attacks might have seemed chaotic, formless and even a little frantic, but judging from the dark black liquid splashing from her foe’s body, it seemed like her attacks worked.

One of the shadowy figures turned to the nurse and started attacking her with its baton, while the figure under the nurse’s attacks was struggling and could not shake her off. The other shadowy figure proceeded to attack Tim, Adam and Branston, and all three of them could do was just helplessly running and trying to get away.

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” Branston was the one who yelled the loudest.

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Feeling the blood slowly flowing down his face, Jason forced himself to concentrate and fight through the dizziness and vertigo from being bashed in the head - he was able to conjure up a thin layer silver energy shield which absorbed some of the shock from the batons, and thus he was not incapacitated by the attacks. And when he finally regained focus and his form, a arm-length silver energy blade extended from his wooden pen, and he took a huge swing against the shadowy figure that was attacking the nurse.

Thick, dark and smelly liquid splashed over half of Jason’s body when the figure exploded from Jason’s energy blade slash. Then Jason held a silver ball of energy in his left hand and swiftly threw it to the shadowy figure that was attacking Tim, Adam and Branston. The energy ball struck the figure on its back, exploding on impact, annihilating the figure’s upper body, saving Branon’s life but also splashing dark liquid all over him.

“Get off! Let me finish it!” Jason yelled loudly at the nurse, who was still fighting the shadowy figure and rolling on the ground. He felt the severe strain on his limited amount of Xuanli, and yet he mustered up what he could gather and concentrated it on his silver energy blade.

The nurse did not understand Jason, or she did not care, as she finally ripped out a huge chunk from the figure’s throat and chest with her bare hands and mouth. These wounds proved to be “fatal”, since this final shadowy figure stopped moving and melted into a pool of dark liquid on the floor.

The nurse looked back at Jason, still with red blood tears in her one eye, then disappeared into the shadows on the ground.

“Thank you.” Jason retracted the energy blade and bowed to the position where the nurse was. Then he took out his flask and started pouring the wine down his mouth as he walked down the stairs to find Tim, Adam and Branston: “Guys! Come to me! Where are you?”

“We’re here.” Tim and Adam walked up from stairs below and met with Branston, who was trying his hardest to wipe the dark liquid from his face: “Are you okay? You’re bleeding!”

“Yeah. I’m fine, let’s go.” when Jason felt his Xuanli replenished to a suitable level from the wine, he waved his wooden pen in the air and conjured a curved silver energy wall to block the entrance to the staircase from the second floor and the stairs from above.

“Let us help.” Tim and Adam saw that Jason was having some trouble maintaining his balance, so they immediately came to Jason’s side and supported him by the arms when they proceeded down the stairs.

“Please let’s be quick. I really need to get outta here.” Branston’s shaky voice indicated that he was scared and anxious to the brink of freaking out or breaking down.

“Slow down, dude.” Tim said to Branston with a serious frown as Branston walked past them and seemed to have no intention of waiting for them to catch up.

“Oh, nonono, can you catch up?” Branston turned around and shook his finger at Tim, Adam and Jason from the stairs below: “I can’t stay in this fucking hospital for even one more sec...”

Before Branston could finish, a loud cracking sound came from below him, the stairs crumbled and fell apart right under his feet and crashed into the ground underneath. Branston jumped towards Tim, Adam and Jason and was able to grab onto the edge of the not yet broken stairs but still with his lower body not yet on the solid ground. Before anyone of the other three in the group could reach out to help him, he tried to reach for his camera that was hanging on the edge, and at the same time the edge he grabbed onto broke again and he fell down below, landing on his right leg.

Branston’s scream was so loud, even the sounds of the crumbling building were not able to cover it.