The next day, when the day was getting late, general set coordinator Robert, and assistant set supervisor Stephanie brought Caroline and Jason with them to the set of "The Haunting Crescent” - the same set to which they delivered food where they were greeted by a very rude person a few days ago. Caroline and Jason now learned that that person is the set supervisor, who is also the one the set staff call "the Reaper” when he is not around, because of his rude attitude and his inclination of credit stealing.

 

“So, it all happened sometime during the night before the last.” as Robert was opening the door, he described the incident that happened on set: “Bruno is one of our prop guys. That night he went back here. I don’t know why he came back, I just assumed he forgot something, he usually logs his entries so we’ll know what he came back for. But when he came back to the set, he was attacked. By someone who’s clearly out of her mind.”

 

“At least that’s what we thought, until we checked the security camera.” Stephanie said when the door opened and they walked in and encountered some blood looking stains on the floor: “The police did not take this case seriously at all, they did not even seal the whole set. But Bruno was really traumatized and this is where he was attacked, right at the door. The police told us when they found him, he was covered in blood and some rotten meat. Whoever attacked him scratched him up really bad.”

 

“What’s on the security camera footage?” Caroline asked.

 

“It’s hard to explain. ” Stephanie was shaking her head: “At first, some woman appeared out of nowhere in the room - we didn’t see how she came in. Then a shadowy figure appeared in front of her. Then after a while Bruno came in and the woman attacked him.”

 

“Can you tell what the woman looked like? ” Caroline gently rubbed her scar on the left side of her forehead: “Is she Asian?”

 

“Looks like it.” Robert and Stephanie both looked at Caroline and Jason, their facial expressions showed that they were a little creeped out: “How’d you know?”

 

“Oh boy.” Jason took out his wooden stick, and at the same time Caroline took out his wooden shield and tomahawk.

 

“Wait, what are you doing? Are these … wood weapons?” Roberts asked: “What are you gonna do with those?”

 

“Shh! Just tell us more about this woman. What did she do after attacking Bruno? Where did she go?” Caroline nervously and impatiently asked.

 

“We can’t tell, but it looks like she just ran outside the door and bumped Bruno out of her way. ” Robert said: “But somehow, for some reason she had time to spray him with tons of rotten meat? Did you know her? Is she crazy?”

 

“I don’t think it’s any rotten meat.” Jason lightly gasped and realized something: “It’s her.”

 

“Umm, what?”

 

“It’s from her, the woman.” Caroline exchanged looks with Jason and headed slowly towards the inside of the set, “She’s a forensic scientist at SFPD, we’ve been trying to find her for a while. And I think she’s possessed. We found teeth and hair in her bathroom...”

 

Without Caroline and Jason having to explain much, Stephanie started retching and then vomiting on the side into an empty dustbin.

 

The light flickered, a breath of cold air blew through them. And then all of a sudden, the door they came in through was slammed shut by some invisible force.

 

“Crap!” Robert ran to the door and tried to open it: “The door won’t open!”

 

“Here it comes, stay behind me!” Caroline ran towards the door, then raised her wooden axe and prepared to bash the door with it.

 

“Behind you! ” Jason grabbed Stephanie by the arm and headed to the door as well, but he suddenly saw a black shadow appearing behind Caroline. Yelling and having his wooden stick in hand, Jason concentrated his will power onto his stick and dish out a serious swing.

 

A silver droplet flew from the tip of the stick, landed on the black shadow.

 

“Bang!” the silver droplet hit the black shadow like an explosive bullet, the black shadow got knocked into the air yet it was able to stabilize its position in mid air, after which it manifested its true face: an eyeless tall and slim man in black and white rags, surrounded by black smoke.

 

“What the fuck is that!?” Robert yelled as he had his back against the door.

 

“This does not feel that dangerous, kinda smells differently.” Jason said with a frown.

 

“Whatever, let’s get rid of this one first.” Caroline let out a long exhale, and her wooden shield and axe lit up in orange and red.

 

“Agreed.” Jason used his wooden stick to wrote a word in the air like a pen - as he finished, the silver ink formed a floating Chinese word “攻”. As the tall and slim man lunged towards them, the word also shot towards the man.

 

The tall and slim man clashed with the silver word head on, and like a man hit with a truck and flew through the air. But the next moment the light flickered and he just disappeared into the darkness.

 

“Door is still jammed.” Robert felt relieved and tried again to open the door, but he was still not able to open it.

 

The lights started flickering again, then all of a sudden, they all got shut off.

 

Stephanie started screaming and grabbed Jason’s arm, so tightly so that he could feel her fingernails digging into his skin. Jason struggled to keep Stephanie in check and tried to use his stick to write another word in the air. Caroline felt something from her left side so she swiftly swung her shield to the side. Her shield clashed with something, some bright red sparks flew from the clash, and she heard a man’s whimpering cry.

 

Right now, the only light sources were Caroline’s glowing shield and axe, though the light was too dim to light up too much, it provided enough visibility in the dark for Stephanie and Robert to find their cell phone and use them to light up the space around them.

 

“Is that thing still here? Did you kill it?” Stephanie asked Caroline.

 

“Don’t think so.” Caroline shook her head.

 

Just this moment, Jason finished his writing in the air, this time, the word he wrote was “亮”, and with a quick poke of the stick, the word started shining in silver white light and lit up more space.

 

“Jason. Try the detection spell.” Caroline’s axe and shield shined brighter.

 

“On it.” Jason started writing another word in the air.

 

“Are you guys… sorcerers?” Stephanie asked.

 

“Cultivators.” Jason finished the word “显”, the word exploded into a wave of silver light, scanning through all the corners in the room. And shortly after the explosion of the silver light, a grey figure appeared above Robert and Stephanie - just like throwing paint on an invisible object, or person.

 

Before the figure had the chance to escape again, Caroline’s axe, while leaving a trail of orange and red afterimage, already cut into the body of the figure, almost splitting it in half. Yet this figure also extended its arms and grabbed onto the handle of the axe and Caroline’s arm, trying to stop Caroline from attacking again. Yet Caroline just started bashing the figure with her shield.

 

The figure dropped to the ground after the fifth or sixth bash, losing its invisibility and showing its true face in the process.

 

Caroline gave out a loud and angry roar, her axe almost got embedded in the ground from a furious swing, which removed the slim man’s head from his shoulder. A jet of black smoke gushed out from the figure’s neck, a strong rotten smell instantly filled the air

 

Another silver word struck the slim man’s headless body, pushing it away and blasting it into ashes and broken rags. At almost the same time, the slim man’s head burned to ashes after a whimper. Yet the black smoke that emerged from the slim man’s neck took a while to dissipate. For some reason, Jason and Caroline had a strange feeling that the smoke was somehow from a different entity, not the slim man.

 

“Try the door again?” Caroline cautiously looked around, then asked Robert.

 

With a simple push, the door opened.

 

Yet the next moment, a bright lightning almost blinded all four of them. Both Caroline and Jason felt an electric current rampaged through their bodies, numbing all of their extremities and burning their blood, flesh and bones. The next thing they felt, was the cold hard touch of the cement sidewalk.