In front of the house Kane and Alex stayed at, Caroline was still standing and unshaken by the explosion, even though pieces of metal shrapnels, metal spikes and sharp pieces of rock were embedded in her arms and legs - her wooden shield only protected her torso and head from the destructive shockwave and the shrapnels from the explosive, but not enough to block other body parts.

 

The figure in cloak lunged towards Caroline the moment the explosion was over, with two daggers with curved edges in both hands. Caroline swung her tomahawk horizontally and unleashed a crescent shaped fire energy blade. The figure in cloak was expecting it and swiftly side-stepped to dodge the fire energy blade without losing much of momentum, and both daggers were ready to slash Caroline’s shoulder and waist.

 

A baseball sized orange and red shadow emerged from thin air and hit the figure in cloak on the chest like a high caliber bullet. The figure was instantly sent in the air, with a noticeable hole on the chest.

 

Caroline tried to make out what basically saved her and knocked her opponent in the air, and as she concentrated, she clearly saw, heard and sensed the true face of what that baseball sized shadow was: an orange and red hornet almost entirely made of her Xuanli, whose stinger and wings were on fire.

 

After this attack, Caroline felt that the wooden card Jianmen gave her seemed to have bent and cracked up a bit more, seeming like the hornet was not only a creation from her Xuanli, but also something that was connected to the wooden card itself.

 

The figure in cloak appeared to be more affected, and even hurt by the comparatively small hole on the chest - as it tried to get up, its movement were heavily slowed and its limbs were trembling and twitching - just like someone under the effect of a vicious hornet sting.

 

Caroline would attack the figure if she could - but her Xuanli was almost completely drained, and the last bit of it was barely enough to support a basic attack. And although she sensed that she might be able to command the hornet, she did not want to just rush and try without being sure that it would work.

 

The figure in cloak struggled to get to Simon’s side, slowly put Simon on the shoulder, got on a truck parked by the side of the road and drove away.

 

Caroline finally was able to sit down in relief, then all of a sudden she heard her cell phone vibrating and ringing - it seemed to her that the truck that drove away had something to do with her and Kane not getting any cell phone signal earlier.

 

After carefully removing shrapnels from her arms and legs and bandaging herself up, Caroline called a rideshare car with Xianshi Inn as the destination.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

“Gwak!” as a silver toad on Jason’s hand let out a clear and heavy croak. A silver energy shockwave was released towards the direction down the stairs - a set of silver stairs that Jason conjured using his Xuanli connecting from the position where he, Tim and Adam were at, to Branston’s position.

 

The countless slim, slender and shadowy figures that were surrounding the silver stairs and Branston were immediately swept away and blown to pieces by the silver shockwave. But even though Jason temporarily had his way cleared, the silver wall he conjured earlier blocking the upstairs and the entrance to the second floor was sustaining heavy damage from whoever and whatever behind it, and Jason almost passed out and rolled down the silver stairs.

 

“Jason!” Tim and Adam, who went down the stairs at the request of Jason to help Branston, immediately went up the stairs and held Jason up: “Are you okay?”

 

“Thanks. I can walk. Let’s go!” Jason was able to catch his breath when he got the support of Tim and Adam.

 

After making sure that Jason could stand and walk on his own, Tim and Adam went ahead and held the crying and moaning Branston up, the all 4 of them tried to go for the entrance through which they came into the North Wing of the hospital.

 

A sense of severe danger shocked Jason when he was just a few feet away from the door and Tim, Adam and Branston already made it out the door. But before he could defend himself, a huge dark green bone spike shot from above, piercing through the ceiling and aiming straight at Jason’s head.

 

Jason only saw the tip of the dark green bone spike, the next instant his body was enclosed in an orange and golden spherical energy shield. When the bone spike collided with the energy shield, the front parts of it were shattered completely into dozens of pieces. And the silver toad in Jason’s left hand let out another croak, a concentrated silver energy wave blasted the remainder parts of the bone spike, shattering more of it into even more pieces.

 

The momentum and impact from the bone spike and the spherical shape of the energy shield delivered a strong push onto Jason’s body and made him fly out the door, almost knocking Tim, Adam and Branston down.

 

“Woah!” “What happened?!” “Ouch! My leg! My leg!”

 

When Jason landed on the ground outside of the hospital, instead of that sudden sense of fatal danger, he now felt a tingling sense of being watched and observed. What was more disturbing, was that the one observing him seemed like a humongous entity, it was almost like the entire hospital itself was watching him.

 

“Go! Go go go! Leave!” Jason helped Tim and Adam in carrying Branston and tried his best to rush to the van. And to his surprise, a lot more people were standing near the van.

 

“What’s happening? Who are you?” when all four of them finally made it to the side of the van, Branston asked the men and women in black and all wearing strange pairs of glasses standing in front of them.

 

“Are there more people in there?” the biggest man in the group asked.

 

“There are four of them, in the West Wing!” Adam pleaded: “Please, I don’t know who you are, but please save my friends.”

 

“Okay.” the man just nodded as acknowledgment, and he turned to a woman wearing knee long dress and two different boots and tilted his head in Branston’s direction.

 

“Well. Here I am as the medic once again.” the woman sighed and stepped up to Branston, Tim and Jason: “Put him down, flat on the ground.”

 

Though feeling a bit odd, they put Branston down on the ground and let him lie on his back. Jason also noticed that the people in the van seemed to be in a sort of drunk/drugged up state, where they just sat on their seats and smiled while looking at the screens in front of them.

 

“Now, hold still, this is gonna hurt like hell.” the woman said with one hand over Branston’s broken leg.

 

“Wait wait wait! What’s gonna hurt? What are you doing?” Branston stared at the woman with sweat dripping down his face

 

“Nah I’m just trolling ya. It’s gon’ be fine.”

 

“What? Really? What… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”