“Get in there! Don’t try anything funny. ” as the man in a hoodie and beanie pushed Jianmen into one of the lower level rooms in the brick house, he was not fully aware that even though Jianmen let him push him around, Jianmen did not stop looking around at the environment of the house.

“There’ll be people looking for me, you know.” Jianmen tried a bit to act as if he was acting tough: “You should know that I am a federal agent, and if you inflict harm on me, you’ll all regret it!”

“Just go in, you fucking whimp of a narc.” the man pushed Jianmen towards a chair with rope wrapped around it, making him turn around while still pointing the gun at him: “Sit down on the chair. And be quiet, you don’t wanna be a federal agent with a hole on the forehead.”

“I understand, you’re just a low level goon for the Bleeding Daggers and you wanna impress your boss because you caught a supposedly federal agent. But can I at least meet your Boss before you kill me?” Jianmen faked a begging tone.

“He’ll deal with you when he is back. Right now you just sit tight, and tie yourself up with that rope.” the man in a hoodie said: “And when he’s finished with you, you’ll be wishing you’re dead.”

“Ah, so your boss is not here and left you house sitting? I bet that food truck guy is also house sitting right? Why are you not in on the action?” Jianmen sat down by the chair but still did not even touch the rope.

“Shut up! Tie yourself! I will not repeat it!” the man in a hoodie yelled, with veins popping out from his face.

“This is gonna sting a bit.” Jianmen chuckled, then slapped the gun out of the man’s hand with a backhand, then gently struck the man’s forehead with his palm. The man instantly passed out with his eyes rolling back, then Jianmen held him and placed him on the chair and tied him up with the rope. 

After Jianmen took the keys and his phone from the man in a hoodie and beanie, he followed the traces of unclean energy in the building out of the room and down a flight of stairs to an even lower level of the house. This was probably the “official” basement in the house, and there were no other rooms in this layer, only one giant spacious room with pillars in all four corners and an altar at the far end of the room.

Jianmen took a look at all four of the pillars, all of which had relief sculptures of some kind of monster on - from the looks of them, they were depicting the same multi-faced monster with five or seven hands and a long exposed spine in different poses. From these sculptures, Jianmen sensed something quite unusual, but was not entirely certain about his suspicions.

Just this moment, a wave of energy emerged from the altar, the density of unclean energy instantly increased by hundreds if not thousands of times. And shortly, a multi-tone voice resounded in the basement: “Powerful mortal, for what purpose have you come here?”

“I am here for the Bleeding Daggers, they have been performing unclean rituals everywhere in town. Are you the one for whom they provide sacrifice?”

“The sacrifice, it is not for me.”

“I don’t believe it. I’ve seen these rituals performed by the ones that own this place. At least tell me your name.”

“Nice try, mortal. ” the voice seemed agitated, when it spoke, the entire room started shaking.

“So you do have a name that you’re not willing to tell. Never thought the first time I met a Daimon would be in someone’s basement.” Jianmen chuckled, but still prepared himself for a fight.

“I am a GOD!” the voice said loudly, shaking the entire house even more violently: “And I will not be disrespected by a mere mortal like you!”

“You’re not a god. A god will have its own kingdom or its own realm, and will not be bound to a simple altar. A good altar, but still an altar.”

“Your insolence will not be tolerated. Prepare to die, Mortal!”

The room shook violently, and all four of the pillars started cracking up, and the relief sculptures on them started moving and moving as if they were about to come into life. Jianmen concentrated two balls of blue energy in his palms then pointed them at two of the pillars that were further away from the altar. Lightning shot from his palms and struck the two moving relief sculptures, the moving relief sculptures exploded into hundreds of flying debris that was dripping with dark thick liquid.

“So, you’re a fallen god, not just any daimon.” Jianmen’s eyes narrowed, then he slammed both his hands on the ground, the huge wave of dirt, stones, rock and stone spikes hidden inside emerged in front of him and blew towards the altar and the last two pillars with relief sculptures on, “Too bad, we have so much in common.”

The back wall against which the altar was placed turned from brick and cement into a huge mirror of bubbling and moving shining dark liquid. The wave of dirt, stones and rocks crashed upon the last two pillars in the room and crushed the relief sculptures into pieces, but was not able to shake the wall of dark liquid.

From the wall of the dark liquid, a huge body burst out and hurled three dark green energy spikes at Jianmen. Jianmen’s whole figure became a blur as he dodged the energy spikes, and while he prepared for his counter attack, he got a pretty good view of the thing that came out from the wall of dark liquid: this was a monster with an exposed human like rib cage and a long spine that still connected to something behind the wall of dark liquid; it had five long arms with both human and non-human structures made of dark green and red bones and solidified dark substance of some kind as sinew and muscle attached to its rib cage and shoulder; it had two heads, one was right above its broad shoulder but it was thick and wide like that of an exaggerated hammerhead shark, and the other was a small and human like skull locked within its rib cage. On the wide head above its shoulders, four faces that seemed to be ripped off from the heads of real humans were attached, yet for some reason, each of these faces seemed to be crying, cursing and moaning just like they were real and alive.

Jianmen held a ball of lightning between the palms of his two hands, in the center of which was a piece of folded Demon Suppression Sigil made with completely red paper and written with black ink. And when he lowered his body and hopped to the monster’s lower left side, he pushed the ball of lightning out, aiming at the monster’s long spine drenched in the dark liquid it came out of.

The ball of lightning struck true onto the monster’s long spine, and instead of exploding, it turned into the shape of an arrow-shaped drill bit and started spinning. The long spine of the monster looked brittle, but when the energy drill started spinning it sounded like it was drilling on a piece of metal.

The monster screamed in pain and used one of its hands on the rib cage, Jianmen again hopped to the side and conjured up a spinning stone spike from under the monster, its tip aiming at the head residing within the monster’s rib cage.

The monster’s body was pushed into the air from the impact, the strike from the stone spike cracked the rib cage but was not strong enough to penetrate the monster’s defenses. Just when Jianmen started preparing for another attack, the monster’s big head turned to his side, and one of the faces on the head lit up in ominous cold blue light, and a tingling chill just ran through his whole body.

The face gave out a loud and grueling cry before it shot out from the monster’s flat and wide head and at Jianmen, its cries turning into disturbing waves of power of mind and will, instilling feelings of fear, despair and disorientation in Jianmen’s mind.

Happy New Year!