“Stand your ground. Stay where you are and do not enter the circle.” Jianmen’s voice reached all agents: “There’s something underground, I think they might be way above your paygrade. Do NOT act without my order. Stay in your positions.”

 

“Agent Hall, we see a pregnant woman too.” this time, another agent reported from a different position: “What should we do?”

 

“Stay in your positions. I repeat, stay in your positions!” Agent Hall screamed through the comms, while he was carefully approaching the woman. No matter how hard he tried, he still could not make out what was wrong with this woman - on the surface that is. When he got closer, he could hear very vague traces of the creepy negative energy flow coming from the woman in front of him, and it was his suspicion that the source of the negative energy might not be the women themselves, but the babies in their bodies.

 

“Listen to him. Everyone, stay in your positions.” Agent Jill said: “These women are not right - stay in your positions! This is an order, all agents, confirm you are back in your position immediately!”

 

“There’s something wrong with their babies.” Agent Hall decided to say it through the comms: “There’s something wrong in there - it might not be human at all! I can hear something wrong coming from them! All agents stand down!”

 

“Help me! Please! I am in so much pain.” the woman in front of Agent Hall and Agent Jill cried and tried to crawl towards them.

 

“Agent Hall, they’ve been soaked in this supposed holy rain for a while, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.” an agent in the comms said.

 

“THEY are not the issue. It’s what’s in their bodies!” Agent Jill agreed with Agent Hall: “Stand the fuck down!”

 

“Screw you!” some agent cursed through the comms.

 

“Get back! Get back!” Agent Hall yelled at the comms, but no one responded.

 

The woman in front of Agent Hall screamed and lunged forward all of a sudden at Agent Hall and Agent Jill. Her hands and arms reached outside the edge of the circle, but her chest and stomach was flattened by some kind of invisible wall. And through the abnormally thin skin on the woman’s abdomen, all four agents could see something with claws was inside the woman’s body.

 

The sound of Wyvern Breath rang through the comms, and every agent could hear a devastated agent screaming: “Agent Down! Agent Down! Do not approach the women! Die! You fucking bitch!”

 

Agent Hall, Agent Jill and the two agents immediately backed off.

 

“Help...” the woman continued banging on the invisible wall, and her skin finally started to break off and shed, revealing slightly darkened and dead flesh underneath, the blood in her body was no longer flowing, but became some sort of foul smelling thick tar.

 

Disturbing high pitched sound struck Agent Hall like a huge hammer to the head, if not for the enhanced earplugs he had on he would have fainted right on the spot.

 

A piece of paper sigil burst into flames in Agent Jill’s right hand, with the cover of her left arm, then she flung the burning sigil at the woman. The sigil ignited the woman’s leg, and the heavy rain did not put the fire out.

 

“Wyvern Fire! Wyvern Fire!” Agent Jill yelled.

 

The two agents behind Agent Jill and Agent Hall immediately opened fire - blue and purple flame shot from the nozzles of the flamethrower and engulfed the woman, who already lost half her skin by banging over the invisible wall.

 

Jianmen was fond of Wyvern Flame for a good reason - the woman was not able to back off in time and only a small portion of her body remained when she fell down on the ground. Though none of the four agents were able to tell what the part that remained was, they could easily tell that it was definitely something unclean, because the moment it touched the rain it started to ash and emit smoke.

 

A loud scream exploded from the small part that remained as it somehow leapt towards the invisible wall. This allowed the four agents to see what it was: a monster made of darkened flesh, in the shape of a human heart with three claws of different sizes and a long spine-like tail that allowed it to jump. They could not make out the details because the monster was still covered in flame.

 

“Fire! Fire!” Agent Jill and Agent Hall yelled at the comms at the same time.

 

A huge bolt of orange and golden lightning struck the ground, dozens of holes opened up on the ground and hot spring water jetted from under the ground. One of these holes was right under the monster facing Agent Hall and Agent Jill, and instantly turned the monster into ashes and sprayed it all over the four agents.

 

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!” the agents scrambled to get rid of the ash on their faces and clothes.

 

Shortly after this, the rain stopped, the cloud cleared and the sun shone on San Francisco once again.

 

The whole operation was an overwhelming success, one agent got injured by the monster, who actually had her heart impaled by the monster’s long tail. If not for Jianmen immediately coming to her aid, she would’ve died of bleeding.

 

“You’ll be fine.” Jianmen told the injured agent before sending her to the hospital for follow-up: “I left you a bit of a scar to remind you that you should always listen to me.”

 

“So, sir … is this done?” looking over the area, now a complete empty space with almost no buildings remaining and holes and craters everywhere, Agent Jill asked Jianmen.

 

“Yeah it’s done. ” Jianmen shook his head and took out his flask: “Tell Josephine I owe her dinner, I promised her this would go smoothly without a hitch.”

 

“It’s as flawless as anyone could get done in three days sir.” Agent Hall said: “We should have listened.”

 

“Can’t blame you. I should’ve added some more material, and a little bit of dye in there.” Jianmen said: “I expected the evil here might take advantage of the dead bodies. I wanted to avoid damaging them too much so that maybe their families can one day come get some closure … but that … You’ll have to forgive me, I haven’t dealt with necromancy and evil spirits in quite a while.”

 

“I am still gonna say this is wonderfully done.” Agent Hall hesitated for a second, then said: “And thank you Mr. Yu, I hope you realize how much we appreciate your help.”