“This is … not normal.” Laura did not let this moment of supposed “victory” loosen her guard: “Hey! Jason! Be careful! Caroline! You as well!”

“Thomas! Aimee!” Caroline took the moment to catch her breath and shouted into the air because she did not know where the Chavers were at the moment: “Continue evacuating everyone! This is not over yet!”

Jason slowed down his speed and lowered his continuous energy output to the wall he created. But he expanded and projected his power of mind and will outward, in an attempt to pry on what was going on inside of the restaurant building. As far as he could tell, no lycans came out from the building, so it would probably be safe to assume that they were dead due to being trapped inside.

The level of the liquid continued to go down, and the cracks that appeared in the air gradually “healed up” by themselves. And without Caroline having to do much, less and less shadows came out from the surface of the liquid.

“Boom!” Something inside the restaurant building exploded, but instead of pushing or throwing anything out, a center of suction force occurred and the entire building caved in in an implosive manner. As the walls and ceilings fell down, Caroline, Laura and Jason all saw and sensed what happened - a flickering and unstable looking energy vortex occurred somewhere underground. Jason immediately realized, that the center of the vortex was at the same position of the collapsed portal, connected to an unknown plane.

“On guard! On guard!” Having sensed a somewhat familiar but also quite different energy signature coming from the vortex, Jason immediately yelled at everyone in range: “It’s the portal!”

“Boom!” The vortex exploded, and a gigantic worm with a ferocious fish head, dark scales and centipede-like side legs rushed out from the temporary portal created by the explosion. Dark smoke, a cold and fear-inspiring aura, and a string of horse laughter came out along with this horrible creature.

“Behold my power and my glory! ” The creature’s voice echoed even though there were no walls around: “You miserable puny beings will now be blessed with the chance of marveling at my presence! Taste the scent of fear and hopelessness …”

Before it could finish the full sentence, a bolt of lightning with the width of a bus shot down from a piece of cloud higher up in the sky and landed right on this worm creature’s back. Dark scales, broken legs and dark tar flew all around the sky, and a giant hole was left on the worm creature’s back.

But this wound did not last, as the worm creature twitched and turned its body in the air, the wound just healed itself at a visible rate. But right at the next moment, another bolt of lightning descended from the cloud and struck it right on the head, but this time it did not do as much damage, because the worm creature just conjured a thin energy shield above its head and blocked off most of the power from the lightning bolt.

The worm creature looked around, then fixated its head in a certain direction - where a male mage in a blue robe was floating in the air with a long crooked looking wooden staff in his hands. And while the worm creature looked, this mage conjured up a ball of lightning and threw it at its head.

The worm creature turned its head to the side to dodge this ball of lightning, then curled its body back like a viper, then launched its head at this mage.

A purple shadow appeared right from a broken and torn down building below and shot at the worm creature like a bullet. Before the worm creature could react, the purple shadow already conjured a purple energy blade and spiced its head off. And while the main part of its body fell onto the ground, another purple energy blade was released by this purple shadow and it went straight into the worm creature’s head from the wound behind its neck.

“Fu - ” Before this worm creature could curse, a giant spinning drill bit grew and expanded from inside its head and turned its severed head into tiny pieces of torn flesh and shells that rained down onto the ground below.

With the head crushed into minced meat, the other parts of this creature’s body stopped moving as well.

The purple shadow and the mage in a blue robe flew toward the restaurant building.

The liquid started leaking from the restaurant building again, but the speed in which it flowed had become much slower than before. And with Caroline, Jason and Laura working together, it was immediately reduced to almost nothing.

“Good work.” Josephine Wong landed on the ground beside Jason: “Your master would be proud of you.”

“My master - ” Jason had a strange memory flashback, as if a piece of memory was removed but then re-inserted into his mind: “Yeah, our master! How is he?!”

“I - ” Josephine Wong tried to find the right word for it, but then she just turned around and flew towards the top of the building: “Go back to the inn, take a rest, have some food - there will be a disaster recovery team to deal with the rest.”

Jason let out a long exhale, and he almost fell face down onto the ground - his meridians dried up, and his head was ringing and hurting. Caroline was no better, her fingers and arms were in strange shapes, her skins blistered and cracked just like a victim of severe burn damage. Laura was the only one out of the three that still had the ability to walk, so she carried the two of them towards an abandoned vehicle nearby.

“Hold on, I’ll drive.” Laura kissed Jason on the forehead as she helped Jason and Caroline onto the backseat and said: “Don’t worry, I know the way to the inn…”

The scenery flashed around them, the vehicle in which they sat disappeared, and they found themselves at the lounge of Xianshi Inn.

“Yeah, I guess we CAN indeed come back whenever we want.” Jason laughed out loud on the ground.

Don't forget, if you want to read the finale early or support my work, the full version is on Amazon!