In one of the higher up floors of the building, was a rouing hall spanning across the entire floor, with twelve chairs arranged in a circle. At the ter of the circle was an altar made of six different kinds of stones - each kind made one sixth of its round cross se.

  Of the twelve seats, only six of them were occupied by human-like figures. And of the six figures sitting in their chairs, only four of them dispyed any signs of life. Aside from these four seats, all others sat either shriveled and deg carcasses or just simply piles of ashes, bone fragments and skin.

  A pale young man in a dark red suit stood outside of the circle with his head and shoulders held low. His body was trembling, and fog formed from every breath of his.

  “There are some more disturbances in the flow of Qiyun. We have to trol it.” A hoarse, elderly male voice echoed in the meeting hall.

  “Feedback stopped ing in from the Old Pearson House Site.” A squeaky elderly female voice cried: “They have failed, yet again. This ot be allowed to go on. Everything is losing its stability!”

  “Silence, you cowards!” Another voice shut the previous voices down. This was not one singur voice, but one made up of two voices speaking in almost perfeison: “You should have already thought of this. How are you even still pining for the circle’s pletion?”

  “It will plete. All we need is just earth … ” The female voice argued.

  “You ’t even plete the fire circle. And the difficulty of pletion is growing expoially.” The voices in unison roared: “You’ve bitten way more than you chew and you know it. You’ve doomed this ritual from the start! It’s your own stupidity! You should ha!”

  “No!” The hoarse elderly male voice barked: “It’s something we ALL have to deal with! It’s threatening ALL OF US and ALL THAT WE HAVE! The s - they ed bind all of us! Don’t you fet that!”

  “Only when you’re trying to use the power of the cil will you call it ‘us’.” The voices in unison scoffed: “But when the s are in front of you, you just ’t help yourselves, don’t you?”

  The two elderly voices went silent for a brief moment, as if they didn't have any meaningful ways to respond or retort.

  “Just know that I will be ing for you for repehe voices in uniso out a high pitched and satisfied ugh: “What else do you have that we use? Don’t expect us to foot your resources for you.”

  “We will send our top executors on it.” The elderly male voiswered: “Our best. We o start using the back up sites. We have backup watchers in the lio take them up as well. ”

  “And with whose preparations? Whose papers, whose wood, whose abar, whose inse and whose ink? Have you thought about it?” The voices in unison asked, with a rather insinuating tone.

  “We will cover half of it.” The elderly female voiswered.

  “Eight.” The voices in unison tered.

  “Six.” The elderly male voice sounded even more frustrated than usual: “This s you as well. And don’t fet, the earth circle is going to be yours. If this circle is not correctly and carefully cluded, don’t think for a minute you clude it successfully?”

  “Seven and a half, and we’ll send each of our own top executors to help you activate the backup sites and calm the colpsed ones. ” The voices in unison giggled: “What do you think? I just ted our days, your circle’s are due in - what, three days? Even if you pile on a bunaller rituals to suppress the darkness, you stretch it to - maybe a week? Our circle is still 15 years away from when you finish it.”

  “Six and a half, and you do all the other s you just mentioned.” The elderly male voice responded.

  “Deal.” The voices in unison giggled: “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll send out our men.”

  The other two voices sighed and grunted, before ting a spell in low voices together. After a short while, a wave of dark energy exploded from the ter of the meeting hall and propagated through the rest of the building.

  The voices in unison chuckled after deg the message in that energy bst, so they ted right after and unleashed another bst of dark energy shockwave.

  “There’s a disturban the building.” The voices in unison said.

  “What?!” The elderly male and female voices gasped at the same time.

  “Didn’t you se earlier? There is a disturbanside the building.” The voices in unison asked, their voices full of impatience, despise and a hint of frustration: “A few bodies that don’t respond to our calls and our ands. They don’t belong in this building. We have intruders.”

  “What?! How is this - ”

  “You’ve been stu your chairs for too long, you've lost touch.” The voices in unison cursed: “They o be dealt with and handled. ” Right after this, they began ting again.

  “Boom!” Before the t would plete, a muffled explosion came from below. And almht after, the energy ihe building gushed and shot everywhere, as their tai measures were put out of ission.