Along the street of Eighth Avenue, littered with corporate skyscrapers, the wind blew piercing ears. A man carrying a dark green backpack and a camera in his left palm walked into the 318-meters glass building.
At the glass vestibule, suddenly he rushed to take a lift in the right corner of the reception desk. The reception woman staffs knew that he was one of the senior employees here and let him through without a greeting.
Ting.
The cabin was open. "Hi, guys!" Hao Jing said in front of the steel door to the reception staff with an innocent face. The distance between the lift and the reception desk is around five meters.
And those women consciously wanted to answer but he was inside the cabin lift and closed. He headed to the 21st floor and went to his desk, took the medicine that he always kept in case of emergency, a diarrhea medicine.
"Oh, after retreating from the war zone, I went back and forth to the defense ministry for two months. It was draining me after all. And the party last night with Indonesian spicy food turned out like this," Hao Jing talked to himself as if he could do a monologue as if he was stressed.
He used the office toilet for 45 minutes. Back at his desk, a woman dressed in a white fitted cotton shirt, holding a newspaper, was looking for Hao Jing.
An editor-in-chief of 'International Post' Magazine, Luna Herald. She was charming to Haojing with her wolf-cut hair and deep-set eyes, but Hao Jing used to be a lone wolf and promised not to fall in love at work. When Hao Jing came out from the toilet, he looked at his desk and shrugged.
"Hao, you took so long. I have been waiting for you," Luna said while sitting on the desk with her legs crossed.
"I have a new topic for our headline magazine. We are working on this spectacular annual International Post Magazine, so you have to take this chance and have some fresh investigation in the nature area." As she spoke to Hao and put the newspaper on the desk, she turned around back to her office room.
"Wait, what is the topic about?" Hao questioned her with a stern and tight pitch.
"It is all about the topic you wanted to do since the Asura Day disaster became popular in the early years."
It took Hao to realize that 'Asura Day' was an insane natural disaster on May 29th, 2006, in part of the East Asia Plain. The devastating mudslide buried 16 villages with ten thousand residents and impacted an area of over 1,145 hectares.
After 13 years of disaster, the place had only left a pile of dead people overnight, and some news reported that it had become a ruin of corpses. A place of exile without any clarity.
The government only confirmed that the cause was a rare tectonic earthquake in the last hundred years. The evacuation went on for years, and none of the residents survived.
For some unknown reason, people called the ruins "Hutteran," because at night there was always a loud noise calling out, Hutter-aaan.
"Oh yeah, this good one. However, after 15 years working in the central headquarters with these people, you always choose me for the main topic. I do not have any ideas for that. Although, after the war investigation that made my mentality fearsome," said Hao Jing as he tightened his belt and moved following Luna.
Luna stiffened, turning her head back while pointing her hand at Hao Jing. "You! I said, This is your chance. After our magazine is published, you have to go to dinner with me! No refusal!" with a soothing tone at the end spoke. Her cheek was flushed. Her eyes tempted at Hao Jing.
"What? But I… okay, promise!" answered Hao.
…
The day after receiving the task, Hao Jing checked the equipment and supplies for the investigation. It contains a laptop, camera, recorder, raincoat, small optical binoculars, medicines, ten chocolate snack bars, and two bottles of water.
"I think it's enough, and other affairs later." As Hao Jing understands about the circumstances in there.
Inside his spacious apartment, he lived alone with serenity and peace. 38 years old without marriage is indeed bleak. Therefore, he planned to get married before the age of 40.
Hao Jing has been reading research on the ruins of Hutteran since yesterday. The newspaper that the editor gave him only contained the uproar and complaints of the residents.
Even though the area had been demarcated with a railing, the ruins were unsettling.
The data he obtained mentioned that the ruins were indeed left as a discarded area. The local government closed off access to the area without any patrol of the area.
All the people there have known it was a forbidden place for a decade. The disaster resulted in a building rising to the surface with an area of 2,500 meters in the style of pointed arches, flying buttresses, and ornamental decorations.
Hao Jing was convinced that the architecture of such a building was not the building style of Asia. The building looked more in line with the Gothic architectural style of Europeans.
Beep...beep...
His phone alarm had been on at half past five for 30 minutes, and he still had not woken up. His nasty habit was always waking up late. And no one woke him up.
Two hours later.
In heavy breath, he woke up from sleep. And looked at the clock at eight o'clock. One hour away was the departure of the plane to East Asia.
He hurriedly organized his backpack and booked a taxi to the airport. Taking a bath is optional.
…
A stone building like a storage warehouse in the distance. With a dark brown wall on the sides, Hao Jing used his binoculars at the border of the ruins to look clearly.
The thing that surprised Hao Jing was that the path to the ruins was like descending a sloping hill.
"What's going on in these ruins? There is something off. I couldn't match this kind of issue based on my database. Okay, I need to explore the ruins and interview people here later."
Hao Jing stepped down cautiously with a waist-sized log he found alongside the road as a holding stick. He had just descended ten steps, the slippery path making him fall forward on his back as a crutch.
He thereupon gently walked towards the vast ruins with bruised legs, a wounded chest, and a scratched chin.
Passing through a way like a landslide, full of piles of houses, and seems to be walking into a graveyard. Hao Jing was speechless and prepared to investigate the main area. He indeed took some photos and recorded what he saw.
The clouds darkened, the wind whipped up, and the sunlight faded to the west. Hao Jing looked at his watch and noticed that it was a quarter to six.
He kept capturing the outside of the building at every angle and headed inward.
Crack. Tap…tap… tap…
Hao Jing realized there was a peculiar sound when the sun had set. He wanted to try to enter but turned away, considering the danger he faced. There seemed to be a group of gangsters hiding behind these ruins.
He was seeking what was going on inside the building and finally found a hole the size of a palm.
Hao Jing positioned the camera directly into the hole and zoomed in on the lens. There was a group of people wearing black robes with the moon pattern on their backs.
They seemed to be lined up in front of an altar, and someone placed a sword, book, silver necklace, metal ring, and iron armor at five points in a pentagon shape.
'A pentagon?'
'God, what are they doing? Worshipping in the ruins? Making an array to summon mystical creatures?'
A voice emerged from inside, saying:
"We are the inheritors of the Hutteran teachings; tonight is the precise time for us to summon our ancestors in the supernatural realm to achieve a glorious and majestic goal. These five items in your presence belong to our ancestors. Everybody prepares to make a pentagonal array with lapis lazuli stones."
They had begun the ritual by scratching lapis lazuli onto the ground in a pentagon shape. And they lined up again, a worshiper chanting a spell:
"Oh, praise the creator of existence; Praise the angel of light; Praise the gospel of enlightenment; Praise the prophet of savior; Praise the destruction of cosmos; Praise the absolute decree. With our souls and blood as witnesses, please summon the souls of our ancestors."
As Hao Jing filmed the scene and snapped dozens of photos, a worshipper's piercing gaze caught him peeking through the hole. He was startled and dropped the camera.
Soon there was a roaring noise inside, and Hao Jing fled in search of a safe place to hide. In the distance, there was a cave not far from the central area of the ruins. Hao Jing gasped his way to the cave, and his tiresome night made him faint when he entered the cave.
When he opened his eyes reluctantly, he was sure that he had fallen asleep in the cave for a long time. His breathing was ragged, and something odd was swirling in his head.
His eyes opened, and he was standing in a circular row around the altar. He thought it was a nightmare before leaving for the investigation until someone patted him on the shoulder and said,
"Malt, focus! Learn from your sister in her first soul bones rites!"