The Great Evil Spirits Assembly (4,000 words)

"We're sacrifices?"

Hu Ma's appearance and his words left the Reincarnators gathered around them silent for a moment. Questions and astonishment showed on everyone's faces. One of them was plainly bewildered.

"Some people say we're Tai Sui's lackeys. Some say we're immortals from heaven. Some say we're evil ghosts that crawled out of hell. Some say we're Tai Sui itself. And now you're saying we're sacrifices..."

"So what are we, then? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Who killed me? And who did I kill?"

"..."

His rambling made the people nearby a little uneasy. They hurriedly said, "Quit memeing."

The first man was on the verge of tears. "But I really can't make any damn sense of this! I traveled all this way just because of a message passed through the Natal Spirit Temple, and now I've had to fight people and face all this weird, ancient-monster crap..."

"My wife's waiting at home, and my son's still practicing his punches. Wouldn't I have been better off staying home? Why'd I have to come get mixed up in all this nonsense?"

"..."

Amid the confusion and faint panic, Hu Ma turned to them and said solemnly, "Those things you mentioned are all true, and yet you could say none of them are. It depends on which side you're looking from."

"According to the records of the Great Luo Dharma Sect, Tai Sui brings five calamities. They aren't five specific monsters, but five omens of disaster that appear in this world when Tai Sui descends."

"The first is evil beings overrunning the land and bringing calamity to the living."

"The second is disaster brewing in the depths of the Yin Mansion."

"The third is hell's evil ghosts seizing the cycle of reincarnation."

"The fourth is armies like blades,