Nightmare’s Call

A black mist rose from the body of the decaying swordsman. Like a strand of thread, it flew and permeated Lin Sheng’s chest before he knew it. By the time he realized what had happened, chaotic images began to flood his mind as if someone was stuffing things into an already full suitcase. He felt like his head was about to explode, and he sweated profusely.

After three breaths, Lin Sheng managed to suppress his headache and scan his surroundings. To his horror, three more rotten swordsmen had appeared around him and were coming toward him.

“Goddamn it!” He turned around and quickly ran. While he turned around, he cast his eyes on the lamppost, on which were three arrows showing directions to different locations: Blackfeather City, Ravel’s manor, and Black Morass.

The most useful thing Lin Sheng obtained after he acquired the fragmented memories was the ability to understand the language. At least, he no longer ran around like a headless chicken like when he first came.

Lin Sheng ran straight into the darkness in the direction of Blackfeather City. He had probably alerted many dangers in his surroundings, but he could not care less. His focus was to receive the full memories in his mind first.

After running and gasping a dozen times and feeling physically exhausted, the memory infusion was finally completed.

“Mercenary? Women? Wine? Gambling?” Lin Sheng briefly browsed through the images in his new memories. But to his disappointment, there was almost no memory about fighting, only bits and pieces of daily living.

The memories seemed to belong to a wandering mercenary, who would work for whoever offered the highest price and spend all his money on gambling as well as women if not drinking.

The information was garbage. It appeared that Lin Sheng had put too high a hope in it in the first place.

“Not everyone is a good man like Ravel…”

However, as a consolation, he did gain some muscle memory of basic tricks and training methods.

“At least there’s something.”

After a while of running and hearing no more sound behind him, Lin Sheng slowly stopped. He now found himself standing in the darkness in the middle of a street suffused with thin fog. For a moment, he was even unsure whether he was on solid ground.

There were broken wooden fences on either side of the road, and in some spots, indiscernible pieces of tattered clothing were hung on the fences.

Lin Sheng clenched his black sword and continued to go forward while he sorted out the mercenary’s memories in his mind. Most of the memories were useless, but upon digging deeper, he still managed to find something informative.

“A sudden occurrence of cold wind and dense fog, and everyone was infected with some unknown disease?” Lin Sheng knitted his brows together. He quickly found a familiar name: La Chapelle.

“Hmm, it looks like a blacksmith shop that’s ranked third in Blackfeather City.”

Lin Sheng quickly looked for the direction to La Chapelle but could not find it in the mercenary’s fragmented memories. So, he continued to move ahead down the street for a few minutes before a large hole-ridden grayish-white structure appeared in front of him.

“It looks like a city gate!” Lin Sheng was hesitant for a while. “This must be the Blackfeather City that Ravel mentioned.”

Looking ahead, he was about to continue his journey, but Lin Sheng suddenly felt his heart palpitate.

“Time’s up. That’s okay. At least, I’ll have time to digest the mercenary’s memories.”

As he stood still on the spot, looking at the large and dark city ahead, his mind suddenly blacked out, and he lost consciousness.

Lin Sheng slowly woke up and sat on his bed. He felt a little hapless when he found that his underclothes were drenched in sweat.

“Another piece of clothing to wash!” In an era without fully automatic washing machines, he had to use a bit of elbow grease.

Getting out of bed, he fumbled into the washroom with the help of the faint moonlight. After he cleaned himself up with warm water in the thermal flask and changed into a set of clean clothes, he returned to his room and lay back down in bed.

His alarm clock, which was in the shape of a black pig with large ears, on the bedside table showed three forty in the morning. Lin Sheng still had enough time to work on the memories.

“Let me see… There should be something useful.”

He lay in bed and began to recall the mercenary’s fragmented memories.

The sky outside started to get brighter as time went by. Lin Sheng had fallen asleep—again. In a trance, he seemed to hear his parents in the washroom. His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly awoke from his sleep. He may have regained consciousness, but his mind was still thinking of the fragmented memories.

“Ahh, it’s Sunday! I can sleep a little longer!” Lin Sheng suddenly realized what day it was. But since he had woken up, there was no way he could fall back to sleep again.

Still lying on the bed, Lin Sheng began to carefully study the mercenary’s memories while he listened to the noises in the hallway and corridor. Finally, a very minute detail caught his attention.

“In Blackfeather City, mercenaries usually received their assignments through the Blackfeather Trade Union, which was located between the Valent Sanctum and the tax department. The Valent Sanctum?”

Lin Sheng got out of bed and sat in front of his desk. Pulling the drawer open, he took out his notebook and jotted down the name.

The Valent Sanctum.

Written in Chinese, the characters looked particularly eye-catching on the white notebook. He shut his eyes, and Ravel’s memories of the place began to surface in his mind. Combined with the mercenary’s memories, Lin Sheng began to piece the information together.

“The Valent Sanctum—a place where warriors are trained and sacred runes are passed down? Sacred runes?”

It was all that Lin Sheng managed to piece together after cross-referencing the memories belonging to Ravel and the mercenary.

“The sacred runes…” A weird expression appeared on Lin Sheng’s face.

“Perhaps I could go there and try my luck. Who knows, I may find some articles and books that possess supernatural powers. I’m sure there’s something about the sacred runes!”

Up to that point, all the fragmented memories Lin Sheng had gotten were of pure physics and had nothing to do with the supernatural. But if the small temple could lead him to the supernatural realm, he was willing to take the risk. He had dreamt of this in his past life as well as the current one.

Once he made up his mind, Lin Sheng put on his shirt, placed the notebook back in the drawer, and went into the kitchen. He found some big buns on a plate and a glass of preheated milk. His parents had gone to work.

Pulling out a chair from under the table and sitting down, Lin Sheng began to eat. After he gobbled up three large meat buns and gulped down the entire glass of milk, he changed into his workout outfit and headed out the door.

There was no need to go to Steelscale Club that day since he had just given a class the day before. So, he hopped on a public transport heading toward Rainbow Park, which was not far from home.

Rainbow Park was one of the only three parks in Huaisha. Close to the sea with a great view of the beach and coconut trees, the park was a hotspot for wedding photography.

However, Lin Sheng did not go there for fun but to collect his money. Armed with the memories of his past life, making some pocket money was literally a walk in the park for him.