Nightmare’s Call

“These two places…” Lin Sheng did not think he was strong enough to be entirely fearless.

Spaces like squares were attractions for a large number of monsters. Who would believe that a place as important as Blackfearher City Hall was without high-level monsters?

“Going to these two places is a no-no.” Lin Sheng thought better of it and laid his eyes on the other three places. The letters showing the name of the three locations had faded entirely, leaving only some faint traces of ink that were completely illegible.

Standing at the city gate, Lin Sheng was hesitant. “Maybe I should first kill some rotten swordsmen in the wilderness.”

He reckoned that he still did not have enough strength. Since killing a rotten swordsman was able to yield him some residual memories, he could only kill more of them. Perhaps he could find more clues as he acquired more fighting skills from those memories.

“It’s better than running around like a headless chicken.” Once he made up his mind, Lin Sheng turned and headed outside. For now, his priority was to kill more rotten swordsmen and build up his strength.

Going out through the path he had entered from, Lin Sheng started to circumvent the city wall. He quickly bumped into a rotten swordsman behind the fence on the right of the city gate. This rotten swordsman was a lot weaker than the previous two, and Lin Sheng was able to finish it off after just a few rounds of exchange to acquire the fragmented memories. Regrettably, this person was only a city-wall guard who knew nothing but basic sword-fighting skills. Nevertheless, he was able to obtain some other information.

Lin Sheng searched on and quickly found himself face-to-face with two rotten swordsmen near the city gate. One fell while another struck back, injuring Lin Sheng’s arm before he was killed too.

“Damn it, I was too careless for him to hurt me!”

Lin Sheng had no idea whom it belonged to, but an instinctual urge came from the acquired chaotic memories. He hid in the corner of the city wall, put the corner of his nightdress in his mouth, and tried to rip it apart. The fabric was not torn as intended, slipping from his teeth instead. Lin Sheng felt a sharp pain in his gum.

“The TV shows are all full of crap!” He applied pressure on the wound, but the bleeding became worse over time. The wound was the length of his palm, and it could be fatal if he did not stop the bleeding. He had no choice but to take off his clothes. He found the nearby artery and tied his clothes around the wound. It worked; the pressure kept the bleeding under control.

Just then, Lin Sheng felt apathetic like he was about to wake up soon.

“It looks like exhaustions like injury and fatigue can shorten the duration of my stay in the dream.”

Lin Sheng had good horse sense, and quickly, an inexplicable feeling rose within him. He shut his eyes slowly as he plunged into unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in his bedroom, and the alarm clock was ringing loudly beside him. Exhaling, he turned off the alarm clock and checked the time; it was a little past six in the morning. His head felt bloated from memory overload. He did not have the time to sort things out yet. He hurriedly cleaned himself up and put on his school uniform before he rushed out of the door to catch a bus to Hui An High School.

After he absorbed the memories of the three rotten swordsmen last night—the garbage information excluded—Lin Sheng began to have a good grasp of Blackfeather City’s landscape. After all, they were guards of the city gate, and their memories would come in handy someday.

On the other hand, something was bugging Lin Sheng; many of the guards’ memories were contradictory. For instance, what to do if his sword was entangled with an enemy’s light weapon? Lin Sheng was able to find three different solutions, which were fine in themselves. It was just that they were too complicated, and two of them even contradicted each other.

The large influx of memories in his mind made him feel dizzy the whole afternoon. He wolfed down his lunch in a hurry and took a quick nap in the classroom.

The first lesson right after lunch break was Math, and his class teacher gave them a test. Lin Sheng answered all the questions, not knowing what he wrote. He did not even remember when he had submitted the question paper. Only God knew how he would fare in the test. He just knew that he finished the test paper by pure intuition.

It was not until eight o’clock at night that Lin Sheng began to recover from his daze.

The first thing that Lin Sheng wanted to do was find the location of the little temple in his dream. There were two purposes for his continuous hunt of the rotten swordsmen to piece Blackfeather City’s map together.

One, to find the little temple and see if he could get his hands on anything about superhumans.

Two, find La Chapelle and see if he could get any personal protective gear.

“According to Ravel’s memories, La Chapelle and the Valent Sanctum should be right within Blackfeather City.” Lin Sheng began to sort out the nodes of the routes to these two places.

“Using landmarks as nodes is the best way to get out of trouble when you lose your way. If the memories are correct, there’s a clock tower here, here, here, and here respectively.” Lin Sheng used a notebook to jot down how many turns he had to make, and quickly, he made out a clear route to the two different places.

“All done! Next, to sort out the miscellaneous information.” With the memories of multiple people coming at him simultaneously, he had to compile them together as soon as possible, lest things get mixed up over time.

On a new page of the notebook, Lin Sheng jotted down the following: martial arts, landscape, and supernatural.

“These three things are all that I care about. The rest is irrelevant.” He had established his priorities. Soon, he found something useful from the memories of the city gate guards.

“Limit Breaker?

“The method to break through the Level 2 limit into the supernatural Level 3?” It was a surprising find upon sorting out the memories.

The guards may have been low-ranking soldiers and possessed low combat strength, but their knowledge, as well as experience, were unmatched. They had a fantastic network of grapevines and learned tons of gossip without having to look for them consciously.

In a place like the city gate, rumors and gossip flew as people traversed in and out of the city. It became the center of information. Whenever the government had a public message to spread, this place would be the first place where notices were put up. The guards were responsible for checking every merchant who passed through the city gate and chasing away the beggars as well as the homeless. They were the first to be alerted when something significant happened in the city.

Eder, the city gate guard from whom Lin Sheng found out about the Limit Breaker, was different. He was the one who injured Lin Sheng before he died. He was a soldier who had retired after serving in the war. When he was still healthy, he had the potential to undergo warrior-level training.

It was the proudest moment of his life, and that was why he kept recalling it in his mind. Eventually, it became a handy way for Lin Sheng to learn things about Level 1 warriors.

Level 1 warriors learn and master only a single type of weapon. They are skilled in attack as well as defense, and only require fighting in the battlefield a few times. So, it merely takes a year to mass-produce a batch of these soldiers.

Level 2 warriors are veteran soldiers. They are wandering swordsmen who possess sword-fighting skills handed down from their families. Those who are the best of the best in their fields and have trained themselves close their human limitations can qualify as Level 2 warriors.

Level 3 warriors are those who have transcended their human limitations. They are superhuman killing machines. This is a realm that no one can achieve through training.  

That was all Lin Sheng had compiled. However, it was so much more comprehensive when compared with the fragmented information he previously got.

The more important thing was that he had heard a name in the memories: Austen Reine, Level 12 shieldbearer, the lieutenant general of Blackfeather City Army Corps.

“When Level 3 already sounds like a superhuman, it’s hard to imagine how a Level 12 warrior looks like!”