Nightmare’s Call

“Sacred Shield Tyrant?” Lin Sheng buried his head in his hands as he started to recall the vast volume of memories that he had just acquired. A myriad of chanting, sacred scriptures, and hypnotizing training processes began to flash across his mind.

“Damn it! This thing is a war machine through and through!” Lin Sheng stumbled backward, feeling his head was swelling and going to explode. The white-armor figure in the memories was lack of any personality. All he remembered was the time spent in a chamber as a priest hypnotized and brainwashed him by repeatedly chanting words from the scripture. He had long lost his personality and thinking ability. All he knew was to fight, fight, and fight.

If not for Lin Sheng’s strong mental resistance developed after acquiring a large number of fragmented memories earlier, and also the fact that it required a part of the brain to be removed for the training to work, the hypnotizing scriptures would have too brainwashed him into another madman loyal to the temple. He quickly realized that the danger of absorbing the fragmented memories.

Still standing on the rooftop, Lin Sheng scanned the surroundings and quickly found a similar black door opposite the one behind him. He ran toward it quickly and pushed it open. Once inside, the noise from the roaring wind reduced significantly.

Again, a metal staircase was behind the black door. In the spiraling corridor down below, there were broken pieces of a brown wooden shield, a cracked broadsword, and a skeleton still wearing a silver chain mail lying on the floor.

“It looks like an explorer.” Lin Sheng shut the door behind him and climbed down the stairs. He picked up the wooden shield and broadsword. After thinking for a moment, he decided to take down the chain mail from the skeleton and wore it. But it appeared a little loose on him.

“Well, I think I will have to make do with it.” Lin Sheng let out a sigh and casually swung the broadsword, which felt about 15 kg in his hands. The blade of the one-meter-two, double-edged sword, which had some black stuff residue on it, was only as thick as the nail of the index finger. “It was a little heavy. But it should be just nice with Sacred Blood activated.”

As Lin Sheng carried the broadsword and padded down the corridor, he sensed that he was getting nearer and nearer to the warmth of the proverbs. He kept his guard up as the memory of the horrible encounter with Sacred Shield Tyrant earlier still haunted him. Had he not taken advantage of the terrain and the fact that his opponent was brainless, he would have been dead and forced to wake up. So, he did not want more trouble.

Before the thought went away, Lin Sheng saw a skinny figure wearing a gray robe leaning under the cross-framed window up ahead. The person sat there with his head lowered in his hoodie, so Lin Sheng could not see his face. The only thing that stood out was the pupil pattern on the robe in front of his face.

“Yet another pattern…” Lin Sheng’s heart missed a beat, and he stopped involuntarily. The hypnotizer who chanted words from the scripture in the memories of Sacred Shield Tyrant was also in this very same attire. The priests who had the mystical power belonged to the powerful class in the temple.

Lin Sheng was only stopping slight, but the priest up ahead had noticed him. He lifted his dry and dark hand, pointing at Lin Sheng; a spinning fume that suddenly appeared in the air surged at Lin Sheng like a smoke column.

Swelling with thunders and gleaming in a red light that looked like lava, the smoke column almost filled the entire corridor. Lin Sheng knew that he had no way to run but raised the wooden shield in the air. The black smoke hit the wooden shield, and a loud boom ensued. The wooden shield looked just like any other regular shield, but the impact did not shatter it. The force only left behind a deep scar on its surface. Lin Sheng was sent flying backward as if a small car had hit him.

“Sacred Blood!” Lin Sheng roared, spun around in midair, and ground the broadsword on the wall to resist the backward momentum. After falling back for over five meters, he finally crashed into the wall behind him. His shoes and the broadsword was billowing in smoke as a result of the high heat generated from the enormous frictions. Even the air was filled with the burnt smell of his sports shoes. His muscles enlarged, and a hideous purple pattern appeared on his forehead. He raised the shield again, and the memories of Sacred Shield Tyrant instantly came to mind.

“Charge!” He stumped forward and sped up his movement by transferring the strength of all his muscles to his feet.

“Shield Bash!” Lin Sheng lifted the shield, keeping his body behind the shield as he channeled a violent power to his left shoulder. In an instant, he rammed into the gray-robe priest with his left shoulder backing the wooden shield.

A ring of black smoke appeared on the priest’s body and deflected Lin Sheng’s Shield Bash head-on.

“Lunging Thrust!” Lin Sheng roared and suddenly thrust his broadsword out from behind the shield.

“Kill!” Indescribable anger and hatred from the memories instantly took over Lin Sheng’s thoughts, and unprecedented power of terror burst out of him. Holding the broadsword in the posture of Sacred Shield Tyrant, the terrifying power shredded the black smoke with the broadsword going through the chest of the priest into the wall behind before it finally stopped.

Lin Sheng roared like a beast looking at the priest pinned to the wall with his sword. The emotions of Sacred Shield Tyrant in his memories violently exploded like waves hitting the rocks.

The priest struggled for a while on the wall before he lost his strength. The black smoke that he could barely summon in his hands dissipated, and he died. Black blood began to flow down the wall and formed a pool of blood in the corner.

Li Sheng dropped to his knees as Sacred Blood left him, leaving him in a state of extreme exhaustion. Just then, a large amount of black smoke rose from the priest’s body and formed a black thread, which was the largest ever one that Lin Sheng had ever seen—it was as thick as an arm. Drenched in sweat, he looked up and saw the python-like black thread surged at him with an inexplicable roar and hideousness and disappeared into his chest along with a large number of images, voices, and instincts flooding into his mind.

“I will not let you down, Ancellia!” An inexplicable voice rang in Lin Sheng’s ears. It was as if he was going to see hallucinations; a light appeared before his eyes, and below the light was a red-haired woman of athletic build, wearing a dark-gold armor and a pure white cloak on her back, standing on the ground fill od blood-red petals.

“Will we succeed?” Lin Sheng felt he was speaking, but the voice was recognizably not his. It sounded hoarse and low.

“We must move forward. The sacred power is guiding me with the light in my heart. This is the only hope—the only answer.” The woman answered calmly and resolutely. The vision began to blur and dissolve into countless light dots. Lin Sheng kept his eyes wide open, and the dead gray-robe priest began to reappear before his eyes while the voices in his ears faded away.

“Damn it! The amount of the memories of this guy is so damn large.” The information of the priest almost overloaded Lin Sheng’s mind.