Chapter 17

Back home, Lin Sheng didn't waste time talking to his parents. After dinner, he quickly finished his homework, then took a wooden stick into his bedroom and began practicing the basic stances.

The only weapon he could find in the dream was a longsword—and it was a Cross Sword, at that. The book he'd translated was also about swordsmanship, filled with sword techniques.

He was eager to find out whether those techniques actually worked.

After practicing the stances and the first basic thrust, Lin Sheng washed up and went to bed. He slept without dreaming.

After class the next day, he hurried over again that afternoon. A few students happened to still be sparring in the large practice hall.

Excited, Lin Sheng changed into the protective gear and helmet, which were made entirely of simple woven bamboo, then picked up a wooden stick and began sparring with the students.

Everyone was a beginner anyway, so they just swung their sticks wildly at each other.

And so, over the next several days, Lin Sheng didn't enter the dream again. Instead, he went to the club every day to practice what he'd learned.

Aside from him, no one at the entire club was nearly so dedicated.

Chen Huan saw him there again and again, always practicing until evening before heading home. She was somewhat moved, and whenever she had a spare moment, she'd give him extra lessons and occasionally offer him a few pointers.

After a week of this routine,

Lin Sheng finally got another chance to enter the nightmare.

Hiss. Hiss.

Before he even opened his eyes, Lin Sheng heard the sound of a sword tip dragging along the ground nearby.

His vision slowly came into focus, and he immediately looked toward the source of the sound.

The limping Rotten Swordsman was still in the manor's hall!

It dragged its sword along as it limped, standing blankly before the wall of oil paintings on the left. The black sword growing from its hand twitched now and then, making a faint hissing sound.

Lin Sheng snapped back to his senses and immediately spotted the silver longsword lying in the corner. It was the one he'd brought out of the bedroom.

He glanced at the Rotten Swordsman. It had its back to him and hadn't noticed him.

Lin Sheng carefully shifted his feet, circling the large dining table as he made his way toward the sword by the entrance.

After a week of learning basic swordsmanship, he had a rough idea of what move had killed him last time.

It had been the simplest thrust.

The thrust was the simplest move, but also one of the easiest to learn and hardest to master.

The Naxi Swordsmanship thrust required him to stand side-on and extend his arm, lengthening the reach of the sword as much as possible. That way, he could strike his opponent while avoiding their attack.

Step by step, Lin Sheng moved slowly. Before long, he reached the longsword by the entrance.

Keeping a careful eye on the Rotten Swordsman, he bent down and lightly gripped the hilt with his right hand.

A week of practicing the basic stances and thrusts had left him itching to test himself against the monster and see if he could kill it.

It's just a cripple, and it moves so slowly. As long as I'm careful, I should be fine.

Lin Sheng calculated the distance.

The monster seemed to rely entirely on its hearing to sense what was happening around it. As long as he didn't make a sound, he should be able to sneak up behind it.

He made up his mind, took the sword, and slowly approached the Rotten Swordsman.

As the distance between them shrank, he gripped the sword with both hands and slowly raised it beside his right ear, taking the Roof Stance.

All week, he'd focused on practicing two moves: this stance followed by a downward slash, and the thrust.

Day after day, night after night, he'd imagined using the Rotten Swordsman as his practice opponent.

And now, at last, his chance had come!

In the dimly lit hall, Lin Sheng stood about three steps behind the Rotten Swordsman, holding his sword high and gritting his teeth.

"Die!"

He suddenly brought the sword down with all his strength.

Clang!

In an instant, the Rotten Swordsman spun around and swept its right arm through a dark arc, parrying Lin Sheng's downward slash with a precise upward strike.

The two metal swords collided with a ringing impact. Lin Sheng felt his wrist jolt and sting, and a violent shudder ran through the hilt, nearly wrenching the sword from his grasp.

He gritted his teeth and forced the blade down, while kicking hard at the other creature's knee.

Thud.

The Rotten Swordsman's legs were too slow to dodge. Lin Sheng's kick struck its knee dead-on, and a sharp crack rang out as the bone seemed to break.

With its legs no longer able to support it, the creature's balance wavered, and the black sword in its hand slipped.

Lin Sheng's blade slid down uncontrollably along the Black Sword's edge.

Shhk!

He didn't even realize what had happened until he felt his sword hack into something soft and yielding.

Black blood sprayed across the floor like splashed ink, staining a patch of it pitch-black.

"Ghk... ghk..."

The Rotten Swordsman staggered to the left. A gush of black blood spurted from the left side of its neck, and it collapsed to the ground.

Lin Sheng stood there dumbfounded, sword in hand, staring at the fallen monster.

In that instant, a wisp of faint black smoke rose from the Rotten Swordsman, curling like a snake as it flew toward Lin Sheng's chest.

Hiss.

The black wisp slammed into Lin Sheng's chest and vanished without a trace.

In an instant, countless fragmented, incomplete images flooded his mind.

Thump.

Lin Sheng dropped to his knees, let go of the hilt, and clutched his head.

He wanted to scream, but his convulsing body and excruciating headache left him too weak to make a sound.

Wisps of black mist kept rising from his body and drifting away.

A long while passed. He didn't know whether it had been ten minutes or half an hour.

Still on his knees, Lin Sheng slowly struggled to move his hands away from his face.

Black veins now covered the whites around his already dark pupils.

They spread evenly around his irises like a web of black threads.

"Ravel Green."

Lin Sheng rose to his feet and looked down at the Rotten Swordsman lying in front of him, his gaze complicated.

"Ravel, you once said you'd love me until the end of time. Have you forgotten all that?" A voice suddenly came from behind Lin Sheng.

A chill ran through him. He spun around.

There was nothing behind him.

"Was that an illusion?"

Lin Sheng gritted his teeth and caught his breath, then quickly picked up the longsword from the floor.

Unfortunately, a small notch had appeared in the silver blade, with fine cracks spreading around it.

"It's unusable now. It must be because it's so old. The sword's just made of ordinary material, so lasting through one fight is already pretty good."

Lin Sheng lowered the sword and turned his gaze to the black sword growing from the Rotten Swordsman's right arm.

He took a deep breath. In the instant that black wisp had rushed into his chest, he'd seen fragments of some scenes.

They were all about Ravel, the owner of this manor.

Those memories and indistinct, fragmented voices had kept echoing in his mind. Only now had they finally begun to fade.

For that one moment, it had felt as if he'd personally experienced a small part of the manor's owner Ravel's life.

Fortunately, only a few memories had entered his mind. Otherwise, he felt the shock might have driven him insane.

Bending down, Lin Sheng examined the Rotten Swordsman's corpse and made sure it wasn't moving anymore.

Only then did he raise the sword and bring it down hard on the creature's right arm.

Chop!

Even with the notch in the blade, he severed the Rotten Swordsman's right arm cleanly at the shoulder.

Lin Sheng barely felt any resistance. The creature's body had clearly rotted so badly that its bones had lost much of their strength. Otherwise, the cut wouldn't have been so easy.