Beginning 2

Chased for two hundred meters straight by the Rotten Swordsman, Lin Sheng was both surprised by how much stamina he had and shaken by his opponent's ferocity.

At the same time, he gained even more respect for the mercenaries' combat instincts.

"I'm lucky to have acquired this special instinct, something that can only be honed between life and death. This trip has really helped me uncover what this ability can do."

Lin Sheng stood still and rested for a while. He felt that in the dream, his stamina recovered faster than it did in reality.

He had been completely exhausted just a short while ago, but after only a dozen minutes, he had recovered.

With a sharp hiss, he plunged the Black Sword into the earth. Then he crouched and scooped up a handful of the black soil.

The black dirt was cold and hard, mixed with plenty of black, grass-root-like fibers and scattered bits of black stone.

Lin Sheng gently squeezed it. The soil was fairly loose. Then he held it beneath his nose and sniffed.

A stench of rotting flesh hit him.

He casually tossed the dirt away, stood up, dusted off his hands, and pulled out his sword.

"Going by the memories of those soldiers guarding the city, let's see if I can figure out who this guy is."

A few names from those memories flashed through his mind. His expression turned solemn.

"Let's give it a try. Since he stopped here and isn't chasing me, the most likely answer is that he's one of those people."

Holding the Black Sword, Lin Sheng slowly walked forward and took a step.

He had just passed the pillar bearing Black Eagle's triangular flag.

Pitter-patter-patter.

A rapid series of footsteps suddenly sounded from the mist ahead.

Lin Sheng's pupils narrowed. He pointed the Black Sword's tip forward and down toward the ground. His whole body tensed, ready to exert himself at any moment.

This stance was called the Center Iron Gate. It looked like an attacking posture, but in fact, it was the most commonly used defensive stance among the basic forms.

Very soon—less than three breaths later—

A black figure came charging out of the mist, running at full speed. The Black Sword in his hand pointed diagonally to the right, and his steps were like those of a raging bull.

There was no time to think of a response. From the moment Lin Sheng saw his opponent appear to the moment the blade came down, only one breath had passed.

Lin Sheng quickly raised his sword and swung with all his strength.

Clang!

The two swords collided in an instant.

Under the moonlight, Lin Sheng's move caught the Rotten Swordsman's Black Sword and knocked it upward.

But he didn't falter at all. He used the momentum to spin his body a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and his Black Sword came slashing in again.

Lin Sheng felt weak all over and hurriedly stepped back.

With a hiss, the Rotten Swordsman's Black Sword swept past just a centimeter in front of him. It came down hard from above and plunged into the black earth.

Carried by its momentum, the sharp black blade sank almost a third of the way into the ground.

"Now!!" Lin Sheng's eyes lit up. He lunged forward, mustered all his strength, and thrust his Black Sword.

The Rotten Swordsman tried to pull out his weapon, but the blade was buried too deeply. He couldn't free it quickly enough.

Having lost the initiative, he had no time to react. With a wet thud, Lin Sheng impaled him straight through.

Thud!

The long black blade pierced straight into his chest, through his heart, and slammed against the sword guard amid a spray of black blood.

More than half of the blade protruded from the Rotten Swordsman's back, black blood dripping steadily from it.

"What a haul!" Lin Sheng had used the loose black earth to outwit him. Now that he'd relaxed, joy welled up inside him. It was only because this monster was brainless. A normal person wouldn't have fallen for it.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been happy for long before a sharp pain burst through his abdomen.

Lin Sheng stumbled, let go of the hilt, and took two steps back. He lowered his head and looked at his stomach.

Somehow, a short dagger had appeared there. Its hilt curved like a snake.

The dagger was buried deep in his abdomen. Along with the pain came a faint numbness.

With memories from several soldiers, Lin Sheng immediately recognized the sensation: some kind of poison was spreading through him.

"Fuck. I let my guard down."

He endured the pain, copied what he'd seen in TV dramas, grabbed the dagger, and yanked it out hard.

Pfft!

Blood sprayed over his hand and splattered across a large patch of ground, clearly visible in the wet dirt.

"Fuck, I'm bleeding even more now!! I'm going to die!!"

Lin Sheng felt as if there were a hole in his stomach, with air gushing out nonstop.

"It's not just a feeling. There really is a hole in me!"

He pressed a hand to his stomach and dropped to the ground.

A meter in front of him, the Rotten Swordsman's body lay slumped over, motionless. He was clearly dead.

Strands of black smoke slowly rose from his body, gathered into a thin line, and silently flew toward Lin Sheng.

With a hiss, the black line slipped precisely into the center of Lin Sheng's chest.

"Thank goodness. At least I didn't lose out." Lin Sheng immediately felt a familiar headache coming on.

A flood of memory images poured into his mind. With the pain in his head added to the agony in his stomach, he felt like crying.

"Forget it. I'm definitely not making it out of this one alive."

Without hesitation, he snatched up the dagger he'd pulled out and stabbed himself hard in the throat.

A suffocating pain quickly spread through his entire body.

Lin Sheng's vision went black and rapidly dimmed. Then everything blurred, and he lost consciousness completely.

He suddenly opened his eyes. Everything in front of him was pitch-black, and he could barely breathe. The blanket had covered his whole body.

Whoa!

He flung off the blanket and took deep, desperate breaths.

In the middle of the night, he had been buried under the blanket, barely able to breathe. It wasn't cold outside, yet he wasn't sweating at all. Instead, he felt frighteningly cold.

"I thought the mercenaries' way of treating wounds was too outdated and that they should use more advanced modern medicine. I never expected... Damn it, I'm never watching TV dramas again!"

Whenever Lin Sheng remembered the gruesome sight of pulling out the dagger, he got furious.

No matter how he treated that kind of injury, he would have died for sure. But at least he might have lasted a little longer, right?

He sat on the bed, panting, and rested for a while.

Lin Sheng casually picked up the alarm clock from beside the bed and checked it.

Four sixteen.

"It's still early. I can get some more sleep."

But to his surprise, after dying this time, he didn't seem as mentally drained as before.

"Hm? I don't feel like my mental state has been affected?" Lin Sheng wondered and carefully assessed himself.

He quickly got out of bed and switched on the desk lamp.

"The best way to test your mental state is to do some problems!"

Without another word, he pulled out a math workbook, opened it, and picked a calculation problem at random.

In a few quick strokes, he solved it at about his usual speed.

"No change. Looks like I really wasn't affected."

Lin Sheng refused to believe it and quickly solved several more problems.

The results were the same as before. Both the time it took and the process were smooth, without the slightest delay.

"Wait, I feel like it's been a long time since I last died."

Lin Sheng suddenly realized something.

"Could it be that you can gradually get used to death?"

He had a feeling there was some kind of pattern to it.

"Or could it be connected to those black lines I absorbed?"

He kept the thought in mind for now, turned off the light, and climbed back into bed.

As long as it didn't affect his mental state, that was for the best. With the college entrance exams coming up, having his condition affected would be a real hassle.

Now that he no longer had to worry about mental exhaustion, Lin Sheng began recalling the memories he had just absorbed.

That guy, who was completely different from the other Rotten Swordsmen, should be able to give him something different.