Again 3

The iron gate opened, and Lin Sheng stepped inside quickly, closing it behind him.

Clutching his Black Sword, he scanned the mansion's courtyard.

The ground was littered with scattered black, flocculent debris of unknown origin. These tufts were being rolled and skidded across the ground by the biting cold wind.

A bronze plaque hung on the wall to the right of the iron gate, covered in verdigris and mold spots.

Lin Sheng reached out and wiped the plaque, revealing the blurred patterns and text beneath.

'Sir Cayman's Mansion -- No. 6 Temple Street'

Below the text was an emblem of a large, owl-like bird with its wings spread.

A knight's mansion?

Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes, not dwelling on it further.

Withdrawing his gaze, he walked forward slowly with his sword in hand, stepping cautiously into the desolate courtyard.

Heading toward the fountain, he soon arrived at the stone tablet standing before the pool.

By the moonlight, he scanned the engraved text while remaining vigilant of his surroundings.

'No credit accepted.'

'No currency accepted.'

'No members of the Feyton family accepted.'

'If you possess something or information that interests me, perhaps I shall waive the fee.' -- Cayman Vester

This place doesn't seem like an ordinary knight's mansion. Lin Sheng began to form his own theories.

Bypassing the stone tablet, he walked straight to the mansion's main entrance.

The white door was carved with a relief of a large owl with its wings unfurled.

As Lin Sheng approached, the bird creaked, slowly folding its wings and opening its eyes. The door swung open automatically, revealing an entrance just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Startled by the sudden movement, Lin Sheng immediately assumed a defensive stance.

However, after holding his position for a long moment, nothing else happened.

Only a faint, cold breeze drifted out from the narrow gap in the door.

He squinted, touched the tip of his sword to the door, and gave it a gentle push.

The door swung open completely.

Inside was a spacious, opulent golden hall.

Hanging on the wall directly opposite the entrance was a giant oil painting of a fair-skinned, middle-aged man with curly brown hair, a small mustache, and an exquisite, medal-adorned noble doublet.

Lin Sheng looked closely by the moonlight.

The man in the painting seemed to be holding a sword, and a massive black dog crouched on the ground beside him.

The dog was so large that its crouched form reached nearly to the man's chest; it looked fierce, with thick black manes on both sides of its neck, resembling a black lion.

His heart tightened, but he had no intention of retreating.

Having absorbed so many memory fragments and meditated on the Gray Seal runes for so long, he felt a certain confidence in his current strength.

The white line displayed on the test tower earlier indicated that even in the old Black Feather City, he would be considered a Level 2 warrior.

And that was a Level 2 warrior who had inherited the Gray Seal.

In the Black Feather City system, a Level 2 was considered an elite soldier, even if his rating was likely due to the Gray Seal runes.

But that was enough.

Lin Sheng possessed memory fragments, so he knew clearly that his physical constitution was far inferior to that of a true Level 2 warrior.

In other words, the only reason he could be rated as Level 2 was most likely due to the Gray Seal runes he had meditated upon.

The Gray Seal runes granted him impressive resistance to damage. This was the source of his confidence!

Gripping his sword with both hands, Lin Sheng walked slowly into the hall.

He began to search from left to right, scouring the cabinets and hidden compartments along the walls, inch by inch.

He pulled open the dense rows of cabinets and compartments one after another, but they were all empty.

When he reached the side of the massive wall-mounted oil painting, Lin Sheng suddenly paused.

He thought he heard something.

A faint sound of footsteps was approaching.

The hall floor was not carpeted but made of hard stone slabs.

The footsteps made no attempt to be stealthy, producing a soft tap-tap sound as they struck the hard floor.

Lin Sheng turned around, gripping his Black Sword tightly, and braced himself.

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a black shadow flashing by on his right.

"Here it comes!" Lin Sheng swung his sword with both hands in an instant, slashing fiercely toward the shadow.

Clang!!

The two swords clashed.

Under the moonlight slanting in through the window, the black shadow revealed its form.

It was a masked swordsman, roughly one meter seventy in height.

What surprised Lin Sheng was that the masked swordsman was actually a woman.

She was clad in tight-fitting black leather armor, her chest prominent, her long black hair tied into a ponytail, and a mask covered everything below her eyes.

Yet, even through the form-fitting mask, one could tell she was quite attractive.

Soon, the second strike came.

Lin Sheng gripped his sword with both hands and swung it to the side, parrying the opponent's blade with a sharp clang.

Unexpectedly, the female swordsman held her sword with one hand while drawing a short blade with the other, thrusting it straight at him.

The short blade was aimed directly at Lin Sheng's lower abdomen.

He sucked in his gut, narrowly dodging the short blade while simultaneously sidestepping to avoid the follow-up horizontal sweep.

The two exchanged blows rapidly within the hall.

In less than ten breaths, Lin Sheng had been slashed twice. Both times, the short blade's sudden, tricky maneuvers left him flustered.

The masked female swordsman moved with extreme speed, at least a notch faster than Lin Sheng.

If not for the protection of the Gray Seal, those two slashes would likely have disemboweled him.

Fortunately, her swordsmanship was not particularly strong; in front of Lin Sheng, who had fused mercenary instincts with orthodox Black Sword techniques, she was still a cut below.

The two fought at high speed, their blades colliding nearly twice every second.

The massive expenditure of stamina left Lin Sheng panting, his chest heaving like a bellows.

Yet the female swordsman was like a perpetual motion machine, showing no signs of fatigue and maintaining her initial, frenzied frequency of attack.

The only thing Lin Sheng felt relieved about was that her eyes were pitch black and devoid of consciousness; she seemed to be swinging her sword purely on instinct.

Bang!

Suddenly, he kicked out, hooking a low stool from the floor and sending it flying toward her.

The stool was swatted away by the female swordsman's blade with a crash. Before she could lunge forward again, Lin Sheng pulled a wooden bookshelf over, pinning her beneath it.

With a crisp, splintering sound.

The female swordsman's figure stalled, her chest pierced by the Black Sword that had thrust through a gap in the bookshelf.

She charged forward frantically, letting the Black Sword run through her chest and out her back.

A large amount of black blood gushed from the edges of her wound, yet the female swordsman seemed completely unaware. She struggled incessantly, waving her long sword and hacking wildly at the space behind the bookshelf where Lin Sheng stood.

Unfortunately, as more blood flowed out, her movements slowed rapidly, becoming increasingly sluggish until she finally collapsed forward with a thud, her head hitting the bookshelf before rolling onto the floor.

Lin Sheng moved the Black Sword with effort, pulled it out, and stabbed the female swordsman hard once more. Only after confirming she was no longer moving did he let out a sigh of relief.

This monster—if she hadn't been so mindless, insisting on hacking at me even while pinned under the bookshelf, I would definitely have been the one to die today.

A lingering fear gripped Lin Sheng's heart.

The ego he had felt after becoming a Level 2 swordsman cooled rapidly.

If this female swordsman hadn't turned into a monster and lost her sanity, she likely could have finished him off in an instant.

Her speed was faster, her endurance was greater, and aside from her slightly weaker sword techniques, she held the advantage in every other aspect.

"Doesn't look like she's completely dead, but she definitely can't move anymore." Lin Sheng pushed the bookshelf aside and set it gently to the side.

He walked up to the female swordsman, crouched down, and quickly checked his spoils.

The long sword in the female swordsman's hand was of mediocre quality; after the collisions with the Black Sword, it had already developed several notches.

On the side of her leather armor, near her prominent chest, were three black steel needles; he didn't know what they were for.

Hanging from the side of her slender waist was a black leather pouch.

Lin Sheng took the pouch, opened it, and tipped it over. A yellowed scroll of paper rolled out.

He picked up the scroll and quickly unfolded it. The handwriting was somewhat blurred; it appeared to be a list of items.

'Blood of three adults, one standard bottle of deer blood, one standard unit of redwood, nine standard units of silver powder—Spirit Sacrifice Ritual.'