An Unexpected Encounter

Beneath the list on the parchment was a ritual array, marked on its side with a line of Guren Script that resembled an incantation.

At the very bottom was a small line of text.

'Enni, your mental power can only enhance your strength once. Remember, restrain your greed.'

"Enni? A spirit-offering ritual?" Lin Sheng paused, staring intently at the final passage. His intuition told him that he might have stumbled upon a treasure this time!

The materials recorded above were not things he had never heard of before.

"If this ritual could also be used in reality..."

Before he could collect his thoughts, wisps of black smoke suddenly emerged from the corpse.

The black smoke condensed into a black thread and zipped straight into his chest.

Lin Sheng's mind jolted as a massive influx of fragmented memories belonging to the female swordsman churned violently within his brain.

Scenes and images flickered before his eyes.

"Enni, do you love me?"

"Enni, that's not how you hold a sword. You need to twist your wrist, like this."

"This ritual requires a living sacrifice. It can awaken the blood within you, using a certain evil power as a medium. Do not use it if you lack sufficient willpower."

Ugh.

Lin Sheng clutched his head, feeling as if his skull were about to split open.

He reached out to steady himself against the wall, desperate for a moment of rest.

Suddenly, a gust of cold wind rushed toward him.

Goosebumps erupted across Lin Sheng's skin. He rolled to the left, attempting to dodge.

But he was still too slow.

The headache had slowed his reaction time by more than a beat.

Thwack!

A massive black battle-axe hacked fiercely into his neck, cleaving half of his torso into a Y-shape.

Hrrk... hrrk...

Blood sprayed out. Everything went black before Lin Sheng's eyes. The last thing he saw was a burly, dark silhouette over two meters tall.

The shadow held the giant axe, slowly pulling it out from his body.

Lin Sheng threw off his quilt, his body ice-cold and his face deathly pale.

"Damn it, ambushing me while I was absorbing memories!" The Gray Seal rune on his body had served no purpose other than preventing him from being split in two.

The strength of that shadow was simply too immense.

"Still, I managed to record the contents of the ritual. The materials, the diagram, and the method of sacrifice from the fragmented memories."

Lin Sheng got out of bed, turned on the desk lamp, and skillfully pulled his notebook from the drawer, carefully recording every detail of the spirit-offering ritual.

What surprised him was that the process required a fixed sequence of syllables in a completely unknown language to act as an activation phrase.

It wasn't Guren Script, nor was it any other known similar language. It was merely a string of seemingly meaningless syllables, arranged at random.

In the fragmented memories, the woman named Enni had recited them countless times until she memorized them, and now, they were his for the taking.

"Human blood, deer blood, redwood, silver powder. These materials should be obtainable, though the blood of three adults is a lot. I wonder if I can buy it from a hospital?"

Lin Sheng pondered.

This was a brand-new experiment.

If the ritual knowledge obtained in his dreams could also be used in reality, the benefits to him would be immeasurable.

He had tested it before: no matter how severe the injuries in his dreams, his body remained unharmed upon returning to reality.

Likewise, no matter how he trained in his dreams, it seemed to have no effect upon waking.

Even though the muscles he had trained in his dreams were already well-developed, when he woke up and exercised those same muscles, they would still ache from lack of use.

"In other words, nothing from the dream carries over to reality.

That means the only things I can gain from it are information and knowledge. Things like the Gray Seal, or this ritual."

Lin Sheng understood clearly now.

With this in mind, he would be more targeted in his search for relevant items in the future.

He glanced at the time; it was only 4:15 AM.

Lin Sheng lay back in bed and turned off the light, intending to sleep a little longer, but after obtaining the spirit-offering ritual, he felt an itch in his heart to try it out.

This feeling made it impossible for him to drift off.

He tossed and turned until five o'clock without falling asleep. Instead, his brain grew increasingly excited.

"Forget it, I'll just get up and go for a walk!"

Lin Sheng simply got up, quickly put on his clothes, strapped the sword case to his back, and left home.

After exiting Huilian Residential District, Lin Sheng walked slowly along the street.

Large swathes of clouds drifted slowly across the sky, and ten thousand rays of golden light radiated from the east, dyeing one side of the clouds gold.

It was early in the morning, and many shops on both sides had yet to open.

Lin Sheng jogged in one breath to an overpass three kilometers away from his home before slowing his pace.

Several homeless people were sleeping under the bridge, curled up into balls and fast asleep, wrapped in filthy quilts.

Lin Sheng withdrew his gaze from the homeless men.

High-speed cars whistled past on the overpass one after another.

Lin Sheng walked down the steps by the bridge and onto the path beside the bridge tunnel.

To cross the overpass here, this path was the only way.

Coming toward him were several pretty, pure-looking girls with long hair.

The girls were in their early twenties, wearing light makeup, with long legs and slender waists, dressed in knit skirts and thick stockings, laughing and teasing each other as they walked.

Perhaps they are models, Lin Sheng thought, seeing a girl with glasses carrying a camera following behind them.

As the girls walked toward him, they noticed the black box on Lin Sheng's back and couldn't help but glance at it with a hint of curiosity.

The object didn't look like a violin case; it looked more like a case for some kind of flute-like instrument.

"Lin Sheng?"

Suddenly, a low male voice came from a height to the side.

Lin Sheng was stunned and looked up to the left.

On the edge of the overpass, standing there at some point, was a dark-skinned man with a muscular build, wearing a tight black tank top.

The man held his chin slightly high, draped a black leather jacket over his shoulders, and wore a silver cross around his neck.

Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes, his hand slid, and the black case on his back naturally slid into his grasp.

"Do you have business with me?"

The girls nearby seemed attracted by the commotion, slowing their pace and watching curiously.

"Are they filming a movie?"

"I don't know. That man's voice is so clear from so far away; does he have a megaphone?"

The man on the bridge stepped onto the railing. His robust muscles rippled and flexed like small mice.

He gently took off his jacket, revealing nearly perfect triangular back muscles. More importantly, his right hand whipped a black pistol from his waist.

The gun spun a few times in his palm before he gripped it tightly with a snap.

"Times have changed," the man said calmly. "We will eventually become a forgotten generation."

"However, before that happens, even if I am always regarded as a fool, I will still persist."

With a snap, he placed the gun on the railing.

"Let's decide this here and now!!"

He stomped his foot, leaped into the air, his figure almost blocking the sun as he jumped down from the bridge.

Lin Sheng's pupils constricted. He retreated rapidly, holding the black case horizontally, and a crisp sound erupted.

The silver blade of the sword met the man head-on like a bolt of lightning.

Clang!!

The two collided violently.

The man was wearing black metal gloves; he brought his fists together and slammed them down onto the center of Lin Sheng's blade.

The massive force of the impact hit Lin Sheng, forcing him to stumble backward.

Lin Sheng shifted his footwork to the side, rotated his body to pull the blade free, and executed a backhanded spinning slash.

The silver sword light, like a waterfall, carried a glint of reflected gold as it swept toward the man's chest.