Beneath the scroll's list was a ritual diagram, with a line of Guren Script marked along its side like an incantation.
There was another short line of text at the very bottom.
"Enni, your mental strength can enhance your power at most once. Remember, restrain your greed."
"Enni? Spirit Sacrifice Ritual?" Lin Sheng froze. He stared closely at the last passage, his instincts telling him
perhaps he was about to strike it rich this time!!
The materials recorded above weren't things he'd never heard of.
"If rituals can be used in the real world too..."
Before he could collect himself, wisps of black smoke suddenly rose from the corpse.
The smoke gathered into a black line and shot into his chest.
Lin Sheng's mind shook as a flood of Memory Fragments about the female swordswoman churned violently through his thoughts.
Scene after scene flashed 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 some kind of evil power as a medium. Don't use it unless you have enough willpower."
Ugh.
Lin Sheng clutched his head, feeling as if his skull were about to explode.
He reached out to brace himself against the wall and tried to rest.
Suddenly, a chill wind rushed at him.
Goosebumps sprang up all over Lin Sheng's body. He rolled to the left, trying to dodge.
But he was still too slow.
The headache had slowed his reaction by more than a beat.
Pfft!
A massive black battle-axe slammed into his neck, splitting half his torso into a Y shape.
Kh... kh...
Blood sprayed everywhere. Lin Sheng's vision went dark. The last thing he saw was a hulking shadow over two meters tall.
The shadow held a giant axe and was slowly pulling it back out of his body.
Lin Sheng threw off the covers and sat up in bed. His body was cold, his face pale.
"Damn it, it ambushed me while I was absorbing the memories!" The Gray Seal runes on his body had done nothing except keep him from being split in two.
That was because the shadow had been far too strong.
"But I did remember the ritual. The materials, the diagram, and the sacrificial method from the fragmentary memories..."
Lin Sheng got out of bed and turned on the desk lamp. He took his notebook from the drawer, as he often did, and carefully wrote down every detail of the Spirit Sacrifice Ritual.
What surprised him was that the ritual required a set sequence of fixed syllables, in a language he couldn't identify at all, as its activation phrase.
It wasn't Guren Script, nor was it any other known language that sounded similar. It was simply a series of seemingly meaningless syllables arranged at random.
In the fragmentary memories, the woman named Enni had repeated them countless times before finally memorizing them. Now, he had that to thank for.
"Human blood, Deer Blood, Red Cedar, silver powder. I should be able to gather all those materials. The only issue is that it requires the full blood supply of three adults. I wonder if I can get that from a hospital."
Lin Sheng pondered.
This was a completely new experiment.
If he could use the ritual knowledge he'd acquired in his dreams in the real world, it would help him immensely.
He had tested it before. No matter how severe his injuries were in a dream, his body was fine when he returned to reality.
Likewise, no matter how much he trained in a dream, it had no effect when he woke up.
Even if he'd thoroughly worked out certain muscles in his dream, they would still ache from lack of exercise when he trained them again after waking.
"In other words, nothing that happens in a dream carries over into reality.
"So the only things I can gain from it are information and knowledge. The Gray Seal, for instance, and this ritual."
Lin Sheng understood.
From now on, he would search for related things with a purpose in mind.
He glanced at the time. It was only 4:15 a.m.
Lin Sheng lay down and turned off the light, hoping to sleep a little longer, but after learning about the Spirit Sacrifice Ritual, he couldn't stop thinking about trying it.
The feeling kept him from settling down to sleep.
He tossed and turned until five, but still couldn't fall asleep. Instead, his mind grew more and more alert.
"Forget it. I'll get up and take a walk!"
Lin Sheng got up, quickly got dressed, slung the sword case over his back, and left home.
After leaving Huilian Residential District, Lin Sheng made his way slowly along the street.
Large banks of clouds drifted across the sky. Countless rays of golden light spread from the east, dyeing one side of the clouds gold.
Early in the morning, most of the shops on both sides of the road were still closed.
Lin Sheng jogged three kilometers from home to an overpass before slowing down.
Several homeless people slept beneath the bridge, curled up in filthy quilts.
Lin Sheng looked away from them.
Cars roared past overhead at high speed.
Lin Sheng walked down the steps beside the bridge and followed the path beneath it.
This was the only way to cross beneath the overpass.
A few pretty, fresh-faced young women with long hair happened to be walking toward him.
The girls looked to be in their early twenties. They wore light makeup, knit dresses, and thick tights, their long legs and slender waists on display as they walked along, laughing and teasing one another.
"Maybe they're models." Lin Sheng noticed that a bespectacled girl with a camera was following behind them.
As the girls approached, they noticed the black case on Lin Sheng's back and glanced at it curiously.
It didn't look like a guitar case. It looked more like it held some kind of long flute.
"Lin Sheng?"
A deep male voice suddenly called from somewhere high off to the side.
Lin Sheng froze and looked up to his left.
At the edge of the overpass stood a dark-skinned, muscular man in a tight black tank top. No one knew when he'd appeared there.
The man held his chin slightly raised. A black leather jacket hung over his shoulders, and a silver cross dangled over his chest.
Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes. With a shift of his hand, the black case slid naturally into his grasp.
"What do you want?"
The girls nearby seemed drawn by the commotion. They slowed down and watched with curiosity.
"Are they filming a movie?"
"I dunno. How can that guy's voice be so clear from this far away? Does he have a megaphone?"
The man on the bridge planted one foot on the railing. Muscles rippled and shifted beneath his skin like little mice.
He casually took off his jacket, revealing nearly perfect, triangular back muscles. More importantly, he swiftly drew a black pistol from his waist with his right hand.
The gun spun several times in his palm before he gripped it with a click.
"Times have changed," the man said calmly. "We're destined to become a generation that's forgotten.
"But until then, even if people keep thinking I'm a fool, I'll keep going."
With a slap, he set the gun down on the railing.
"Let's settle this once and for all!!"
He stamped down with one foot and leaped into the air, his figure nearly blotting out the sun as he jumped from the bridge.
Lin Sheng's pupils contracted. He retreated at once, swung the black case across himself, and a sharp crack rang out.
The silver blade shot straight toward the man like lightning.
Clang!!
The two collided with a tremendous impact.
At some point, the man had put on a pair of black metal gloves. He brought his fists together and slammed them down from above onto the middle of Lin Sheng's blade.
The immense force crashed into Lin Sheng, driving him backward again and again.
Lin Sheng shifted his footing, spun away from the blade, and countered with a sweeping slash.
Silver light spilled from his sword like a waterfall, catching a glint of gold as it swept toward the man's chest.
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