In the dim light, a faint moonbeam slipped through the storeroom's only window.
Lin Sheng stood alone in the darkness. The strange syllables flowed naturally from his mouth, like a special song in some unknown language.
The activation phrase had to be chanted over and over. The standard ritual called for nine repetitions.
Lin Sheng finished the first repetition and noticed nothing unusual, so he began the second.
Then the third, and the fourth.
He had practiced alone before, and nothing unusual had happened.
But now, standing before the circular formation and watching the three clumps of dark red matter slowly solidify, he felt waves of hazy drowsiness wash over him.
His consciousness seemed to grow muddled.
His mind slipped into a half-awake state, while his gaze remained fixed, as the ritual required, on the empty space in the center of the formation.
But the empty space on the once-flat plastic sheet began to slowly twist and spin.
It was like some thick red grease being stirred, clear lines emerging as it swirled.
A basin-sized vortex formed in the center of the plastic sheet.
He suspected he was hallucinating, but the ritual was already halfway done. He couldn't stop now.
Lin Sheng continued chanting the strange, mysterious activation phrase.
Amid the eerie melody of the syllables, the vortex in the center of the formation gradually stabilized.
With effort, he raised the bowl in his hands and poured all the prepared mixture of three ingredients into the vortex.
Plop.
A large mass of viscous slurry seemed to drop into water. It sank into the center of the formation and vanished in an instant.
Hss.
Suddenly, a vague, ethereal sound drifted out of the vortex.
Lin Sheng watched helplessly as a blurry human face slowly emerged on its surface.
As if veiled