A Specific Request!

At seven in the evening, the last rays of Balai City's sunset passed through the latticed window and fell on the dusty floor of an abandoned warehouse.

Cheng Sheng sat on a broken wooden crate, shoveling down the boxed meal in his hands.

"Ding-dong-"

He took out his phone.

"...The Balai City Meteorological Bureau reminds you of the risk of a Black Tide. This Black Tide is expected to affect a wide area. All citizens are advised to prepare in advance..."

Cheng Sheng glanced at it, paid it no mind, and tossed his phone aside, then buried his head in his meal again.

He soon polished off the last grain of rice, casually tossed the disposable food container onto the floor, wiped his mouth, and stood up.

"You're not getting dinner."

Cheng Sheng walked to the middle of the warehouse and looked down at the crocodile, whose limbs and jaws were bound with thick hemp rope.

Hunger had put a little life back into the creature's vacant eyes. It watched Cheng Sheng quietly, as though looking at food.

Cheng Sheng was very pleased with that look.

What he needed was a ferocious, cruel, cunning, cold-blooded predatory beast, not a walking corpse that did nothing but wait to be fed. Only the former met the standard for a suitable sacrifice.

Cheng Sheng blindfolded the crocodile with a strip of cloth, looked at the sky outside the latticed window, and waited quietly for nightfall.

This warehouse was where he would perform his third sacrifice tonight.

It had probably been a transit warehouse for temporarily storing seafood. The air was filled with a lingering fishy stench, but at least it was cheap. After buying the crocodile, Cheng Sheng only had enough money left to rent a warehouse like this, and only for one night.

The sky beyond the latticed window gradually turned deep blue, and the warehouse grew dim.

Cheng Sheng pressed the switch. The light bulb hanging from the warehouse ceiling flickered twice before finally coming on.

That should do.

Cheng Sheng let out a slow breath and checked the warehouse door again to make sure it was locked. Then he picked up an iron hammer he had prepared long ago and began the final preparations for the sacrifice.

Carrying the hammer and several long steel nails, he walked toward the crocodile.

Cheng Sheng undid the nonslip knots binding the crocodile and freed one of its forelegs.

At breeding farms, crocodiles were generally slaughtered by slitting the backs of their necks with a knife, then thrusting a long iron rod inside and mashing their brains to pulp.

Alternatively, they were simply dispatched with a stun baton or a captive bolt gun.

These methods spared the crocodiles a great deal of pain and made them less likely to struggle, making the slaughter easier for the workers.

But Cheng Sheng's goal was to make it feel as much pain as possible, so his methods would be somewhat crueler.

If it were a person lying on the floor instead of a crocodile, I'd be a bona fide deranged serial killer...

Cheng Sheng positioned a steel nail against the crocodile's freed foreleg and raised the iron hammer high with his other hand, the self-mocking thought crossing his mind.

The blindfolded crocodile clearly had no idea what Cheng Sheng was about to do and put up little resistance. Compared with the last time he had tortured the male black goat, Cheng Sheng was also much stronger mentally.

He hardly felt nervous at all. He even had the leisure to study the crocodile beneath his hands up close and compare what he saw with the Black Killing Style fighting techniques he had been learning every day.

Besides the most basic Body Tempering, Sulai had also taught them some advanced fighting techniques during this period. They had a strong, distinctive style and were also among the secret arts passed down in the Black Killing Style...

"Whoosh!!"

[Power of the Ram]!

The transition from a relaxed, seemingly careless state to tensed muscles and a sudden burst of force took less than a second.

The black iron hammer came down like lightning, striking the steel nail dead on.

During his intensive training and arduous practice on the island in the center of the swamp, Cheng Sheng had grown a little stronger, and the force he could unleash after activating [Power of the Ram] had also increased considerably.

"Clang-! Bang!"

The thick, long steel nail pierced the foreleg in an instant and drove deep into the hard concrete floor beneath it.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!!"

Cheng Sheng quickly followed up with several more blows, driving the nail in more firmly before the crocodile being "tortured" could fully react. Then he gripped the hammer and quickly retreated to the side.

Feeling the pain of its claw being nailed down, the crocodile broke out of its dormant stillness and began struggling wildly.

Its jaws were tightly bound with rope, leaving it unable to make a sound, but its powerful body broke free of the already somewhat loose ropes in just a few movements. It tried to escape, but one claw was nailed fast, leaving it in obvious agony...

The crocodile's pain-stricken struggles made an enormous racket that echoed through the empty warehouse. It was far stronger than the male black goat from last time, even though it was only a hybrid.

"Lying dormant, then bursting into action..."

Cheng Sheng watched quietly from the side.

That was the core martial intent of Black Killing Style combat.

How could I have such a vivid understanding without seeing it with my own eyes? Who says I'm not a genius? Only through practice can one discover the truth...

As Cheng Sheng thought this, he saw the pain-crazed crocodile trying to roll over. It looked as though, in the next second, it would wrench its injured leg clean off-something that was not particularly uncommon among crocodiles.

Cheng Sheng's eyes flashed. He grabbed the hammer, darted forward, picked his moment, and brought it down hard on the crocodile's head!

"Bang!"

The heavy blow left the crocodile completely dazed, and its struggles paused for a moment.

Cheng Sheng immediately followed up with two more blows, then quickly nailed down the remaining steel nails one by one while it was still dazed.

By the time he was done, the crocodile, more than four meters long, had been nailed to the floor-limbs, tail, and all... like a giant, living specimen.

Cheng Sheng rubbed his slightly aching arms and his palms, which had been jolted painfully by the blows. While despair, terror, and pain fiercely "fermented" inside the crocodile, he quickly took out the half bucket of crocodile blood he had prepared and began drawing the array on the floor.

Thanks to Nantu's hot weather, the crocodile blood he had gotten that afternoon still had not fully coagulated.

It took Cheng Sheng less than five minutes to finish drawing the entire array.

As a sorcerer who had already entered the field, an apprentice who had mastered a forbidden art, his proficiency in his professional skills was steadily improving.

"Whew-"

Once everything was ready, Cheng Sheng let out a breath and turned off the light, plunging the warehouse into complete darkness.

There was a moon out tonight, surprisingly.

Hazy moonlight shone through the small latticed window, lending the warehouse an additional touch of mystery.

"Vo't..."

Ancient syllables spilled from Cheng Sheng's mouth. The Black Book's pages turned, and his mental power poured out like a flood...

Cheng Sheng discovered that each sacrifice consumed more mental power than the last.

Perhaps it has something to do with the quality of the sacrifice?

He did not know.

"Dark Sacrifice!"

As the final syllable was spoken, a familiar sense of ethereal stillness enveloped the entire warehouse.

Even the moonlight shining in through the window seemed to freeze.

At the center of the array, the crocodile, which had still been struggling and writhing, went motionless. The pool of blood spreading beneath it looked like congealed black mercury. After an unknown amount of time, a black vortex formed, and the enormous crocodile sank bit by bit into the ground along with it...

I guess that means it was accepted...

Cheng Sheng breathed a sigh of relief, then quickly focused again.

The Black Book said that once one had become proficient at sacrificing, and the offering was of sufficiently high quality, one could try making specific requests of "the other side."

Help me improve my Black Killing Style martial arts... help me improve my Black Killing Style martial arts...

If possible, it would be best if you threw in a trait like [Power of the Ram] too...

Cheng Sheng stared unblinkingly at the vortex gradually swallowing the crocodile sacrifice, repeating the words in his mind.