Nightmare’s Call

A moment later, Maier leisurely got out of the taxi with his portly belly leading the way.

He looked at the beautiful smiling waitress serving the customers and quickly pulled out his mirror and comb from his pocket and gave his hair a quick comb. Only then did he walk into the café and sit opposite Lin Sheng.

“We meet again.” Maier smiled at Lin Sheng.

“Yeah. What you want to drink. My treat today.” Lin Sheng was now bloody rich, having a wealthy disciple sure was something.

“Anything.”

“Then the same as me, three shots of espresso, no sugar,” Lin Sheng ordered.

The waitress at the side hid her snigger as she took down the order and left.

Maier opened his mouth, wanting to say something but he held his tongue. He was not here to drink coffee.

“Alright, alright. Truth be told, the reason I came looking for you today was to clarify something, are you a member of the Holy Sanctum or the Ironfist Society.”

“The Holy Sanctum.” Lin Sheng answered without any hesitation. “There was no Ironfist Society, to begin with. All of us are members of the Holy Sanctum.”

“So the Ironfist Society was just a front?” Maier gasped in surprise. This was big news as internationally, the Ironfist Society was already a known organization. Especially after they fought off the Heaven’s Spire’s six-wing elite, Vanyi of the Brutal Staff, their reputation soared even higher.

So they were being monitored by almost everyone.

“It is just a front.” Lin Sheng smiled. “The Holy Sanctum is the core of our organization. But I was at Xilin back then so I had established a branch there, never thought I’d run into trouble.”

“Alright, that aside, you should know why I’m here for right?” Maier’s face turned grim.

“I know, about the Zeons right?” Lin Sheng smiled. “I’m just a branch master, and the person in charge of this is Khadula of the Thousand Arms. Why don’t you go look for him?”

“I am, but I can’t seem to locate him.” Maier wiped off his sweat, as he started to feel warm.

“Why not I help you relay the message?”

“No need, no need! Don’t disturb the Emissary. We’ll settle this small matter ourselves.” Maier’s was sweating profusely.

Khadula’s notoriety had made rounds across nations after his week-long rampage killed thousands of Redwinian soldiers. And as a simple government officer, he had to be super careful when he meet the former, or else he might just die there and then.

“The blood of the Zeons is tainted with the blood of the dark demons, and they will run rampage every now and then. Zeon Sr. has a feud with Zeon Jr., and my disciple Adolf witnessed it that time.” Lin Sheng simply explained.

“Now that Zeon Sr. has gone missing, you should be asking Zeon Jr., not me.”

“We had tried to ask but…” Maier wiped off his sweat, soaking the tissue in the process. “But there’s been a problem of late, a big problem that has us shorthanded.”

“And?”

“Well, that aside, we hope that you can help us, and we will provide the necessary recompense.” Maier quickly replied.

“Can you authorize this?” Lin Sheng raised his eyebrow.

“My father is a state councilman, and my mother is an instructor of the Special Forces stationed in Shermanton,” Maier said, sounding confident.

“Then that’ll work. So a verbal agreement?”

“A verbal agreement.”

“May our cooperation be fruitful.” Lin Sheng held his hand out, and Maier shook it.

“Now, about the situation.” Once the cooperation was agreed upon, he quickly went straight into business. “We need your help in providing support with people who can sense supernatural auras. The more the better.”

“What do you need us to do? And give me more details on your need for the sensors,” Lin Sheng responded.

“Do you know about the Black Clusters?” Maier’s expression turned grim again.

“Black Clusters?”

“Come, you’ll understand better if you see it yourself. ”

The two quickly settled the bill and left the café. There was a police vehicle already waiting outside.

The moment the two got on, the police car quickly sped along the road and came to a garbage dump about five minutes later.

All around the garbage dump were clusters of farmland and abandoned factories. The police car was parked by the right side of the dump. It was empty all over.

Maier leaped out of the car and quickly made his way into an area sealed off by yellow police tape. The fat officer pointed towards the inside of the sealed area.

“This is a Black Cluster.”

Lin Sheng followed behind and made his way to that sealed area, and peered out to look.

At first glance, he saw the pitch-black swamp-like area. On the surface, it looked no different than a glop of black mud.

“What is this?” Lin Sheng frowned, as he could sense danger from that thing.

“A Black Cluster,” Maier said calmly, but underneath his calmness was some reservation.

“No matter what you throw into it, the Black Cluster would consume it whole instantly. Look around it.”

Lin Sheng quickly observed as he was prompted. And soon his expression changed.

That glop of black mud was slowly but surely dragging everything into it. Rubbish, sand and stone, and even bugs and papers.

It was not picky as it consumed everything.

“What is this actually?” Lin Sheng’s face turned grim.

“No one in the Holy Sanctum knows about this?” Maier queried.

“Do I look like someone who had joined the sanctum long?” My master had not thought me about that yet okay?” Lin Sheng said, rather grumpily. And for his age, this excuse was impeccable.

“You have a point.” Maier squat down as he pulled a hair out from his head and threw it into the mud, and the hair instantly disappeared.

“This is a Black Cluster. Based on the Three Secret Realms, the Black Cluster is an existence that is capable of connecting to a very dangerous realm. This is just a preliminary cluster. And apparently, the Three Secret Realms themselves are suppressing the three largest Black Clusters, but whether that is true or not is up for debate.”

“Then why do we need to find those clusters? Nature will heal itself, it won’t recover from that?” Lin Sheng asked.

“It will disappear by itself.” Maier nodded. “But it will take a very long time. So what we need to do is to find them, and isolate them to avoid any civilian casualties.”

“Is this thing only happening in Xylond? I’ve never seen this in Xilin before.” Lin Sheng frowned as he kicked a rock that landed right on top of the Black Cluster.

*Fwip!*

In the blink of an eye, the fist-sized rock disappeared. It had not fallen into it and gotten consumed, it simply just disappeared.

“There are a number in Xilin as well, but you did not come across them back then. So the Holy Sanctum’s mission is to help us find all of these Black Clusters in the whole of Shermanton.

“I’ll be frank, our department has sent all our men across all states, and due to the late eruption in Shermanton, we are short of manpower,” Maier said, his tone helpless.

“Sure, but what about our recompense?” Lin Sheng was more concerned about that.

“It certainly won’t disappoint you. As for the news about Ironfist Society, we will keep it a secret for you. Once you locate a Black Cluster, just call me, give me your number by the way,” Maier said as he pulled a big silver cellphone out of his pocket…

And Lin Sheng could not help but look at his big bulky pants.