Nightmare’s Call

Back in his rented house, Lin Sheng began his sacred power cultivation to regain the exhausted portion. He repeated his meditation until it was late afternoon. He then got up and was about to get a quick bite downstairs. Just when he was out in the stairway, he bumped into Maier, who wore a pair of black overalls and claimed to have just gotten off a bus while Lin Sheng came out.

“Hi, Big Brother Lin, here we meet again!” Maier ran up to Lin Sheng, shamelessly wrapped his hand around his broad shoulder, and patted on his back. But he self-consciously stopped as his hand hurt after just a couple of pats.

“Anything?” Lin Sheng did not believe that Maier bumped into by chance. He knew Maier had been waiting for him.

“I have seen it.” Maier drew closer, letting out a mysterious smile. “Your application to the HQ is successful, right? That is efficient!”

Lin Sheng quickly came to his senses. Recalling his conversation with Maier earlier, he knew that this fella must be here to verify the news. “I have only recruited a student; he is our sole patron now. Should it be your turn now? Show your sincerity!”

“Am I not here now?” Maier smiled slyly. “Word-based advert slot in prime time in the travel channel for you. All discounts remain.”

“Deal.” Lin Sheng nodded at once.

The two walked into a restaurant. Lin Sheng immediately ordered eight dishes and five bowls of rice and also got a pair of chopsticks for Maier. “By the way, does anyone among the Darksiders need healing from a third party?” he asked quietly.

Marier picked a pair of clean chopsticks. He smiled upon hearing that. “There are, but the number is on the low side. Since the Darksiders already have amazing self-healing ability, and also due to the difference in their natures, they do not need other treatment.”

Lin Sheng nodded thoughtfully. Indeed, all the Darksiders he met possessed incredible self-healing ability, a few of which were even at a perverse level.

“Have you heard about what happened yesterday morning?” Maier’s face suddenly turned grim.

“Yesterday morning?” Lin Sheng blinked, clueless about what Maier was talking about. He had even temporarily stopped exploring his dreams for fear that his death in the dream would affect his performance during the day. He had focused all his undivided attention on the construction of the sanctum and only begun to see the fruits of his labor now. As for other matters, he had not given them much attention.

“Don’t you keep an eye on the things concerning the Heaven’s Spire since your relationship with them is less than cozy?” Maier was perplexed.

“What happened?” Lin Sheng was helpless. “I have been busy lately.”

“I got it.” Maier picked up his cup and sipped a mouthful of tea to moist his throat. “Something big has happened to the Heaven’s Spire!” His face was somber, voice low, and secretive as if a seller of porn DVDs.

“What something big?” Lin Sheng asked.

“You really don’t know?” Maier sighed.

“Just tell me!” Lin Sheng began to lose his patience.

“In fact… it is…” Maier scanned his surroundings. “This time, the Heaven’s Spire…” He suddenly sighed and shook his head.

“Speak up!” Lin Sheng banged the table. Frightened, the excess tissue on Maier’s face danced like waves of meat on a pug.

“All right, all right, I will tell you. I will tell you!” Maier wiped his sweat and smiled embarrassedly at the other patrons in the surroundings in apology. Only then, he sat upright and began to tell in a low voice, “The Heaven’s Spire suffered tremendous losses after being ambushed by the Heart of the Ocean and the Revivalists near Vursar Island in the North Sea. It was said that the Carte Blanche, the dark-energy organization of Miga, was also involved.”

“How big are the losses? How big?” Lin Sheng was surprised.

“Have the Thousand Arms from your sanctum not wreak havoc once?” Maier kept his voice low. “But what has happened this time is entirely on another scale. Of all the casualty the Heaven’s Spire suffered, three of the five Five Wingers and one Six Winger died. What is more…” he paused and took a sip of the tea. “What is more, I heard that even the Palatinates had surfaced.”

“The Palatinates?” Lin Sheng was stunned, hearing the name for the first time.

“In the Heaven’s Spire, Six Winger is the pinnacle of Darksiders. In our language, the Palatinates is at the top of the dark-energy food chain, they will not come out lightly.” Maier sighed before continued. “Now, as things involved the apex Darksiders, could not imagine that of all the hundreds of thousands of people on Vursar Island, there is not a single survivor? It is such horrifying.”

“What is the official narrative?” asked Lin Sheng after a moment of silence.

“Volcano eruption—what else would you expect? However, many normal humans know the existence of the supernatural world, it is just that it has not been widely made public,” Maier said matter-of-factly.

“How strong is the Palatinates? Have you seen them before?” Lin Sheng was eager to know but felt it too embarrassed to ask about this apex group of Darksiders.

“How could I know?” Maier said helplessly. “Are you not from Xilin? Don’t the Heart of the Ocean and the Revivalists have the Palatinates? Did you not see them before?”

“Yes but no. I have only heard of it.”

“Aren’t your house near Fort Whitehawk? You must have heard about the explosion of the ammunition depot, don’t you? That was the work of the Palatinates of the Heaven’s Spire,” Maier sneered. “If not, do you really think that the Heart of the Ocean and the Revivalists would want to go to such length to attack them? The Heaven’s Spire was the one who broke the unspoken rule. Everyone had this tacit understanding not to get the Palatinates involved until the Heaven’s Spire opened the floodgate.”

“To what extent things go before the Palatinates get involved?” Lin Sheng asked.

“How the hell I know?” Maier rolled his eyes. “At that level, they are the bosses. I am not a boss. How the heck I know what is in their mind?”

“How many Palatinates are there in the Heaven’s Spire?” Lin Sheng asked without bothering to hide his curiosity.

“Three.”

“What about the Revivalists and the Heart of the Ocean?”

“I wonder whether you are a Xilinian!” The fat dude got angry.

“The Carte Blanche is the dark-energy organization in Miga? What about that of Olro and Xylond?” Lin Sheng asked after thinking for a while.

“It’s Hellfire in Olro. Such a bumptious name. –Why are you looking at me like that? I did not give them this name.” The fat dude rolled his eyes. “In Xylond, they are called the TSSF— the Transcendent Special Strike Force. Have you not met one of them? The person who was with me. I am one of them.”

“What is the difference between the Palatinates and the normal Darksiders?” Lin Sheng asked again.

“I do have some knowledge about this because my mom used to show me, and it is common knowledge. Let me tell you some of them.” Maier was willing to butter Lin Sheng up because people at the top were interested in the sacred power system of the Ironfist Society. Who knows Lin Sheng might end up becoming his superior someday. More so because he had a similar encounter before.

“I am all ears.” Lin Sheng nodded.

The fat dude further sipped a mouthful of tea before putting down the cup and beginning to mumble, “It was said that dark energy originated from the evil side of a man’s heart,” Maier said mysteriously. “So most Darksiders possess different evil desires on a magnified scale. Legend has it that when a Darksider rises to a higher level, his dark energy will undergo a qualitative change. During the change, if the Darksider could take this opportunity to trigger a force of good in his heart, he would be able to calm his heart and transcend to become another type of existence.”

“What if he could not trigger it?” Lin Sheng asked.

Maier shrugged. “Do you know why people at the top want to keep the Six Wingers from fighting each other? Because once the Six Wingers lose control, it would become a Palatinate-category disaster.”

Lin Sheng was stunned. “That means, irrespective of whether the last step is successful nor not, there will be an explosive increase in strength. It will reach the Palatinate category as soon as qualitative change starts.”

“Bingo!” said Maier with a thumbs-up.