Nightmare’s Call

Lin Sheng stood in place, creasing his brow slightly as he took out his mobile phone and turned on its front-facing camera, looking at himself. Soon, the dragon aura flowing in his body subsided and isolated by his dark energy and holy power. After doing this, he again examined himself carefully, making sure that there was not any anomaly before he strode toward the factory. Only after a few steps, he saw lights from the corner of his eye.

A car stopped on the road behind the abandoned factory with its headlamps on. The yellowish-orange light from the light bulbs was not particularly bright. A pair of young couples was half-leaning on the bonnet, their bodies pounding madly together as they embraced each other in hot wet kisses and caress.

“Youngsters nowadays…” Lin Sheng pulled his eyes away, shaking his head. And just as he was about to leave the place, his gut feeling told him that something was amiss and he looked at the couples again, doing a double-take. True to his suspicion, the girl seemed to struggle to push the guy away as if it was against her will.

Blinking his eyes, Lin Sheng dashed over to the car. Not that he liked to stick his nose in other’s business, nor he wanted to do good. Sometimes, there was no harm in giving people a helping hand while he was already here. Who knows his little gesture might change someone’s life.

There was another reason driving him to be a good Samaritan. Being beneficent akin to planting mushroom. Perhaps he would get to reap what he sowed someday when the mushroom grew. Being benevolent was more like sowing his seeds around. Who knows he would bump into his offsprings, who would then take care of him when he grew old someday. So doing more good was as if having more children. With more children taking care of him, he could ensure his quality of life in the old age. But then again, it also depended on the sense of gratitude of the person who received his help. Having an ungrateful child was the saddest outcome of all of this.

As Lin Sheng was fast approaching the car, his hurried footsteps seemed to have alerted the lust-crazed man. Looking up and removing his tie, the man showed off his muscular chest overgrown with blonde hair in an intimidating way. The man glared as if he wanted to scare away Lin Sheng with his eyes. But that did not work on Lin Sheng. He unhurriedly took out his mobile phone and aimed the camera lens at the two.

“Ignore me and keep on. I will just watch and not say anything.”

The man got agitated seeing the mobile phone. He came up to Lin Sheng, wanting to grab the gadget from him. But before he could do so, he saw Lin Sheng tapping on the screen and heard him saying, “Sent!”

Lin Sheng looked up and smiled at him. “I have just filmed an attempted rape.”

The man’s face sank, and he lunged forward and whisked a punch at Lin Sheng. The man was furious. Somehow, a great force yanked the man out and away, smashing him against the side of the car. The man dropped to the ground with a muffled groan, leaving behind the body contour of the man on the door.

Lin Sheng put down his leg, face still carrying the same smile. “You deserve it. But it doesn’t have to be this way.” He was helpless about it. By right, the mobile phone trick should work, just like the novels he had read before on Earth, where the protagonists used the phone trick to scare away any perpetrators. But it was not working here. So it all came down to who had the biggest fist.

The man could no longer make a response. Lin Sheng had been very restrained in whisking out his power, but he still broke half of the ribs and bones in the man. After a long treatment and recuperation process, the man might walk again, and that was the best the man could hope for.

The huge dent on the car door might look scary, but that did not tell the whole story. In fact, the man had transferred most of the force to the car when he crashed, and this transfer of force had saved his life.

Meanwhile, the woman was still lying on the bonnet despite the earlier loud crashes. Gasping for air, the woman rolled to her side and dropped to the ground, staining a large part of her bare shoulder white dress with dirt. She struggled to lift her head and look at Lin Sheng. On her fine-featured, beautiful face, her almond-shaped eyes looked drowsy as if she was semi-unconscious.

“Have you been drugged?” Lin Sheng reached his hand into the car window before he took out a handbag. He then fished out her mobile phone and tossed it to the woman. “I supposed you have no problem calling for help since you could still struggle with the man just now.”

The woman looked at the phone that slid up before her and took it. She unlocked the screen and called up her contact list. Looking at the long list of contacts, she hesitated, unsure who to call. Tears swelled in her eyes before they rolled down her cheeks.

“There is no one you can trust even in such a key moment?” Lin Sheng had guessed what was in the woman’s mind. He took his phone and dialed the emergency number 199.

Ambulance in Miga was efficient. In less than fifteen minutes, the ambulance flashing with red strobe light arrived. Along with the wounded man, the medic lifted the woman, who felt weak and lightheaded, onto a stretcher. Lin Sheng checked the woman’s handbag for her ID card and used the cash from her wallet to pay for the ambulance fee. He then examined the woman’s condition, making sure that the effect of the drug was fading. As the ambulance blared its siren and carried them away, Lin Sheng went back to the abandoned factory.

He made a few turns on the expansive factory floor, then walked straight toward a huge steel cylinder. Just as he was about slammed his face on the cylinder, the surrounding space distorted and Lin Sheng vanished.

…

In the Soul Fortress, Lin Sheng was back to his routine of studying, practicing, meditating, and dreaming. And it all repeated in a cycle.

He had explored the place that looked like the Griffin’s Morass, but he still could not find any traces of the third chapter of the Assimilation spell. Not an inch in the black mist-covered land that Lin Sheng had not searched. The only thing that he had not figured out was the huge griffin sculpture, which looked scary with only its head exposed on the earth’s surface. He did not want to look for trouble although his Rock Dragon bloodline had gained considerable strength. The blood had settled down in his veins. His body and soul were receiving the nourishment that the blood brought. As the powerful bloodline could change his physique, and a strong body would nourish his soul, Lin Sheng felt that he was growing stronger by the minute. His dark energy would also grow stronger as the strength of his soul developed.

The strength of his dark energy increased from 15,000 to 16,000 units, and this enhancement represented the improvement that a Three-winger took from the early to the stable period. By the time he woke up, he would have gained 5,000 units increase in his dark energy, which was equivalent to a Three-winged Darksider. This level of increase was insignificant to him. But the effect on the holy power was remarkable. His holy power seemed to be high on drugs as it expanded along with the dark energy. There seemed to be no limit to the increase. From Level 8 in the beginning, his holy power almost reached into the realm of Level 9 now.

Lin Sheng became worried about this explosive growth. He had only gained Level 8 a few days ago, and now he was eyeing Level 9 already. Climbing the ladder of the sanctum system was no easy task. From the Templar to the most gifted pope in history, an upgrade from Level 8 to Level 9 had taken no less than three years. A body under the nourishment of the Level 8 holy power could live well over three hundred years in theory. So three years seemed relatively short. But Lin Sheng felt like he would have another upgrade in days.