The memories hid a countless number of skills and experiences. All Lin Sheng needed to do was to absorb and digest. Under certain circumstances, these experiences would become his most valuable asset. Never mind that most of the skills and experiences in the memories were incomplete.
Out of nowhere, a spike toward Lin Sheng, startling him. But in that split second, he tilted his head, and the spike missed his face by an inch. He barely escaped injury.
“Who is it?” Lin Sheng looked in the direction from where the spike came, his eyes flashing in golden light. Deep in the dense forest, a golden shadow with only a third of the height of an ordinary human was lunging towards him.
Amid the wailing cries, he knew the golden shadow, a four-armed monkey standing upright, was the wildling he was looking for. This tall wildling looked different. The wildling wielded a bamboo tube-like white object in his hand and aimed it at Lin Sheng.
Another spike had shot out.
Lin Sheng was calm as a green crystal had appeared in front of him, accurately blocking the incoming spike. The impact produced some sparks before the spike dropped to the ground.
As Lin Sheng lunged forward, several wildlings shrieked and lurched at him, trying to attack him with their claws and bite him with their fangs. But before the wildlings could come close, the dark-energy crystals had stopped their advances. A light green light appeared on each wildling that had come into direct contact with the crystal of dark energy. This was a typical characteristic of being corrupted by the dark energy.
Under normal circumstances, the dark energy should not produce such a powerful corrupting effect. But Lin Sheng was different. Corruption was the most prominent characteristic of his dark-energy ability. He was an oddball of the corrupt school of dark energy.
The correct fighting technique of the corrupt school of dark energy was long-range combat. It used various dark-energy threads or fine powder to surround the opponent from a distance and corrupt the target.
But Lin Sheng completely departed from this style of the corrupt school of dark energy. He rushed forward. In one-meter space around him, green crystals were flashing wildly like neon lights, bouncing off the claw of every wildling that attacked him. The extremely fine powder of dark energy would penetrate the respiratory tract of the wildling, further speeding up the corruption process.
In just a few seconds, Lin Sheng stood on his feet before walking up to the tall wildling. Meanwhile, a dozen of wildlings in the surroundings, panicked and unable to flee in time, had turned dark-green. This was a typical sign of dark-energy corruption.
“It’s the first time I’ve used it in combat since I’ve tested my dark energy. I can now see how it works.” Lin Sheng reached out his hand and gently touched the transfixed wildling leader. The wildling trembled, yet dared not move a muscle. Its hand holding the cylinder still shivered, fear filling its yellow. In just ten seconds, thirty wildlings had dropped to the ground, not dead yet but close.
A wildling corrupted by the dark energy climbed to its feet. Its muscles twisted, skin covered in small pustules, arms lengthening, belly bloating, and legs thicker. The wildling turned from crawling on four to walking on two feet.
“It’s the natural result of corruption.” Lin Sheng looked at the standing wildling. The corruption of dark energy always started with the soul. Dark-energy corruption on different people looked the same. But the difference was in the details. After all, everyone’s evil soul was different. Different evil souls would have different corrupting effects. And after the corruption, the mutant monsters would become uncontrollable.
Lin Sheng counted the number of wildlings that survived the corruptive force of his dark energy. There were five of them, and they had turned into a dark-energy monster, standing upright.
“Since it’s of no use to me, I’d have to destroy them.” He had tried to communicate with these monsters but to no avail. So with the raise of his hand, he fired his deadly dark energy, hitting and penetrating the forehead of four wildlings, which dropped dead on the ground. Another mutant wildling dodged the dark-energy thread. But that was all it could do. A dozen more dark-energy threads had shot out, piercing the wildling’s body.
“Check out the surroundings. Make sure no one within two hundred meters from here.” As Lin Sheng so willed in his mind, plumes of black smoke dispersed into all directions to patrol in a 200-meter-radius circle. Another plume of black smoke materialized into a vault guard, helping Lin Sheng pile the corpses in one place.
Using blood, Lin Sheng skillfully drew a rudimentary circle of a sacrificial ritual on the ground. With his skill and mastery of the elements and the Deviltongue, he could draw an array he wanted, as long as he kept the crucial layout intact.
In less than five minutes, Lin Sheng had finished drawing a large circle of the sacrificial ritual. The vault guard had brought the materials and utensils needed for the ceremony. Before he came, he had instructed Adolf to send over ritual ingredients, making sure that he would not run out of supply.
Lin Sheng had brought along a dozen materials required for various rituals in this mission. But the ingredients for the sacrificial ritual were not adequate because he never expected to perform so many sacrificial rituals.
As everything was in place, Lin Sheng began to summon the dark spirits, one by one. It was not so much a summoning as it only involved trapping the dark spirits with fresh corpses of the wildling. And to prevent from summoning an overly powerful dark spirit, Lin Sheng had used three corpses at one time.
Soon, rays of faint red lights shone. As roars and explosion that existed only at the spiritual level broke out, the clueless yet greedy dark spirits reached out their claws from the ritual circle. They tried to grab and devour the blood in Lin Sheng’s body. But they turned into light-red crystal beads under the burning flame of holy power.
In just a few beats, Lin Sheng found a dozen new light-red crystal beads in his hand and the corpses were gone.
Letting out a smile of satisfaction, Lin Sheng tucked the crystal beads and looked at the paralyzed leader of the wildlings.
“Next … let’s try making of the shade.” An expecting smile spread across his face.
Making the shades was the main reason for the research institute’s destruction. They had violated the fundamental interests and techniques of a cult such as the Sect of Thousand Graces.
…
Time flew, and it was evening.
After a day’s fruitless investigation, Melissa was drained, dropping on a wooden chair in the mansion’s lobby and looking at her cell phone to scan the news.
Likewise, the few teammates who went to investigate the murder case were equally exhausted. They followed the police officer from that defense station and searched around. Just when they thought they had found a clue, something came up and interrupted them. Sometimes, the killer was allegedly hiding in the town, and the other time, it was holed up in the mountains.
After a tiring day, when Melissa returned, she caught the rest of the team members playing video games, drinking, and playing cards in the mansion. It looked like the murder case during the day did not affect them at all. And she was upset.
“Where is the captain?” Melissa looked at the love birds on the sofa.
“The captain hasn’t returned yet. Don’t worry, Melissa, he is also a genius from the Soul Fortress. Nothing will happen. Not that I’m lecturing you, but Melissa, you didn’t have to be so serious as to make yourself so exhausted.” The teammate laughed.
“That’s right. We have called the university and asked. As long as we send our report on time, the rest is none of our business. The only thing we need to pay attention to is to keep ourselves safe,” said another one.
“Yeah, if we do and finish everything. What the Asterism do?” Someone laughed.
