Nightmare's Call

An intense light blinded Lin Sheng’s vision, and he exited the resonating memories.

“The last time I had such resonating memories was when I was summoning Sacred Shield Tyrant. But this time it comes as a shocker.” He refreshed in his mind what he had seen: the incessant search of the Night Lord in Blackfeather City, and Sharleena’s lack of hesitation in risking her life in the sea of flowers. But their endings were meaningless. Their meeting was not just two people crossing paths at the wrong time.

“So none of the commanders I have summoned has a good ending? Every single one of them ended up a sad story?” Lin Sheng took a deep breath. He could not help but feel a wave of anger rise within him. He knew what it was like living in a disastrous era when the end of the world was nigh. Everything that began beautifully would end in a disaster.

After he left his thoughts, Lin Sheng looked up ahead. In the dark dimension in his field of vision, he saw a man wearing a golden-edged black armor was floating in the air. The man’s hair was golden, the lower part of his face hiding behind a mask, and his eyes as lovely as the amethyst.

“Time to inscribe the memories.” Lin Sheng’s initial plan was to continue inserting the memories of the Night Lord. But when he saw the changes in the latter part, he hesitated. It was not in the Night Lord’s nature to develop into a warrior. He preferred a peaceful life. If summoned, Lin Sheng was afraid that the Night Lord would simply turn out to be a lame duck. “Never mind. Since you don’t want combat, I will do it myself.” Lin Sheng so decided and opened his eyes.

A black figure stood quietly in the Sanctum’s aisle of Shadow. With no personalized memories, Dyze Palminton was only a passive summoned creature. Lin Sheng first prepped his consciousness before he entered Dyze’s body. But as soon as his consciousness was in the Dyze’s body, dizziness struck. Fatigue began to spread from the body into his consciousness.

“Is it because the soul can’t deal with the body?” A thought then came to mind. In most cases where one tried to control a summoned creature, the symptoms of dizziness and fatigue likely occurred when a weaker soul sought to command a much stronger summoned creature.

“No way! That’s like only three breaths!” Lin Sheng approximated the time of the body possession. His soul only lasted three breaths before the self-protection mechanism pulled his consciousness back to his body.

Most of the summoned creatures as recorded in the grimoire were of Level 8, and the rest of the record simply mentioned increasing the number. But Lin Sheng was like no other. He had summoned as many creatures of double-digit level as anyone could think of. The Night Lord might not be a councillor, but he was the strongest being in Blackfeather City by far. As many memory fragments as Lin Sheng had gained, he could not even stay longer than three breaths in the summoned creature. He opened his eyes and turn the Night Lord into a plume of black smoke and let it attach to his clothes.

“By right, my split soul forms the core of this body. I wonder why I couldn’t control the guy?” Lin Sheng found the experience perplexing. “And one more thing. With my strength way below that of the Night Lord and the summoning circle just enough for entry-level summoning rituals, how the hell did I summon such a badass thing? What happened to the law of conservation of energy? From where did such a humongous aggregation of energy come? Did it come through the portals?”

Lin Sheng had now more questions than answers. He felt that the source of energy of these summoned commanders must have something to do with the black dots in the surroundings. The same black dots that happened in Blackfeather City may hide a secret of unimaginable magnitude.

“I should just copy the basic combat memories into him.” With not much else he could do, and while the effect of the magic circle had not subsided, Lin Sheng touched the Night Lord with his consciousness. In that instant, combat memories began to rush into the mind of the Night Lord.

Lin Sheng had figured out it. He knew the most common killer move of the Night Lord. As he stood in the sanctum, he extended his hand in a grabbing gesture. Immediately, a strand of transparent line popped up out of nowhere in his palm.

“The Shadow-Dragon Whisker, an organ of the Night Lord that existed since his birth, could attack by cutting any things that generate a murderous intention in the surroundings. The Shadow-Dragon Whisker developed as the Night Lord grew. Under normal circumstances, it can handle any beings three levels below the Night Lord.” Lin Sheng knew this when he gained the soul fragment of the Night Lord. And the Shadow-Dragon Whisker was only one of his inborn passive abilities.

“After summoning the Night Lord, no room was left in the soul. So the cleric will have to wait until another time.” Lin Sheng found a problem when he tucked the Shadow-Dragon Whisker. A passive ability like the Shadow-dragon Whisker only appeared when Lin Sheng’s soul possessed the Night Lord. When leaving the Night Lord alone, he did not display any ability as if the Night Lord required a soul to power those abilities.

“That means I can control the abilities of this fella. He is an invincible warlock with no combat capability. And his existence is possible only because of his powerful soul and bloodline. I lost control of him earlier because I pretty much exhausted half of my energy to activate his passive abilities.”

After the summoning ceremony, Lin Sheng turned off the light and came out from the Holy Sanctum. He stood on the meadow outside, gazing up the starry night sky. The summoning ceremony and the attempt to control the Night Lord had drained the strength of his soul. By the time he stopped, he almost could not support himself on his feet. As sleepiness struck, his consciousness began to lose focus, and the muscles of his entire body plunged into a state of relaxation. But this did not worry Lin Sheng. He knew that it was safe here.

A plume of black smoke rushed out of nowhere and formed into Khadula behind him. She held Lin Sheng up to sit down before she lowered him to the ground.

Further behind, teenage girl Khadula emerged. She knelt on the ground and let Lin Sheng rest his head on her thighs. On the left and right, two more teenage Khadulas appeared and started to give Lin Sheng a massage. By now, Lin Sheng had fallen into slumber.

On the pasture under the glittering night sky, Khadula massaged Lin Sheng’s forehead. Her movements were soft and silent. “I am becoming more and more useless...” she mumbled. “But at least I can act cute so that Master can relax.”

Khadula had not been the strongest for a long time. Whether she was protected by Dark Igor or imprisoned in the vault, she always accepted what came to her. She had never thought of fighting for anything, but now she had a sudden urge to defend everything she had.

“I need to use my strength from now on.” Her eyes widened as if she had thought of something.