Nightmare's Call

“Get-Get out of here... quickly!” Carney patted Adolf’s arm with difficulty, his eyes bleak.

The wall beside the three of them suddenly exploded, and Zeon Sr. emerged from the blast hole with a hideous smile on his dark, muscular face.

“I am sorry, but anyone who sees me in this form must die.” Just when Zeon Sr. raised his hand and was about to harm them, a shadow lunged out from the left and rammed into him. It was Zeon Jr. whose fluorescent purple eyes glowed even brighter, and his body had grown one size bigger than before.

“I will kill you!” The momentum sent Zeon Sr. flying together with Zeon Jr. through the wall and off the second floor. The two brutally fought in the air, their punches and kicks sounded as if heavy hammer striking on a giant drum.

“Go! Now!” Carney, half-dead, roared with his remaining strength.

Adolf quickly came to his senses and just when he was about to carry his father running down the stairs, a thought suddenly came to mind. He reached his shivering hand into the jacket pocket and fished out a white stone, which the Blackfeather swordsman gave him earlier, and which he could break it apart to gain help from the temple in the time of danger. Adolf wanted to crush the stone in his hand, but he was too nervous. The stone then slipped through his shivering hand and dropped to the ground before it rolled down rapidly in the other direction.

“No!” Adolf carried Carney and gave chase. At last, he managed to retrieve the stone again. This time, he decisively crushed the stone, which was only as hard as an eggshell, with one hand. And after it broke apart, stone powder began to fall off onto the floor and slowly dissipated in the wind.

“What are you doing here? Get out quickly!” His elder sister hurriedly urged.

“No, we cannot go!” Adolf suddenly calmed down after crushing the stone. He looked at his elder sister. “We can’t possibly outrun Zeon Sr. with father on my back. We will surely be dead if we do that. What is more urgent is to treat Father’s wound first. So let us head down to the basement!”

“Are you crazy? We can call the police when we get out!” Sheena looked at his young brother, face filled with horror.

“It won’t matter. Do you think the cops could stop Zeon Sr.?” Adolf retorted. “Follow me!” That said, he carried Carney and flew toward the stairway.

“Adolf!” Sheena called out aloud from behind.

“Trust me! Someone will come for us! Trust me!” Adolf said aloud without looking back. His only hope now was that the power behind the Blackfeather swordsman could make it here on time, as they had made a promise to protect him.

...

A thick blanket of white mist surrounded Lin Sheng as he quietly stood in front of a summoning circle in a three-story building in the forest outside the city. A faint white light lit up in the summoning circle as if someone was shining on a torchlight at it. He was in the critical moment of summoning his soldiers, which was his third summoning today. In the previous two rounds, he had mustered eight vault guards, which was all the vault guards he had. After that, he saw no light sphere that belonged to the vault guards in his mind’s vision anymore. So Lin Sheng decided to call up the Blackfeather swordsmen instead.

The Blackfeather swordsman formed the largest group of his summoned creatures. Bearing in mind that when he was in Blackfeather City, he had killed no less than a hundred of them. There was no way he could use all of them in such a short time.

In contrast, the vault guards had suffered a high casualty in Xilin. What was more was that not all vault guards that he killed possessed soul remnant, and this had significantly reduced the number of vault guards Lin Sheng could summon. Only creatures with soul remnants were capable of being summoned, and this had been one of the iron laws that Lin Sheng discovered in the summoning ceremony. He had tried to summon the Sacred Shield Tyrant before, but unfortunately, the dead Sacred Shield Tyrant was no longer summonable.

Lin Sheng stood with his eyes closed as two Blackfeather swordsmen rapidly materialized out of black smoke. They carried a long sword on their back, head wrapped in a white bandage, and their sturdy, tall body stood still like a statue.

“The price-to-performance ratio of these two is pathetic...” Lin Sheng sighed as he opened his eyes, glancing at the Blackfeather swordsmen. So he willed them away. There was still enough room in his soul for another ceremony, he thought, and this time, he wanted to summon the red-armor, hatchet-wielding warriors that he had killed in the warrior union.

Before long, amid a series of soft chanting of initiation words, a blanket of white mist emerged and shrouded Lin Sheng in it. Unknown to him, however, was the white stone that vibrated and glowed in white light in his bag.

A moment later, two red-armor warriors appeared, kneeling on one knee before Lin Sheng. They were fully covered in armor with a pair of hatchets hanging from their waist. A pair of red eyes could be seen behind the visor of their helmets. Standing a little taller than the Blackfeather swordsmen, their bodies were more well-proportioned than that of the vault guards.

Lin Sheng opened his eyes. By running some calculation of his soul linkages in his mind, he deduced that he had forces of ten vault guards, three Blackfeather swordsmen and two red-armor warriors with Khadula and the Steel Lord as the commanders.

“It still lacks midrange forces, barely making a whole army. But I will make do with that for now.” Lin Sheng ended the ceremony and began to clean up the scene. With the resources and money of Adolf, he could conduct as many ceremonies as he wanted. As long as there was enough room in his soul, he could rapidly expand the size of the Ironfist Society.

Rolling up the plastic sheet of the summoning ceremony and dusting the dirt and any ingredient residue, Lin Sheng suddenly sighed. He had been using the same ritual sheet since a long time ago. From Xilin until here, it never broke despite the frequent usage. The only large hole in the middle was his purposeful creation, just to accommodate the bonfire last time.

“There is no more room in the soul. With so many soldiers here, I can reserve a part of them to protect my family and myself and send out the rest into the field to prop up the reputation of the Ironfist Society.” These soldiers were intelligent although not as independent as the Steel Lord and Khadula. If he could let them be, they might be able to carry out some simple mission, as long as he set a proper limit in advance. Lin Sheng picked up his bag, unzipped it, and shoved the circle sheet into it. Only then, he saw the white stone, which was vibrating and emitting a white glow.

“This...” He suddenly recalled it; this stone was initially one of the two stones, which he had bestowed it upon Adolf. He had only begun to develop this application after discovering that the soul was the essence of sacred power. Bit by bit, he infused a stone with sacred power before breaking it in half and gifting one of them to another person. If any of the two stones broke apart and sacred power disappeared, the other stone holder would immediately know it. Lin Sheng was transfixed. However, he quickly came to his senses and lunged to his feet.

“Khadula,” he called out in a low voice. Plumes of black smoke appeared and rapidly formed the figure of a human before him. “Go and bring Adolf here.”

The black-smoke humanoid dispersed and accelerated toward the city. Following immediately, another dozen plumes of smoke appeared from the building and coalesced into a black cloud of smoke before it suddenly broke up again and disappeared in the direction of where Adolf was.