Nightmare's Call

The thicket of vegetation had erased all traces of human civilization away from the city, leaving only houses and streets covered in green.

The city itself had a massive oval shape to it, and while disjointed at certain parts, the general oval outline could still be seen.

Lin Sheng and Kasumi stood on the plains afar as they looked at the silent, ruined city for a good while.

They had rushed over the moment they got off the place using GPS. They assumed that there would be roadblocks and checkpoints due to the lockdown, and gaining entrance would involve a lot of paperwork, but now...

“Where are those elites from Asterism and the Moon Basin?” Lin Sheng was puzzled as he squatted down and grabbed a hand full of mud.

The mud was brown and dry like powder, and moss actually grew on a dry mud like these alongside all sorts of vegetation.

Lin Sheng pressed gently, and the mud slab crumbled. He then looked at Kasumi.

“Found anything?”

“Nothing.” Her response was immediate. “I’m a Palatinate, not an Omnipotent. Aside from cleaving someone in half, I don’t know anything else.”

Lin Sheng was speechless. That was the downside when he had to deal with the lack of memory fragments. If this was the Kasumi with her complete soul and memories, she would not be so lost.

She was, after all, an ancient monster that had lived for god knows how long all by her own strength.

“What are you planning to do here?” That was the first time Kasumi proactively asked a question. She was Lin Sheng, but Lin Sheng was not her.

As the main body, Lin Sheng could read her mind, but she could not.

“To see how strong you are,” Lin Sheng flatly said. “If you were to unleash everything, can you take own this entire town?”

“If it is just a simple town, easy. One move is all I need, but it is not normal here,” Kasumi said.

“You cannot do it?”

“I don’t know if I can or not. I won’t know how strong or weak my opponent is before I fight them,” Kasumi explained.

“Alright. Let’s head in to check the place out.” Lin Sheng dared not act rashly too because he wanted to avoid inviting bigger problems.

Be it the Sevenlocks Tower or the three hidden realms, they were all lined up with Palatinates.

With that, Kasumi led the way as she walked into the ruined city, with Lin Sheng following closely behind.

The two of them wore gray-white tracksuits, which looked almost like a couple’s outfit.

While advancing, Lin Sheng pulled out his phone and sent a message back to the university to get a high-level official like Cainphas to liaise with Asterism and the Moon Basin to ensure the safety of their men here.

Not too long later, he received a return call.

“There’s a situation. We are unable to reach the lockdown team!” Cainphas’ voice sounded grim.

“What do you mean? Not a single person at all?” Lin Sheng was dumbfounded. He had checked the data before coming over here. There were at least thousands of troops garrisoned here.

There should have been at least a whimper with that many people, right?

“None of them can be reached! All of the phones, network connections are not returning the signal!” Cainphas said. “I suspect something may have already happened there.”

“Regardless, I need a detailed copy of the town’s files.” Lin Sheng had just arrived, and he knew nothing about the place, so having a historical file would definitely help.

“That’s simple enough. I can get it with my authorization level. Wait up, I’ll send them over.”

As the matter was serious, Cainphas did not dally and quickly logged into the network with his ID, and then sent all of the data Lin Sheng required over.

“...It started about three days back when we noticed something was off,” Cainphas said in a serious tone. “The phone lines were dead, and none of the elites we sent over responded.

“After a while, the phones came back alive, but when we called there was no sound there, only static from the phone.”

Lin Sheng then looked at Kasumi. Was this not great? The bigger the problem they ran into, the better Kasumi’s strength could be proven.

“That aside, why are you asking for the town’s files?” Cainphas asked, slightly confused.

“Nothing, just for the sake of it,” Lin Sheng said.

“That question itself had helped the Moon Basin quite a bit. If not for your request leading me to approach them, they would not have noticed that the lockdown team had run into trouble.”

Cainphas sighed.

“Well, that’s that I guess. Proceed with your tasks.” Lin Sheng cut the call.

The phone signal had gotten significantly weaker when he got this area. It was just a simple cloud of mist, but the mobile signal had dropped from a full bar to one and was about to be totally cut off.

“Something’s not right!” Kasumi suddenly held her hand up to stop Lin Sheng as the two stood where they stand.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Sheng immediately connected with Kasumi’s mind.

While he had verbalized it, he already knew what Kasumi was thinking.

Someone was approaching!

The location they were at now was at least a hundred meters away from the city’s building clusters. All around them were thick shrubs and vegetation, and through the gaps, one could see some abandoned public facilities, like benches, fountains, and statues.

“This seems like a park? An outdoor park? There’s human activity at this time?” Lin Sheng quickly looked around and got a grip on things.

He then looked at the phone’s signal before shutting it off.

In fact, if the phone remained on, it would continuously send out signals to triangulate one’s location, and that would happen every set moment. If he did not take notice, this could result in him being discovered, so precautions were needed.

After turning off the phone, they stood quietly in the mist as they looked at the blurry town buildings before them.

“There’s really someone there?” Lin Sheng asked in his heart.

“Yes, look up. To the right, the window of the second floor.”

Lin Sheng then looked up in the direction she mentioned.

It was an overpass corridor between two blocks. One of the windows of the corridor was without its glass panel and was fluttering in the wind.

The wooden window frame creaked with the motion and the large about of shrubbery made it difficult to listen to any other sounds.

Lin Sheng did not see anything at first, but the moment he focused, he noticed what was wrong. Behind the wooden window frame was a blurry white figure. The figure seemed to be looking in his direction, with the thick fog blanketed the area, he could not tell if it was a man or a woman. But even with the distance, Lin Sheng could feel the chill from the latter’s gaze.

“What sort of power does the person have?” he asked.

Kasumi shook her head.

“I don’t know. My scouting ability is hopeless. I could only tell that the person has evil intentions.”

“Should we go in and have a look?” Lin Sheng was different now, and with Kasumi in the lead, he did not mind taking the initiative.

With the Blacktide roiling, he had to be proactive in looking for clues and secrets, such opportunities would few and far between by the time the situation worsens.

As he recalled the ruins in the dream, Lin Sheng understood more than anyone else what the Blacktide was.