Nightmare's Call - Chapter 164

Chapter 164: Like: Part 1

As Lin Sheng exited the temple ruins alone, plumes of black smoke dissipated from the courtyard behind him.

He swung his backpack on and looked up at the sky. The clouds were puffs of white in acres of blue, which extended beyond the horizon. The dense woods before his eyes were saturated with a musty, moist, and herbaceous scent. The air was refreshing yet bone-chilling cold.

“Khadula should be able to buy me some time and keep Redwin from doing anything stupid.” Lin Sheng knew that stability was Redwin’s priority, and they had imposed a night curfew to conserve their resources while in conflict with Xilin. From then on, it depended on how well Khadula held up against Redwin’s Darksiders.

Lin Sheng was not sure about Khadula’s combat strength. After years of holing up in the vault, no one knew his actual condition. Even Lin Sheng managed to only kill him with tricks and the divine ax; it was not real combat.

“Let’s see how it goes.” He let out a sigh.

The blue-haired female Redwinian military officer who came in an armored vehicle the other day had made a deep impression on him. He did not want to be in a confrontation with the Redwin’s Defense Affairs Division. Otherwise, Yan Mingsha, the female military officer, who barged into the Ironfist Society, would be dead.

“Things changed too quickly and too unexpectedly.” Lin Sheng clutched his backpack tightly and bolted down the mountains. The damp forest floor felt soft as well as cold under his feet, and the pounding of his feet on the ground occasionally scared away chirping birds that sang melodious choruses on the trees.

Had he not been under the effects of the summoning ceremony, Lin Sheng would have still felt like any typical high schooler who went jungle trekking in the mountains. The stark contrast of the ordinary forest and that of mythic reality was surreal.

Once out of the woods, Lin Sheng headed straight back to the Ironfist Society on his bicycle. Since Khadula’s summoning and the others were a success, it was time to create a smokescreen. It was a wise move to use Khadula’s identity as a cover while he kept himself under the radar.

…

The clinking of a coffee mug and spoon jolted Elba out of her thoughts. The coffee in the Defense Affairs Division was bland, and it lacked any unique aroma. It was typical of on-the-shelf coffee.

“Run-of-the-mill… absolutely terrible…” Elba hissed, tidying her long blue hair and getting to her feet. “Vice Minister Stitz, have you found the Heart of the Ocean rats?” she picked up the phone on the table and asked impatiently.

The empire needed more suppressive forces to break through the stalemate. Instead of biding her time there only to guard against the bugs from the Heart of the Ocean, she would rather fight on the front line and win herself some recognition.

The person on the other end was silent for a second. “I apologize, Minister. The Heart of the Ocean has many hidden strongholds along its long coastline, especially near the shallow waters where large-scale search operations become difficult.” Stitz had his undies in a twist.

Those in the Heaven’s Spire were divided into six wings; the higher the number of wings, the higher the position and power. Elba, nicknamed the Pale Viper, was a four-winged Darksider who was powerful enough to rule an area as large as a province. But that was not the reason for Stitz’s headache. Elba was restless. She was not content just to stay at the rear of the battlefield. She wanted to prove herself in action on the front line, hence why everyone in the Defense Affairs Division was in trepidation. People were afraid of agitating Elba, who was already a grumpy bull.

“Minister, you might want to check out the things that have been happening in Anduin recently if you feel bored,” Stitz said as he recalled the information he had just received. “Several Darksiders from the spire’s Starfury Clan have landed near the shallow waters of Huaisha. Our intelligence shows that the Darksiders have entered the city, but we still can’t make out their intention.”

“The Starfury Clan?” Elba scratched her chin thoughtfully. “That’s interesting. This could be a good one to kill time. Anything else?”

Stitz cursed quietly, frustrated at serving a boss whose temperament matched her abilities. He had to sacrifice his polo session every afternoon just to keep his hard-to-please boss occupied. He would either be on official duty or grappling with Elba’s whimsical ideas, for fear that she would cause unnecessary trouble outside. Then, a thought suddenly came to his mind.

“By the way, since the situation in Huaisha has been growing more volatile, intelligence organizations have begun to train their eye on an organization called the Ironfist Society. My aide-de-camp used to work on a mission to pursue Utiya there and had a brush with the Ironfist Society. The attitude of its members was inexplicably unyielding.”

“And?” Elba’s interest was aroused. Although there were at least a couple of disturbances that occurred in the colony every day, most of them were the works of an underground organization called The Revivalists in Xilin. The members of The Revivalists were elusive and rarely in direct confrontation with the Defense Affairs Division, which no one ever wished to challenge.

“We have gone there to investigate and found that the Ironfist Society has nothing to do with The Revivalists or Heart of the Ocean. It’s an unknown group,” Stitz said as he sorted the information in his mind. “Unlike the Yinlan Chamber of Commerce, the Ironfist Society claims to have its own headquarters. They have even locked horns with an Azure Heart military officer earlier. Their political leaning is unknown…” He paused for a second with his brows knitted together. “They also master a kind of strange dark-energy cultivation technique that uses a special symbol for meditation, and they gain abilities that transcend human limitation.”

Elba cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. “How powerful are they?”

“Quite powerful… enough to make an average martial arts practitioner a Level 3 Darksider within a month. There is more to this Ironfist Society than meets the eye.” Stitz continued, “Based on the intelligence I have, my take is that the Ironfist Society has relatively complete sets of cultivation systems, where the experience and skills displayed are rather mature. It’s not something that’s been developed recently.”

“And?” Elba could not help asking.

“That means they have a much more powerful background than the one we already know. I didn’t intervene earlier because Olro stepped into the picture,” Stitz said frankly.

“You wanted to avoid a dispute?” Elba could see his concern.

As Xilin had fallen into disarray, foreign powers began to intervene, wanting a slice of the action. Redwin just happened to be the first to come to the party. However, Olro was no slouch either. It was said that Olro had quietly made a move. The biggest concern was whether the Ironfist Society had any alliance with Olro. If that were true, it would be bad news to Redwin’s front line forces.

“Of course, Minister…” Stitz nodded. “Lin Sheng, the president of the Ironfist Society, is only an ordinary high schooler. He magically moved up in the world and rose to become a Darksider. I don’t believe that he has no one teaching him anything if you ask me.”

Elba rubbed her chin impatiently.

First came the Heart of the Ocean, then The Revivalists, the Yinlan Chamber of Commerce, and now the Ironfist Society. The emergence of so many rats in this sh*thole was puzzling.