One by one, the monsters were disintegrated as they were reduced into countless of light particles.

Black lines surged toward Lin Sheng like a spider web and into his chest.

Lin Sheng’s expression stayed the same, as he deftly moved within the charging horde, and his every move seems very rudimentary. Yet, when chained into a combo, it was a highly accurate and efficient series of attacks, powerful yet not wasteful.

Just as Lin Sheng was slaughtering the surge of monsters, about a thousand meters away, above a river-spanning bridge, a thin, lanky man stood upon it with a gray jacket and a round hat. A cigarette was lit in his mouth as he looked at Lin Sheng in the distance.

“Interesting, a little bug could actually harm the Shades.” The man opened his mouth, revealing a row of black, sharp fangs.

“Do we kill him?” Beside him was a muscular lady with dark skin and white hair, not unlike a panther. She had a green tattoo on the side of her face, seemingly a symbol.

“I’m curious, what did that guy use to kill the Shades?”

“Then, let’s capture him to investigate. He’s not a Four-winged Oppressor. There won’t be much trouble if we take him. What are you afraid of? the dark-skinned lady said impatiently.

The man in the jacket smiled without a word.

After demurring for a moment, he spoke again.

“Seems like a student with some rather interesting secrets. Forget it, kill him. Don’t let him affect our plans.”

“One minute.” The lady stomped her feet as she crossed her fingers and stretched, letting out a crisp crack.

“Stamping out the problem.”

She took big strides toward Lin Sheng.

…

As strands upon strands of black lines entering his mind, even as weathered as Lin Sheng was at this, he still at times could not withstand the impact of the information torrent.

This impact was just too great.

While every black line was just a shred of memories, but it could slowly stack up onto a veritable tide.

In the short span of ten minutes, he had already killed about a hundred of the monsters and absorbed a considerable number of souls.

“I’ll take back what I’ve said.” Lin Sheng stared coldly at the endless horde of monsters.

“These kinds of trash mobs are not that bad if they come in these numbers.”

Lin Sheng steadied his foot, as he straightened his hand into a blade. He then dashed out and charged into the oncoming horde.

The gruesome cacophony of blades sinking into flesh rang out as the new wave of monsters were all taken out in less than two minutes.

Each and every one of the monsters turned into light particles as strands of black lines entered his chest.

Without him noticing, the souls that he expended during the purification meditation earlier had already been replenished, with extras to boot.

*Bam!*

The last portly elder monster’s neck was snapped by Lin Sheng’s fist. It fell to the ground and dissipated into light particles.

Lin Sheng shook his arm and went on his way.

Further ahead was a crossroad, and a right turn later, it was the entrance to the Soul Fortress. A deserted two-story building.

He had just taken a few steps forward before he stopped and looked ahead.

“There…”

Lin Sheng frowned as he quickly retracted the holy power on his body and took the appearance of a commoner as he slowly headed to the Soul Fortress and disappearing into the night.

About a hundred meters ahead of Lin Sheng, a panther-like dark-skinned woman slowly made her way out of the alley and looked at the direction Lin Sheng went.

“Count yourself lucky, kid.”

She snorted as she turned in another direction. There was a coldness in her eyes as she retreated back to the direction she had come from.

Barely half a minute after the two left, two powerful men with green dark power aura all over them suddenly appeared at the area where Lin Sheng had just massacred the monsters.

“The energy surge earlier…someone fought here,” one of the men said.

“That aside, the weird fluctuations we detected last time… there’s a lot of them. They were weak, but once their numbers increased, their traces became obvious as well,” the other man said.

“Let’s report this upwards.”

“Yeah.”

…

The life in the Soul Fortress was even more fruitful than Lin Sheng had expected.

Going to class every day, training the control of his dark powers, going into the dream to hunt the black hawks, then going out at times to relax, to go online, to eat some nice good. If he was lucky he would run into those monsters.

Running into them was probably when Lin Sheng felt the best.

As there were not many opportunities to absorb so many souls in the real world. A rare opportunity indeed…

And a week passed by.

Finally, there were new changes to Lin Sheng’s dream.

*Crack.*

Lin Sheng stretched his hands out to break the protruding branch and tossed it aside. Ahead of him was a massive gray cliff face, which filled his entire field of vision.

There were all sorts of dark holes on the cliff face, and the giant hawks would fly in and out of the holes.

The sky was gray as if meshing together with the gray cliff face. Just by a glance alone, he could not tell one from another.

“Finally something new. Aside from killing the hawks and absorbing their soul, there was literally nothing else.”

Lin Sheng was also relieved. A week’s time was long enough, and he was worried that the dream would end automatically, just like the Fay Vault earlier.

So finding the other two secret techniques was now of prime importance.

But even as he tried to increase the speed of his search, it took him a week to even find this unique place.

“Hopefully this won’t disappoint me.”

Lin Sheng looked at the dozens of hawks flying above as he approached the cliff face.

Oddly enough, the closer he got to the cliff, the black hawks in the air had disappeared without him knowing.

Lin Sheng slowed down his pace as he went into full alert, before taking one step after another in his approach.

The hawk’s nest on the cliff face were like dark, sinister eyes that stared at him as he got close.

And got close he did, to the sturdy gray stone wall.

“Hmmm?”

Only after getting close did he noticed a hidden Z shaped path within the cliff hall.

As the path was of the same shade, with stone wall piling up high, plus its tiny entrance made it hard to detect at first glance.

Lin Sheng recomposed himself, as he entered the path.

Upon entering it, it was nothing but tall, sky-scraping walls. There was nary a piece of green on the wall, it was barren of any life.

Lin Sheng slowly made his way along the pathway, and after some distance, he finally reached a turn.

He slowed down and looked up. At the exit of the path, a grayish-black sculpture the size of two-story buildings blocked the path.

It was a black hawk’s head, a very large head.

The base of the sculpture seemed to be made out of gemstones similar to dark green diamonds. It was clear and very strong with some nondescript patterns around it.

The head of the black hawks Lin Sheng had killed was no different from that sculpture. They were identical, aside from the size difference. As even if all of the hawks were to be added together, they were nowhere close to the size of the sculpture.