Chapter 12: Unlocking the True Name

[You may now manifest this Shell in the real world!]

Lin Xun stared at this line of text, the shock in his heart lingering for a long time.

This text-based game had effects in the real world. He could manifest items from the game.

Up until now, the only changes he’d noticed in real life were due to his Thousand Faces, Ten Thousand Forms soul talent: the ability to see compatibility with dead creatures’ Shells, and some physical enhancements from leveling the talent.

But now the game was suddenly telling him he could manifest those twisted, mutated Shells into reality?

It felt like having a conservative girlfriend who insisted on turning off the lights every time in bed, suddenly saying she wanted to try out SM, ice play, or even the infamous Dragon Drill.

A bit too much to take in all at once…

“Should I try manifesting a Shell?”

Though it was a lot to process, Lin Xun couldn’t resist the temptation, purely driven by curiosity, of course. No other reason.

“Let’s just give it a shot.”

He was just about to try it when his eyes fell on his cramped rented apartment and he quickly stopped.

“If this goes wrong and damages something… I’ve still got a 3,000 yuan security deposit with the landlord.”

He packed up a few things and left the apartment.

—

Outskirts of Wen City.

A gray concrete building loomed in the distance. Its shell completed, but long since abandoned. No busy construction crews, no signs of life. Just silence and desolation. Clearly a failed development project.

Lin Xun made his way swiftly to the rooftop, but thinking it might be too conspicuous, he stepped back down one floor.

“This spot’s perfect. Plenty of room to stretch out.”

At his feet was a thick layer of dust, with scattered bricks and rubble. Gray concrete pillars stood firmly around the space.

[You have manifested the Shell: Paladin of Discipline from the Blood Sun Church.]

A searing pain surged through his entire body, as if a red-hot sledgehammer were forging his bones, muscles, and organs. Lin Xun clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

His vision was tinted with a strange crimson hue. Muscles began to swell and knot. His bones cracked and reshaped.

His short-sleeved shirt and jeans were gradually replaced by dark silver metal plate armor. His field of vision rose in height, narrowed, and then locked into a horizontal slit, he was now seeing through the heavy, visored helmet of a knight.

A breeze swept across the rooftop, and the crimson cape mounted to his armored shoulders fluttered sharply.

In the blink of an eye, he had become a towering two-meter-tall medieval heavy-armored knight!

Gripping a golden, spear-like lance as thick as an egg, electricity crackled faintly along its shaft. Lin Xun felt his entire body brimming with terrifying strength.

His gaze locked onto a nearby concrete pillar thick enough to require two people to embrace it.

Lin Xun stepped forward, metal armor grinding with heavy clanks. He planted his foot, twisted his waist, raised the nearly two-meter-long broken Dragonhunter Lance, and…

A blast of air howled.

BOOM!!!

Sparks flared. Stones flew. Dust billowed.

When the debris settled, the thick concrete pillar had been shattered like tofu, reduced to a pile of rubble.

“So this is the terrifying power of a Shell?”

He looked down at the metal-armored hands covering his arms, overwhelmed by awe.

A puddle glistened under the midday sun near the edge of the rooftop.

Lin Xun approached it and curiously removed his heavy knight helmet.

A distorted, grotesque face, pulsing with fleshy growths, stared back from the water’s surface. Crimson light gleamed eerily in its eyes.

“Sh*t!”

The horrific face startled Lin Xun so badly that he immediately dismissed the manifested Shell.

In an instant, the two-meter knight vanished, replaced by a handsome young man in a T-shirt and jeans, standing at 1.8 meters tall.

“If I filmed a horror movie with that face, I’d clear out the entire theater…”

Deciding he’d never remove the helmet again, Lin Xun grumbled to himself.

After some time, once his emotions had settled, Lin Xun prepared to head downstairs.

Plap… plap…

Rhythmic footsteps echoed in the silent stairwell.

Someone was coming?

Lin Xun instinctively hid behind one of the concrete pillars.

A man in a baseball cap and sunglasses slowly ascended the stairs, followed by another man wearing a clown mask.

The clown held a pistol, its black muzzle pointed squarely at the back of the sunglasses man’s head.

“Nightingale… no, I should call you Agent Zero. Never thought you’d be the mole the Council planted in the organization. Heh, this place has a nice view. Fitting spot for your grave.”

A raspy voice came from behind the clown mask.

Agent Zero sneered. “If you’re gonna kill me, get on with it. Spare me the monologue.”

The clown jabbed the gun against his head. “I’ll give you one last chance. Tell me everything you know about the Council’s plans against the organization, and maybe I’ll let you live.”

“Sure. I’ll tell you. The Council’s latest plan is… to go to your house and f

* your mother!” Agent Zero raised a middle finger behind his back.

“Trying to piss me off so you can die quickly? Heh. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you beg for death first.”

BANG!

The clown pulled the trigger, shooting Zero in the knee.

Blood sprayed. Zero collapsed to the ground, cold sweat pouring from his forehead. He clenched his teeth so hard he nearly bit through his lip to avoid crying out.

“Who’s there?! Come out!” The clown suddenly turned and pointed his gun at a nearby concrete pillar.

“No? Still hiding?”

He fired again—this time into Zero’s other knee, crippling him.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he pulled out a grenade and prepared to lob it toward the pillar…

CLANG! CLANG!

From behind the pillar, a towering armored knight stepped forward. Each step made the cement crack beneath his weight.

Dark silver plate armor encased his entire body, with a corrupted Blood Sun emblazoned across his chest. He held a golden lance nearly two meters long, even in its broken state, and a crimson cape billowed behind him in the wind.

“An Apostle?!”

The clown’s scream of disbelief was followed by instant panic. He turned and tried to flee.

The Paladin’s crimson eyes glowed fiercely. The Dragonhunter Lance in his hands sparked with golden lightning.

He lowered his head, leaned forward, and with a powerful push of his back foot, lunged.

From the joints of his armor, scarlet energy gushed forth in twisted streams.

That energy coiled around him like ribbons of blood…

Blood Charge!

RUMBLE…

The concrete pillars between them were obliterated like brittle clay, unable to stop the knight’s charge.

To the clown, the charging figure wasn’t a man, it was a metal beast.

No, a full-on war machine.

Then everything went black.

Bones shattered. Flesh splattered.

The clown’s corpse was ripped apart, fragments plastered to the concrete wall in a grotesque display of red and white, like a gruesome abstract painting.

With a metallic clang, the towering knight turned. Bloodied chunks of flesh clung to his armor. His crimson gaze locked onto the pale-faced Agent Zero, who lay limp on the floor…