Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 451: The Sword of Damocles (11)

Dragon Raja 3

No one had ever seriously questioned the logic of the myth, so no one had tried to explain why a sword would be hidden in a serpent’s tail, or who forged it, or who placed it there.

No one knew what Totsuka-no-Tsurugi truly was, but from the moment it appeared, it had been the sharpest sword in Japan. Now, it was confirmed to be real—the sharp bone at the tip of the Yamata no Orochi’s long tail!

Nothing could stop the god’s escape now. Just above it was the well’s opening, and once it broke through, it would be free. Wielding the deadly Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, it continued climbing, retracting its scales to shield itself from the missiles’ explosions. It pushed through the fiery blasts, its eight heads writhing wildly.

A chorus of ancient, mysterious chants echoed down, and a white shadow descended from the sky, dressed in the flowing robes of The Hime of Clouds and Silence.

Ruri leaped from the steel beam, falling straight toward the blade of Totsuka-no-Tsurugi. When heavy weapons and high-tech gadgets couldn’t stop this prehistoric creature, he met it with his own flesh and blood. His body was merely one-hundredth the size of the god’s, and it should have been an easy target for the god to ignore or casually slice apart with Totsuka-no-Tsurugi. But from the moment the chanting began, the eight pairs of golden eyes flickered between ferocity and fear.

Ruri dodged Totsuka-no-Tsurugi and, with a swift arc of his own blade, hewed through one of the god’s pale heads. A geyser of blood erupted as the severed head flew upward. He had decapitated one of the god’s heads!

In excruciating pain, the god released its grip from the well wall, all eight heads turning to attack Ruri. But Ruri swung his long sword, fending off the hard dragon heads. They tumbled down together, leaving splashes of blood all over the well walls. Sparks flew as the blade clashed with the god’s scales, and the god howled in rage and agony, while Ruri let out a roar even more terrifying than the god’s.

This wasn’t a typical dragon slaying—it was two monsters tearing each other apart, trying to rip and devour the other. It took only a dozen seconds to fall from the well’s top to its bottom, but those seconds of roaring and howling were unbearable. No one dared to listen, all of them covering their ears tightly.

It was impossible to listen to those sounds—they were the stuff of lifelong nightmares. It was like a banquet of two demons feasting on each other, with muscles and tendons grinding between their teeth and blood flowing freely.

Perhaps allowing Ruri to live in this world was a greater mistake than awakening the god itself.

The heavy body of the god crashed into the water, creating waves over ten meters high. Ruri hung from the well wall, his robes trailing down like a ghost hanged there years ago. Ultimately, this battle ended in Ruri’s bitter victory. The god had been severely wounded before it could reach the well’s opening, and Ruri had severed four of its heads. He had paid a heavy price as well, his body plowed as if by iron, and a massive wound tore through his abdomen. But he showed no sign of pain, merely hanging there, alone, gazing up at the sky.

It seemed like they were waiting for someone.

The engineering team poured out of the safety pods and began injecting liquid nitrogen into the water. The water temperature dropped rapidly, and a half-meter thick layer of ice formed on the surface. Although the water volume in the well was too large to freeze completely, the low temperature could reduce the biological activity of the creature, and even dragon-kind was not immune to that. Osho stepped onto the blood-red ice, stretching out his arms, silently praising the scene before him, as if transported back to Siberia years ago, when he had also gazed down at the ancient dragon beneath the ice.

They had captured the god. After so many years, he had finally obtained a living ancient dragon. At that moment, Mount Fuji trembled for the third time, and the lava swallowed all the hotels near Lake Kawaguchi.

“Damn it! The interval between eruptions is that short?” the Vice Principal roared as he took a swig of tequila.

“From the looks of it, that thing has fully awakened. Now it’s up to Ziheng to see if he can control it while it’s still weak,” Anjou said, staring at the screen displaying the flight trajectory of Chu Zihang’s helicopter. They hadn’t yet reached Red Well, but the god had already awakened ahead of time.

“What’s the status of Heaven’s Punisher?” Anjou shouted, turning his head.

“35 minutes! Heaven’s Punisher will be over Tokyo in 35 minutes! We can release Judgement in 35 minutes!” Vice Minister Carl yelled back.

“Prepare the helicopter! I’m going to Red Well!” Anjou stood up after a few seconds of silence.

“Is this the moment I inherit the position of Principal?” the Vice Principal was startled.

“Counting on Ziheng alone to pin the god down in Red Well is difficult. That well not only holds the god, but also Osho and Ruri. He may be a king, but their bloodlines are no less than his.” Anjou said calmly, “It’s better if I handle this.”

“Principal, it’s not time for you to rush off to your death yet…” Vice Minister Carl’s voice was strange. “It seems we need to focus on the second front.”

“Second front?” Anjou was taken aback.

“The Tokyo Meteorological Bureau has deployed hundreds of buoys in Tokyo Bay. These buoys are equipped with infrared cameras and GPS tracking systems to monitor tides. The tsunami knocked out 90% of the buoys, but 10% are still operational. This is footage from a few minutes ago, captured over the surface of Tokyo Bay.” Vice Minister Carl projected the image onto the big screen.

Even as a seasoned death-seeker, Anjou couldn’t help but gasp when he saw the blurry image. Snake-like creatures filled the waters, rolling within the towering waves. It was a tide of Death Servitors, numbering in the tens of thousands!

“Location! Where are they?” Anjou demanded.

“A few minutes ago, they were 34 kilometers from Tokyo. Given their speed, I’d estimate they’re only 32 kilometers away now,” Vice Minister Carl slowly turned his head. “What I mean is… those things are approaching Tokyo.”

“How many of them?” Anjou asked.

“I scanned Tokyo Bay, filtered out the noise, and got this image.” Vice Minister Carl projected the scan onto the big screen. The dark green background of Tokyo Bay’s southeast area displayed a small patch of bright green. “The bright green represents the Death Servitors.”

“I asked for a number,” Anjou said firmly.

“I can’t give an exact number. The bright green area is the result of countless dots overlapping. If I had to describe it, imagine the entire Ginza shopping district packed with people.”

“Weren’t all the Death Servitors eliminated when Takamagahara sank? Why are there still so many left?”

“We don’t know. The most likely scenario is that other cities sank along with Takamagahara, and the land masses broke apart during the process. According to ancient customs, the dead clansmen were mummified into Death Servitors to guard the city, and now, all of them have awakened,” Vice Minister Carl explained. “They’ve come to worship.”

“Worship? This isn’t Jerusalem!” Anjou retorted.

“They are drawn by instinct to the newly awakened god. In the animal kingdom, there are similar behaviors. When the god awakened, it released a large amount of pheromones that flowed into the sea through underground rivers, awakening the Death Servitors from the deep. It’s much like how ants behave. When the queen is ready to reproduce, all the fertile males in the colony gather around her. This is an instinct, completely beyond conscious control. The god instinctively draws these creatures to itself because it now desperately needs to feed. It’s a super predator,” Vice Minister Carl explained. “We can now be certain—the god has awakened!”

“They’ll have to pass through Tokyo to reach the god,” said Caesar, who, along with Chu Zihang, had been allowed to join the top-level meeting.

“We must find a way to stop them. If the Death Servitor tide passes through the downtown area, the consequences will be unimaginable,” said Chu Zihang.

“If worse comes to worst, we’ll have to deploy the Okinawa carrier battle group. But that would mean revealing the secret of the Dragon Clan to the U.S. government. Since the last incident, they’ve tightened control over their fire control systems, and we can’t break through their firewalls,” said Vice Minister Carl.

“I can’t even imagine the consequences of publicly revealing the existence of the Dragon Clan. The next G20 summit could be about how to peacefully share the legacy of the Dragons?” Anjou shook his head. “No, they would go to war over the immense power that comes with it. Far more people would die than if Tokyo were destroyed.”

“If the Death Servitors could be concentrated, I think I have a way,” said Researcher Matur in his thick Indian-accented Chinese. “Remember the refined sulfur bomb? It’s a weapon we planned to use to destroy the embryo. One of them is loaded on the Trieste, and we have another one stored here in Tokyo. If it detonates, the refined sulfur it releases could spread over a one-kilometer radius of the sea. Such an explosion might not kill the god, but it would be effective against the Death Servitors. The only issue is that we need to concentrate them into a one-kilometer circle.”

“How will you deploy that warhead?” Anjou asked.