Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 16: Journey to the End of the World (16)

Dragon Raja 4

Sasha and Chu Zihang exchanged confused looks. Chu Zihang slipped behind the door, while Sasha took off his shirt and put on a robe and opened the door. Sure enough, there was Vincent’s angry old face outside. The enigmatic old man now seemed so agitated that he looked like he was about to jump out of his wheelchair.

“So late at night, is there something I can do for you, Mr. Vincent?” Sasha said lazily. “Sorry I can’t invite you in for a drink—there’s a lady in the room.”

Chu Zihang tightened his grip on his knife. There was indeed a lady in Sasha’s room, but she was already in a coffin. If Vincent was here to test Sasha, now would be the time to make his move.

“A helicopter is about to land! A helicopter is about to land, but the ship’s communication system is down!” Vincent shouted.

“A helicopter?” Sasha was stunned.

The Yamal indeed had a helipad, but they were currently far from land. A helicopter’s range couldn’t cover the entire Arctic Ocean.

“Tell your men to turn on the signal lights on the helipad! No! Turn on all the lights! And fix that damned radio while you’re at it!” Vincent spun his wheelchair around, ready to leave.

“Mr. Vincent, you rented this ship. You are its master, and I will follow your orders. But I must remind you that this is a legal cruise ship. Any guests boarding must have a ticket and present identification. Otherwise, we’re just aiding illegal stowaways,” Sasha called out to his retreating figure.

Without turning back, Vincent left. Through the crack in the door, Hervor glanced at Sasha and threw a stack of passports and tickets onto the floor. Sasha went outside to pick them up, recalling that there were indeed a few first-class ticket holders who hadn’t boarded. It now seemed this was their planned boarding point. The only way the helicopter could reach here was if another ship had been trailing them, following at a distance where it couldn’t enter the thick ice zones, but could still launch a heavy-lift helicopter capable of crossing the sea. The pilot was clearly in contact with Vincent alone.

Sasha leafed through the passports, paying little attention to the names on them. Paper documents like these were too easy to forge. For those with connections, even real passports could be obtained.

He signaled to the end of the hallway, and Orev, the chief engineer whom Vincent had summoned, emerged with a loaded handgun. Without a word, Orev followed Vincent.

Sasha and Chu Zihang returned to the cabin, waiting quietly. Moments later, the positioning lights at the four corners of the helicopter pad lit up. Their powerful beams cut through the clear arctic night, visible from miles away like pillars of fire rising from the black sea. The entire ship illuminated as if it were a brightly lit pleasure boat preparing to welcome its most distinguished guests. Vincent had shut down the ship’s surveillance system, but Orev secretly brought a camera, transmitting the footage to Sasha’s laptop.

Following Vincent’s orders, Orev and the sailors signaled the sky repeatedly with flashlights. Suddenly, waves rose on the sea, and the massive ice floes rocked with the swells, like an endless sheet of white silk. Only when the ice floes collided with the Yamal did the booming sound reveal their solid nature.

Vincent, dressed in priest-like black robes, waited in the bitter wind. Hervor and Orlune stood on a higher deck, watching the helipad like hawks.

In the distance, lights finally flickered on the horizon, followed by the deep hum of an approaching helicopter. It had likely been circling for some time, unable to pinpoint the Yamal due to the lack of communication response. As the helicopter drew near, Sasha wondered what kind of VIP it carried. Vincent signaled for Orev and the sailors to clear the helipad. At the same time, White Wolf and his companions armed themselves and secured the front and rear decks, ensuring no one could see who—or what—was being offloaded.

The ship’s alarm blared, signaling the arrival of a storm. Cabin doors automatically locked, and guests still lounging in the casino and bar were no longer allowed to move freely.

Sasha’s cabin door, of course, wasn’t locked. A captain couldn’t be sealed away during a storm. But he knew he had no chance of getting to the helipad. He had already realized that, despite being the captain of this ship, he was little more than a pawn. Now, surrounded by monsters, he felt more like a helpless rabbit, with one of those monsters sitting across from him, sipping his vodka, and the coffin of the woman he had once dated right next to him. He almost wanted to toast to his miserable life: thirty-plus years as Alexander Rybalko, feared by enemies as a near-demon, now feeling utterly powerless on his own ship.

“What kind of guest is important enough for him to greet personally?” Sasha muttered, staring at the ceiling.

“It’s been fifteen minutes since the helicopter landed, and none of those guests have asked for food or drink. Imagine landing on an icebreaker in the Arctic—wouldn’t you want a hot cup of mulled wine to warm up? I don’t think he’s receiving passengers. He’s receiving cargo,” Chu Zihang replied, setting his glass down.

“But he showed me their passports and tickets,” Sasha said.

“That’s what I can’t figure out either. We’ll just have to see when these so-called first-class passengers finally make their appearance.”

Sasha hesitated briefly before sharing something odd. “We’ve undergone special training: we can identify helicopter models by the sound of their rotors. Transport helicopters and armed helicopters pose different threats to ground personnel. American and Russian helicopters have entirely different sounds. If I’m not mistaken, the one that just arrived was a Russian-made transport helicopter. Do you understand what that means? It’s Russian, and most likely military.”

Chu Zihang pondered for a moment. “Maybe your superiors weren’t expecting you to stop the northern conspiracy. Maybe they wanted you to follow these people and find that mysterious door. In 1943, a Soviet submarine trailed the Graf Spee and approached that door. It wasn’t just the Third Reich interested in the gate of the divine kingdom. The Soviets fired torpedoes at them there.”

Sasha nodded. “The name of that Soviet submarine was Glorious Banner. We know something terrifying happened onboard, but all the crew members’ families were awarded medals and compensation.”

The storm warning was lifted half an hour later, and the armed personnel on the front and rear decks withdrew, allowing Chu Zihang to leave Sasha’s cabin and return to his own.

The ship’s communications system was still not fully repaired. In fact, without new circuit boards, it might never be fixed. All Orev could do was assemble a rudimentary long-wave radio and hope to establish contact with nearby vessels. The ship continued along its course, carrying Lady Cassandra and other fugitives or greed-driven souls eager for the divine kingdom, alongside Odin’s fanatical followers. What a mix.

Sasha and Chu Zihang concluded that, for now, they wouldn’t take action. The security team would announce in the morning that Lady Cassandra had been found dead in a lower deck corner, the cause of death still undetermined, and patrols would be intensified to ensure passenger safety.

Chu Zihang quietly studied the Twilight Dogma materials he had downloaded. This doctrine, overlooked by the college and EVA, had already begun spreading silently within the hybrid world. It was his first realization of how vast and complex the hybrid world truly was. The world the Secret Party knew was merely a small corner of this larger reality. Some understood this world in ways completely different from the college, and after all, much of what they knew about dragons was based on speculation. No one had ever seen the great Black Emperor, nor his downfall.

Suddenly, Chu Zihang noticed the green light flashing on the internal phone, indicating a voicemail. The Yamal still used an old-fashioned tape system that could only record a minute-long message.

Chu Zihang picked up the phone. After a brief crackling sound, a low female voice began singing a haunting English song:

“We’re at the end of the road

We’re all soldiers on our own

Tryna find our way back home

And at the end of the day

Nothing matters anyway

Just the love that we have made

So let’s let go of our mistakes

We’ve all got hearts that easily break

No matter how the light may fade

We’ll carry on, it’s how we’re raised

We might fall

But we won’t break

Yeah, we won’t break, no”

The singer was undoubtedly Reginleif. It was hard to imagine that someone as lively, bold, and aggressive as her would sing such a distant, melancholic song. Moreover, for a girl to call a man’s cabin in the dead of night just to sing to him seemed a bit too forward, especially since she had said herself that Chu Zihang wasn’t her type. Fortunately, Chu Zihang didn’t care much about who liked him. His problem was never a lack of outstanding women in his life, but rather that he didn’t know how to like someone in return. Still, he silently listened to the entire song because, after all, Reginleif did sing beautifully. While listening, he also reflected on the video, wondering which version of Reginleif was the real one. It seemed that everyone on this ship was telling lies.

When the song ended, Reginleif hung up, as if the sole purpose of her late-night call had been to showcase her talent.

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