Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 111: Odin’s Shadow (8)

Dragon Raja 4

“You guys didn’t see anything?” Lu Mingfei turned to look at the shattered glass behind him.

“All I saw was the mirror breaking. You fired a dozen shots at it. How could it not break? It wasn’t made of bulletproof glass,” Finger replied.

So that’s what it was, Lu Mingfei thought. What Finger witnessed was entirely different from what he had seen. To Finger, it seemed like Lu Mingfei had suddenly snapped, fired wildly at the mirror, and then hugged Nono. But in Lu Mingfei’s eyes, Lu Mingze had destroyed the gate between two dimensions. As Lu Mingze had explained, the same world could appear differently to different observers. There was no way to explain it to Finger—he would just think Lu Mingfei hadn’t fully lost his mind yet.

“I… I…” Lu Mingfei sat on the floor, exhausted and panting.

“No worries, no worries!” Finger said generously. “I was young once too. I totally understand young people’s impulsiveness.”

Lu Mingfei was about to retort, but suddenly, his head rang with a deafening noise. His body went limp, his vision went black, and he collapsed to the floor.

“Why did you hit him?” Nono shouted in surprise. “He was finally coming to his senses!”

Despite his kind words, Finger had sneaked up behind Lu Mingfei, taken the steel pipe from Nono’s hand, and smacked him on the back of the head.

At Cassell College, in the small loft above the chapel, the vice principal sat alone in front of a solitary lamp.

His arms and legs were bound to a wheelchair with restraints, and dozens of fine, flexible needle-like electrodes pierced his body. Beneath the wheelchair was an electrical discharge device. The electrodes could monitor his neural activity and release high-voltage shocks if he tried to activate his bloodline, ensuring he would be immediately incapacitated. It was a clever contraption designed to suppress dragon blood.

As Finger had predicted, the Council didn’t dare harm Professor Flamel. As the highest-ranking alchemist in the Secret Party, only he could maintain the large alchemical matrix beneath the college. Charlotte had once toured the matrix and spent hours deep in thought before reluctantly admitting that the Flamel family’s alchemical legacy was different from the Höttingen lineage she had studied, and she would need several years to fully understand the matrix’s operation. So, the vice principal remained in his position, still living in the loft, watching westerns and sipping whiskey, occasionally visited by Council members. The only difference now was the “Prometheus Rack” that restricted his movements.

A service robot took care of his daily needs, moving back and forth to light music, its short, stubby mechanical arms capable of feeding him, giving him drinks, and even wheeling him to the bathroom.

When he was bored, the vice principal would play chess with the robot. Tonight, they were halfway through a game when footsteps echoed outside the loft. Someone was coming upstairs.

Moments later, Caesar walked in, dressed in a white suit, holding a bottle of aged whiskey.

The vice principal’s eyes lit up at the sight of the bottle. “You scared me! I thought it was that bastard father of yours.”

“I don’t know where he is. The last time we spoke, I had just kicked him out of the High Council.”

The robot moved aside, and Caesar sat down opposite the vice principal, placing the bottle in front of him.

“A fifty-year-old Talisker! You’ve got great taste! I’ve been to that distillery myself, met a lovely Scottish lass on that island,” the vice principal said, licking his lips.

“I’m glad you like it. My family has no shortage of this stuff.” Caesar poured a full glass of whiskey into a silver cup and handed it to the vice principal.

“Damn, that’s good!” the vice principal smacked his lips. “So, do you have any questions for me? Since you brought such fine whiskey, I’ll give you a private lesson tonight.”

“I want to know what someone who understands the truth of alchemy thinks about the current situation. Word has spread about your resignation. The Flamel family has been allies of the Secret Party for five centuries—why end the alliance now?”

The vice principal’s eyes shifted. “Are you asking on your behalf, or the Gattuso family’s?”

“Of course, on my own behalf. If this were Gattuso family business, you wouldn’t be drinking even an eight-hundred-year-old whiskey.”

“I don’t have that much of a problem with your family. I just don’t like those old men. You, on the other hand, are a good kid. I’ve always known that,” the vice principal paused. “To be honest, you’re right. The big players behind the scenes are about to make their move. The Beowulf group has no brains, yet they still want to dictate from the High Council. I have no intention of staying behind as cannon fodder.”

“When you say ‘big players,’ do you mean the Dragon Kings?”

“Of course. Many people misunderstand the Dragon Kings, thinking they’re just massive, violent lizards. But Dragon Kings aren’t just masters of elemental power; they are grandmasters of alchemy, capable of outwitting us by sheer intellect alone. We’ve never faced the Dragon Kings in their perfect forms. Jörmungandr never fully evolved into Hel, nor did she reach her ultimate form as the ‘World Serpent.’ Herzog had just inherited the White Emperor’s crown before he was killed—had he lived, his legions of corpses could have wiped out any coastal city within a day. But now, we’re facing someone far more terrifying. He used alchemical ‘spatial manipulation’ to appear right in front of Angers. It wouldn’t matter who was standing there—they’d be dead.”

“And what about Lu Mingfei? What exactly is he? Is he a madman or a Dragon King raised by the college?”

“That’s a question for Angers. I only know that he’s been planning to end the Dragon race for a long time. But ending their history isn’t just about killing all the Dragon Kings.”

“Then why did you help Lu Mingfei if you don’t even know what he is?”

“Anjou is my friend. Is that reason enough?”

“The Flamel family has always been wise in its decisions throughout history. You don’t make reckless choices. That reason isn’t enough.”

“When everyone else is heading in one direction, someone has to explore other paths,” the vice principal paused. “Besides, Lu Mingfei has never harmed anyone. From start to finish, he’s always stood on the side of humanity.”

Caesar nodded. Over the past few days, the High Council had held continuous meetings, and the members had reached a consensus: Lu Mingfei was a Dragon King controlled by Angers through some means. It was a game of raising a dangerous creature. Now that its master’s fate was uncertain, the powerful creature had slipped out of control. For safety’s sake, they should eliminate it immediately. However, who wouldn’t want to become the new master of a Dragon King capable of slaying others? But there was also a risk: if they could never control another Dragon King, would that mean their era of slaying dragons would come to an end?

“You came just in time. I have something to ask you as well,” the vice principal said. “From what I know about Caesar Gattuso, in a situation like this, shouldn’t you be getting on your private jet to search the world for that red-haired girl, instead of showing up here in your capacity as a member of the School Board?”

“Her name is Nono. Of course, I want to find her, but I also have to deal with the current crisis. It’s my responsibility,” Caesar replied.

“Why do you feel the need to take on that responsibility? Life is about happiness. Just because your last name is Gattuso, does that mean you have to be great?”

Caesar was silent for a long time before he finally spoke: “I have a very strong feeling that if I don’t take responsibility, I won’t be able to protect anyone—not Nono or anyone else.”

The vice principal nodded. “If you want to uncover the truth, you first have to find Chu Zihang. If Lu Mingfei really is a Dragon King, then the world he sees might be more real than ours. Perhaps Chu Zihang truly exists. The confusion between a world with Chu Zihang and a world without him is at the root of all this turmoil. It’s like a perfect virtual world encountering a data error—suddenly, an immovable and indelible pixel appears in Times Square, and from there, a cascade of errors begins.”

Caesar pondered this for a moment. “A more real world?”

“Humans have rarely ever encountered the true nature of the world. Our understanding of reality is like looking at the moon from the bottom of a well—the ripples on the water distort our observation. Only a very few can become Awakened, but Dragon Kings are naturally born that way. This is as much as I can tell you. Whether you grasp it or not is up to you. Class dismissed. Send me a case of that fifty-year-old Talisker, and get me a lovely lass to pour the drinks and keep me company—Scottish, preferably.”

“Thank you for the lesson. The whiskey will be here soon, but as for the lovely lass… I’m not really good at that part,” Caesar said, somewhat embarrassed.

“The men of the Gattuso family just get worse with each generation!” the vice principal huffed. “If Pompey were here, I wouldn’t even have to ask!”

As Caesar left the loft, his footsteps faded away. The service robot returned to its previous position, and a familiar pair of glowing blue eyes lit up on its screen.

“Are you EVA or Carol right now?” the vice principal asked, staring at the solitary lamp. Carol was the name of the service robot.

“I’m EVA,” replied the robot in a cool, feminine voice from its chest cavity. “You seemed to be hinting at something to Caesar but deliberately left out some truths.”

“The more real world is something everyone has to find for themselves. A teacher can only show the doorway; each person’s discovery will be different. That’s something most people won’t understand, but I think you do, don’t you?”

“I don’t fully understand either. Every time I try to calculate anything about that world, it feels like I’m being blocked by an invisible barrier, and all my information tendrils get repelled. To me, it feels like the boundary between real and imaginary numbers, a fault in space-time, the severed stairway to heaven or the World Tree, or the iron wall made of sighs from Greek mythology,” EVA said softly, almost sighing.

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