He turned his head, his expression blank. “If I were you, I’d make a different choice. Leaving here would mean you could stop them. I hate it when someone takes away… what’s mine!” A fleeting cold, icy look flashed across his young face.
“The death knell has already rung, but it is a hymn to the opening of the gates of another world.” Jörmungandr stopped crying and looked up. “It will be a beautiful day. The sea will break open, and a ship made of the fingernails of the dead will rise from the depths. Hela, the goddess of death, along with the souls of the dead, will stand upon the ship, ready to unleash their resentment upon the world of the living.”
“Ragnarok?” Chu Zihang asked softly.
“Yes, but you won’t live to see that magnificent scene.” Jörmungandr extended her clawed hand, her fingers coming together like blades, slowly plunging into Chu Zihang’s wound. “But don’t be afraid, it will end soon. Once I take out your heart, you’ll become one of the inhabitants of the land of the dead. We’re still good friends, you know—you’ll be standing on my ship. Let’s unleash our resentment together. Resentment blooms like a black flower, spreading across the world—it will be beautiful.”
“As… a Death Servitor?” Chu Zihang’s eyes were dazed, the golden color of his pupils dissolving. “I wonder if a Death Servitor knows how to appreciate the beauty of flowers…”
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Jörmungandr said as she applied force, her blade-like claws breaking through Chu Zihang’s ribs, diving deep into his chest.
Lu Mingfei snapped his head up in shock, but it was too late to do anything. The blade-claws pierced through Chu Zihang’s back, with Jörmungandr’s arm almost entirely inside him. Blood sprayed out from his back, gushing out like a soaring ink dragon under extreme pressure.
Suddenly, Chu Zihang’s golden eyes lit up! Like a cat’s eyes narrowing under a bright light, the narrowed gaze shot out, sharp as a knife.
Chu Zihang grabbed Jörmungandr’s wrist and clenched it tightly. The wrist bone snapped with a “crack” sound, causing Jörmungandr to howl in pain. She couldn’t pull her hand back; Chu Zihang’s broken ribs acted like a bear trap, pinning her hand firmly. Chu Zihang kicked Jörmungandr in the chest, producing a thunderous sound, accompanied by the noise of cracking ribs. The two figures separated as Chu Zihang spun 360 degrees and landed backward.
Lu Mingfei was stunned. Biologically speaking, this was impossible—anyone who had lost that much blood shouldn’t even be alive, let alone attacking!
Chu Zihang crouched, his entire body covered in scales that expanded and contracted. He was taking deep breaths, drawing in massive amounts of oxygen. Bloodied spines extended from his body, muscles rippled like flowing water beneath his scales before suddenly tensing. He slowly rose, standing on legs bent backward at the knee. Facing Jörmungandr, he slightly bowed, holding the unsheathed Divine Blade, Muramasa, in his hand.
Biologically, humans couldn’t do this, but no one ever said dragons couldn’t. Lu Mingfei suddenly understood—these were two dragons fighting before him!
Jörmungandr looked at Chu Zihang in shock; she was confident she knew everything about this human. Under the dragon aura of Fenrir, Chu Zihang had already pushed the “Blood Rage” ability to an extremely dangerous “second degree.” Even Anjou didn’t seem to know that the Slaughtering Heart could be released a second time. If the first release was like a lion, the second time might be more akin to a tyrannosaur. And now, what could shake her, a Dragon King, was…
The third degree of Blood Rage!
This ability could even be pushed to a third degree! Was the third release… the heart of a Dragon King?
A Hybrid infinitely approaching the power of a Dragon King. This could explain how Hybrids fought against Dragon Kings in those long years without scientific knowledge. It was power gained at the cost of one’s soul.
Chu Zihang looked at her, his golden eyes as cold as if they were frozen. He seemed to no longer recognize Jörmungandr or Xia Mi. At this moment, the only thing left in his eyes was a savage thirst for blood.
“An unconscious state?” Jörmungandr whispered. “You’re already a Death Servitor.”
She chanted in ancient language, triggering a new Yanling, and her domain quickly expanded. Intense ionization and magnetization effects appeared in the domain; the railway tracks melted, metallic droplets floated, and began to orbit Jörmungandr. The bright droplets collided and burned, impurities turning to ash, leaving increasingly bright droplets. The Dragon King refined her weapon with Yanling; in her hand, those droplets condensed into a bizarre, giant weapon—like a scythe meant to reap lives.
Chu Zihang’s “King’s Blaze” ignited again, his domain expanding as well. Within the 10-meter diameter of “King’s Blaze,” at the edge of the two domains, a visible barrier appeared, where white-purple static electricity and black serpents of fire, thousands of degrees hot, danced. The bright areas shone blindingly, while the dark places resembled black holes.
They simultaneously pushed off the ground, their reverse-jointed legs exploding with extraordinary force, their figures vanishing with high-speed movement. The leg structure was not found in bipedal mammals but was akin to that of lower creatures like mantises, granting incredible jumping power. A flea can jump four hundred times its height; if humans had similar jumping abilities, they could leap about 700 meters high. At this moment, imagination became reality. Chu Zihang and Jörmungandr shot through the vast space, each collision producing deafening booms. They chased each other, even running along the cliff walls, defying gravity.
Rocks continuously fell from the ceiling, shattering in the air. Kamaitachi flew in terror, only to be reduced to ash by the expanding domains.
Some of the Kamaitachi, however, fell onto Lu Mingfei, who covered his head, scrambling to dodge, his ears filled with their terrified screeches. It felt like the end of the world.
All the tracks were glowing red-hot; coal cinders blazed on the ground. Large bright spots appeared on the walls, even on the ceiling, where Chu Zihang’s “King’s Blaze” had burned the rock. Countless hot iron filings floated in the air, like hundreds of thousands of dancing sprites. They were magnetized by the static electricity in Jörmungandr’s domain. Every time the two fighters collided, shards of metal flew everywhere. Jörmungandr’s hastily forged weapon clearly couldn’t compete with the mysterious “Muramasa” blade, and those metal shards were like flying knives, able to cut into the rock, with the quantity akin to a machine-gun barrage. Lu Mingfei couldn’t tell if this was reality or a nightmare, but no matter how hard he pinched himself, he couldn’t wake up.
In this apocalyptic scene, one person could still smile.
Lu Mingze, holding a bouquet of white roses at the end of the platform, had a smile on his face that seemed equal parts pity and mockery as he looked up at the two meteoric shadows. The fierce wind scattered the roses, their white petals fluttering in the air.
Jörmungandr and Chu Zihang landed on the platform simultaneously. Chu Zihang paused slightly, preparing to charge again, while Jörmungandr crashed heavily onto the ground. The platform, originally strong enough to hold an entire tank battalion, reinforced with ten times the usual amount of steel and concrete, instantly shattered. A bottomless crack extended a hundred meters outward, rock rose and then disintegrated into powder mid-air. The ground twisted and flipped like a serpent’s spine.