Chu Zihang did not respond; he stared into the lamplight as if lost in thought.
“Alright, alright, look at the team I’m stuck with—one coward and one poker-faced guy,” Finger sighed deeply, seeing no one was going to respond to his antics. “So, do we have any decent equipment? You know, like how Q always gives James Bond some top-notch gear before a mission! Like an Aston Martin with an alchemy machine gun, a submarine that can cruise down Chang’an Avenue—bring it on, Principal! Now’s the crucial moment when your good students are going to risk their lives, so bring out those hidden treasures!”
“Unfortunately, the Gear Department is one of the hardest to deal with, similar to the Execution Bureau, and is jointly controlled by both the School Board and me. And due to the School Board’s impeachment, I can’t step in for now,” Anjou shrugged. “So you won’t have the full support of the Gear Department like in ‘Project Bronze.’”
“What kind of joke is this? At least last time we had the Maniach and a Storm Torpedo with an alchemy warhead. This time, we’re going in with nothing? Are we supposed to fight with our nails and teeth? Bite the Dragon King to death?” Finger was dumbfounded, and had been spiraling from collapse to collapse the entire night.
“Although I am temporarily stripped of my power, there are still some things I can call upon.” Anjou nodded to the vice principal.
The vice principal pulled out a heavy black case from under the desk and placed it on the table. It was a 180cm-long aluminum alloy box, covered in black leather, with reinforced steel corners. On one corner, a metal nameplate bore the inscription “S20100144.” It was a piece from the “Ice Cellar,” a top-tier artifact labeled with an “S” as the initial letter. The number indicated it was the 144th artifact acquired by the Ice Cellar in 2010.
Lu Mingfei immediately understood what it was. It felt as if he could sense the slow, dangerous breathing of that thing through the aluminum alloy.
The principal and vice principal each took out a bronze-colored key, inserting them into keyholes on either side of the box, turning them simultaneously. Inside, the faint sound of gears turning could be heard, the interlocking metal teeth slowly retracting, and the box sprang open with a thin gap. Black-gold light seeped out along the gap, making even the desk lamp seem dimmer.
The principal opened the lid. “Alchemy Blades—The Seven Deadly Sins.”
Everyone except the principal, vice principal, and Lu Mingfei saw the blades for the first time, and they all craned their necks to get a better look.
“What’s this?” Finger reached out to tap the elaborately carved sword box.
The vice principal unlatched a hidden clasp, and with a clear ring, the internal mechanism extended, revealing seven blades of different designs. The black-gold blades shimmered under the light, showing patterns like frost, pine needles, flowing clouds, and flames. The vice principal drew a sword—a 1.5-meter-long double-handed, curved-edge blade with a thickness of about a finger.
“The design is similar to the Chinese Song Dynasty’s Zhanmadao, named for its ability to cut through a horse’s head with a double-handed strike.”
With a “thunk,” he stabbed the giant blade into the desk.
“Hey, hey! That desk is a handcrafted antique from 19th-century Venetian craftsmen!” Anjou shouted.
“Oh, I got carried away.” The vice principal smiled apologetically. “Get someone to replace the desk surface for you.”
He drew another blade—this time a curved long blade, nearly 1.2 meters long, with a thin body and a blade shaped like the prow of a longship. “This is similar to a tachi from Japan’s Heian period, an improved version of the Chinese Tang blade, featuring a small point and a wider back—a classic, elegant design.”
With another “thunk,” he drove the long blade half a foot into the desk.
“An yatagan, a type of Damascus blade forged historically by Turkish swordsmiths. Today, the genuine craftsmanship is lost. Its unique feature is its backward-curving blade, but with a straight tip, combining the advantages of both knife and sword. Single-handed grip.”
“Thunk.”
“A Han Jian, a straight sword, with an octagonal cross-section blade known as a ‘Han Eight-Edge.’ It’s a beautiful thrusting weapon.”
“Thunk.”
…
Anjou covered his eyes as he listened to the seven metallic stabs into the wood. Each sound meant his precious antique furniture was depreciating in value.
Now the table was filled with swords, turning this bookish private library into a somber museum of cold weapons in minutes—a gathering of various historical killing instruments. The vice principal circled the table, flicking his finger against the Zhanmadao. A humming ring filled the space, with the other six weapons resonating, creating a perfect musical scale.
“These blades were first discovered by Ye Sheng and Sakatoku Aki in the Bronze City. The second time, they were found by Lu Mingfei and Chen Motong among Ye Sheng’s remains. They were lost again before reappearing at an auction, where the college bought them back at great expense. Each blade has different dragon script engraved on it. Though the dragon script is unreadable, there is also ancient Hebrew on each blade, which likely represents the names of the seven weapons: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.”
“These are the so-called Seven Deadly Sins from Christianity,” Guderian said. “The Latin words are superbia, invidia, ira, accidia, avaritia, gula, and luxuria. Combined, they form a medieval Latin word, saligia.”
“All of these blades are forged from regenerative metal. Though they seem to be made from the same material, each blade has different hardness and toughness. This is top-tier alchemy—creating new metals according to one’s will. Any alchemy master would look up to this craft; it belongs only to the supreme master of alchemy among the Four Monarchs, the King of Bronze and Fire,” Anjou said.
“The Four Monarchs each wield different powers. For example, the King of Earth and Mountains is considered to possess ‘the greatest power,’ while the King of Bronze and Fire is known as ‘the Throne of Alchemy,’ because only he controls the highest-temperature flame, reaching the ultimate limits of alchemy,” the vice principal said. “These seven weapons are crafted to an astonishing level, embodying the virtues of all historical cold weapons. These virtues combined provide unparalleled lethality, akin to using anti-aircraft guns to swat flies. So why would the Dragon King go to such lengths to forge them?”
“Mutual slaughter,” Lu Mingfei said in his mind, staring at the aligned blades.
That was what Lu Mingze had told him, and he had never doubted it. The moment he saw the blades, he could vaguely feel the bloody fate they carried. When Nono had unhesitatingly taken the blades from Ye Sheng’s corpse, a faint voice inside Lu Mingfei had said, “No… no… no…”