Dragon Raja 2; Chapter 166: Labyrinth (3)

Dragon Raja 2

“He misunderstood. The subway train was actually protecting those who entered the Nibelungen,” Mai ignored the joke. “Otherwise, how could humans move freely in the Dragons’ realm? It’s a place filled with death!”

Lu Mingfei trudged through the dark tunnel, stumbling with every step. It was pitch black in every direction, but at least the college had some decent equipment for the students, like the mini flashlight on his keychain. It was one of the few reliable products from the Gear Department—at least, it hadn’t exploded yet.

The tunnel walls were made of layers of red bricks, with water flowing between them. Besides that, there wasn’t even the sound of a rat. It felt as though there was only one living thing in this eerie space—him. As he walked on, the tunnel gradually widened. Lu Mingfei shone the flashlight upwards, revealing an arched ceiling that had a solemn quality like a cathedral entrance. It was constructed from bronze-colored stones, old and beautiful, with intricate natural patterns on the surface. It reminded Lu Mingfei of the fossil sedimentary rocks he had seen in picture books—layer upon layer of fossils from the Triassic, Cretaceous, and Jurassic periods, formed from the bones of countless creatures over hundreds of millions of years. From one angle, you could see trilobites; from another, carbonized shells—stunningly beautiful.

It seemed like a shadow flickered across the beam of his flashlight.

Lu Mingfei quickly swept the flashlight around but found nothing. The shadow looked like a bat, but would there be bats in a place without even rats? He felt somewhat relieved.

He had earplugs in, so he didn’t hear it—the countless subtle sounds that had already surrounded him. It was like the whispers of millions of bats in the dead of night in a bat cave, or like countless ants advancing towards a beetle that had stumbled into their nest…

A small stone, eroded by water, fell from above and hit Lu Mingfei on the head before bouncing off. Lu Mingfei raised his flashlight. The small stone suddenly cracked open, and a thin, bone-like appendage extended out, followed by another one. As the spindly bones stretched, a fan-like array of bony structures unfolded, as thin as a fly’s legs, with membranes barely clinging between them. The stone sprouted wings and struggled to fly! Just as Lu Mingfei was marveling at it, the stone crashed into the tunnel wall and shattered. Then, a bat-like creature shot out from the debris, ascending gracefully before suddenly accelerating, leaving a series of blurred afterimages in the air.

Lu Mingfei shivered as he looked up. Those patterns hidden within the rocks, the countless fossilized layers formed by ancient bones, and the overlapping, time-flattened wing bones, sternums, and rib bones—all were awakening. The fossilized layers peeled off, and the beings within them revived. They were animals with beautiful bronze-colored skeletons, part bird, part membranous-winged reptile, each one larger than the last. Their wings ended in claws—five-fingered, razor-sharp like the blade of a shaving razor.

Those beautiful patterns were actually woven from countless deaths!

Lu Mingfei felt his face was a little wet, he reached out and touched it, his hands were full of blood. He then realized that there were more bloodstains on his face, each of which was extremely fine. They were the wounds left by the bone birds with their bladed claws when they flew over him. More and more bone birds gathered in front of him and hovered, their eye sockets flashing with longing gold, like a blind bear seeing honey. Lu Mingfei suddenly remembered what this thing was! It was a sickle weasel! Caesar’s Word Spirit was named after this kind of monster-like creature. At this moment, a living sickle weasel was right in front of him. These things… were bloodsuckers!

With a scream, he turned and ran. By now, the entire tunnel had become a Kamaitachi paradise. Thousands of bat-like shadows flickered from all directions, shrieking sharply, as if crying, or cheering.

Lu Mingfei tripped over a sleeper and fell face-first, and a swarm of Kamaitachi pounced on him like bees.

“What do we do now?” Chips looked worried. “We sent him to slay a dragon, not to be Kamaitachi food!”

They could no longer see Lu Mingfei—there was no surveillance footage from the tunnel.

“It’s not a big problem, not a big problem,” Mai said, taking a deep breath. “I was prepared for this. I used a special spice on his clothes. Kamaitachi don’t like this scent—it’s like garlic for vampires. It makes them feel sick.”

“So they won’t drink his blood?”

“The males won’t.”

“What if a female shows up?” Chips was about to lose it.

“Kamaitachi are almost all male. The females are different in form and much larger, like the relationship between a queen ant and worker ants. There are only one female Kamaitachi for tens of thousands of males. He can’t be unlucky enough for that, right?”

If Lu Mingfei could answer the pretty lady right now, he would definitely say, “Absolutely! Why not? There’s no limit to how unlucky I can be!”

The ceiling suddenly collapsed, and a massive skeleton fell, rolling in the air, emitting an ear-piercing screech. Countless Kamaitachi flew beneath it, trying to lift it up as if they were carrying the coffin of a king.

The giant skeleton slowly spread its wings, seeking balance, and finally took flight. Deep within the masked silver skull, golden pupils lit up. It had nine cervical vertebrae, nine skulls, each producing a different sound—one as melodious as a young girl’s, one as hoarse as a crow, another as resonant as a grand bell. Led by this skeleton, the other bones swirled around Lu Mingfei, letting out excited hunting cries, as joyful as a group of crows finding carrion.

This was the grand ceremony heralding the beginning of the feast.

Lu Mingfei was utterly stunned. The Kamaitachi Empress flew lightly onto him, her slender wing bones wrapping around him, forming a cage of bones. The sharp hind claws reversed and gently brushed against Lu Mingfei’s eyes like a blade. The motion was so tender, as if a girl were embracing a loved one, closing his eyelids before a kiss. The nine silver-masked skulls glowed with warmth.

The Kamaitachi were all laughing along with her. Lu Mingfei couldn’t hear their laughter, but he could feel the cold atmosphere building, like waves crashing from all sides.

In this life-threatening moment, Lu Mingfei suddenly thought of Chen Wenwen. Zhao Menghua was probably just a dried-up corpse here by now. If he died here too, there would be no one left in the world who believed Chen Wenwen’s words.

So lonely.

A deafening noise shattered the Kamaitachi’s laughter. A spotlight fell on Lu Mingfei, and a fierce wind forced the Kamaitachi to retreat. Undoubtedly, a subway train was racing toward him at high speed. The Kamaitachi seemed terrified, instantly dispersing into the darkness away from Lu Mingfei. The Kamaitachi Empress, however, was too large and didn’t have time to unravel the bone cage she had woven around herself. She screamed in terror, struggling wildly as she was wrapped around Lu Mingfei.

Light and fierce wind drew closer, breaking her apart into dust, like the rising sun sweeping away all the monsters of the dark.

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