Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 10: Last Grandson of the Emperor (6)

Dragon Raja 3

“The expedition wanted to stop the experiments, but it was too late. The mutated animals began mating and breeding, and their numbers multiplied beyond imagination. The young were born with tenacious vitality, and this place eventually became a breeding ground for abominations. Rasputin realized that the cave had to be sealed, or the mutated creatures would become a disaster. He melted all the iron they had brought and poured it into the cracks in the rock. But as he was about to complete the task, the mutated creatures sensed the impending doom, and their intelligence increased significantly. Hundreds of animals began to flee frantically, with about a hundred escaping the dragon’s lair. Rasputin decided to forcefully seal the lair. In the end, he even pushed the priests into the molten iron as sacrifices, hoping their presence would keep the ‘demons’ within at bay. After sealing the entrance, the expedition members trekked through the tunnels dug by the dragon, while the mutated animals fled in every direction. Everyone wanted to leave first. But Rasputin was the most despicable of all—he gave his companions fake maps, keeping the real one for himself, and quietly left the group. Soon, the rising seawater flooded the cave, and it froze and collapsed, leaving Rasputin as the only one who made it back to Moscow from the dragon’s lair. Over the next half-century, he only revealed this secret to one person—your great-grandmother, proving that he genuinely believed she, like him, was one of ‘God’s chosen.’”

“As long as that libertine wasn’t trying to court my great-grandmother, I don’t care,” Bondarev said.

“In the following decades, this mysterious creature remained frozen beneath the permafrost in northern Siberia, with no one exploring Rasputin’s legacy, until a Red Army general named Golitsyn accidentally found Rasputin’s expedition notes. By then, the tunnel the dragon had dug had collapsed, and the Golitsyn family could only dig out the dragon’s lair again. After decades of exploration, they first found the remains of the mutated animals, then the rock wall sealed by Rasputin, and finally, the dragon.”

“The Golitsyn family must be your backers—the family has several generals and technical officers who were in charge of weapons development within the Red Army. They had considerable means to embezzle state funds to support you,” Bondarev said.

“Yes, but General Golitsyn suddenly died early last year, leaving no heirs. Since then, I’ve had no supporters. Even if the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed, I couldn’t be sure whether I could continue receiving funding.”

“It seems I came just in time. You lost your backers, and my family happens to have enough power to replace them.”

The doctor smiled silently. “If General Golitsyn were still alive, we wouldn’t be having such an in-depth conversation—I would’ve already pulled the trigger. But during our conversation today, you said something that struck me.”

“Oh?”

“‘People of value are respected in any era,’” the doctor said slowly. “That’s the truth—only cowards are bound by the times; those with ability create the times.”

Bondarev raised his glass. “To the truth then. So, is this dragon dead now?”

“Unfortunately, by the time we broke through the rock wall, this dragon had already died. It was bitten to death by the mutated animals. After Rasputin sealed the lair, the remaining mutated animals could only hunt each other. Dragon blood ignited their bloodthirsty genes—they became extremely frenzied, attacking everything they saw, and eventually turned on the dragon itself. They survived by gnawing on the remaining tissues on the dragon bones.”

“I imagine it didn’t taste very good,” Bondarev said.

“Not only did it not taste good, but the dragon’s muscle tissue was full of toxins. After consuming the decaying dragon meat, the mutated animals were poisoned and died one after another in this cave. When we reopened the lair, the first thing we saw was piles of bones. The dragon had been bitten to death; they even ate its heart, leaving only the hardened upper half that they couldn’t bite through.”

“Didn’t the dragon wake up to fight back?”

“It was too severely injured—it couldn’t wake from its deep slumber and just died.”

“Let’s talk about your research. We’ve found a mysterious ancient species, but how do we turn it into money? Twenty billion dollars isn’t a small sum—we can’t recover the cost by just publishing a few papers,” Bondarev said.

“You didn’t find my file, did you?” the doctor smiled. “So you don’t know my research direction.”

“No, I had been speculating what kind of person was in charge of Black Swan Bay until I got here,” Bondarev admitted.

“Because I have no file, you couldn’t find anything. In the Soviet Union, I am one of the few who has no record. Originally, I could have been sent to court as a war criminal—my research in Germany was in genetic engineering. I helped build the largest gene bank in the world for the Nazis. Under Hitler’s racial theory, the German academic community once believed that the Aryans were the world’s superior race. We hoped to prove that Aryan children could run faster, jump higher, and be smarter by collecting the genes of all other races worldwide. But as our work progressed, we were surprised to find from the gene samples collected from Japan that the Aryan genes were not special—instead, some humans possessed mysterious ‘perfect genes.’ These genes were not of the same origin as human genes, yet they granted humans extraordinary abilities, such as incredible explosive strength, or like what appeared in your great-grandmother—the ability to resurrect after death. Each individual manifested different extraordinary abilities. We boldly hypothesized that these people only possessed part of the ‘perfect gene,’ and these genes should have a common source, originating from a single perfect creature.”

“A dragon?”

“Yes, but at that time, I didn’t know that the perfect creature I was searching for was a dragon. After the war, the Golitsyn family chose me to be the chief scientist at Black Swan Bay. When I saw this enormous skeleton, I realized that this was the ultimate pursuit of my life. This perfect creature could change the fate of all humanity—using its genes and cloning technology, we could create an entirely new human species, an entirely new era!”

“Have you extracted the perfect genes from the dragon’s bones?”

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t extract any viable genes from the dragon’s bones. The moment this dragon died, all its cells carrying genetic information died as well. The death of a Fourth Domain creature is entirely different from that of a human—life ceases instantly, and every part, from the brain to the nerve endings, dies completely. But the perfect gene doesn’t necessarily have to come from a perfect creature!”

He knocked a pair of black clappers together, and an unseen door opened in the rock wall. A stoic officer pushed out a wheelchair. Seated in it was an emotionless boy Bondarev had seen in the courtyard—blond, thin, with large pupils. The boy slumped in the wheelchair, expression blank. Bondarev instinctively took a step back; the boy gave off an unsettling feeling, somewhere between being alive and dead.

“The place where the perfect gene is most concentrated is within the human body,” the doctor said quietly.

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