Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 267: A Friend of Justice (3)

Dragon Raja 3

A massive burst of black blood exploded on the wall at the end of the corridor, with the red long sword embedded in the center of the blood flower. Erii casually wiped the sword clean with a handkerchief and sheathed it at her waist. Then she wrote on her notebook and showed it to Lu Mingfei: “You lead. I don’t know the way.”

Lu Mingfei thought to himself, You don’t know the way, but you walk with such confidence? If you don’t know the way, how would I? If I knew the way, I wouldn’t have stumbled into this monster’s lair!

Suddenly, a bronze-colored hand grabbed Chu Zihang’s ankle.

The ambusher, hiding in the shadows of the elevator shaft, had latched onto Chu Zihang’s ankle and now hung his full weight on him. The muscular arm could rival that of a world champion bodybuilder, and its strength was astounding. Chu Zihang’s weapons were all stowed inside his coat, leaving him unable to escape in time. Just as he was about to fall into the elevator shaft, Chisei reached out and grabbed his collar. Chu Zihang clung to the door frame with one hand, his entire body leaning back, with most of him hanging over the elevator shaft, relying solely on Chisei to hold him. The two were stuck in a deadlock, while Caesar fired repeatedly, only managing to spark against the steel beams—he couldn’t aim at the ambusher, who was completely hidden behind Chu Zihang.

The ambusher, unable to pull Chu Zihang fully into the shaft, suddenly shifted tactics. He pulled down hard, while simultaneously leaping upward. Grabbing onto the steel beam above, he swung, and his long, thin tail wrapped around Chu Zihang’s neck. Golden eyes burned like lanterns in the darkness.

It was a humanoid creature with a snake’s tail, long black hair cascading like a waterfall, dripping wet. Its pale, sharp face emerged from the dark hair, unmistakably resembling a human woman’s. It seemed as though it was about to cheer or laugh, its enormous mouth splitting open to reveal sharp, pointed teeth, while its forked tongue flickered like a small red snake.

Suddenly, a red-and-black flower bloomed between its eyebrows—a mercury-core tungsten armor-piercing bullet tearing through its skull. The Desert Eagle, pressed against its head, fired repeatedly as Caesar unloaded the remaining bullets into the creature’s brain. He watched as its head exploded right in front of him, then planted his foot on its chest, kicking it back into the elevator shaft.

As Caesar’s foot connected with the creature’s chest, he felt a slight sense of complexity. It was a female human’s chest, and kicking it felt oddly brutal, like ruthlessly kicking away a naked woman.

“Death Servitor!” Chu Zihang wiped the cold, slimy mucus off his neck. The creature’s long tail had been covered in scales and mucus, wrapping around him like a giant snake.

Caesar suddenly came to his senses—it really was a Death Servitor! They had been ambushed by a Death Servitor.

He quickly cleared his mind of any stray thoughts. A Death Servitor was just a Death Servitor—once they fell, they lost their human souls.

The serpent-like corpse fell into the darkness below the elevator shaft, but there was no expected crash. Instead, it was torn apart mid-fall, and dozens of golden eyes lit up in the darkness below. The creatures greedily sniffed the scent of blood on their claws. As the female Death Servitor fell, they all reached out to catch her, their razor-sharp bone claws rending her to pieces like a punishment of a thousand cuts. A swarm of Death Servitors was climbing up the steel framework, and the one that attacked Chu Zihang was the smallest, which was why it was the most agile and fastest to climb.

Caesar shuddered violently, his heart clutched by the grip of some unseen demon. He had only seen a scene like this once before—in Takamagahara, the lair of the Shishou. On the Diriyah he had looked up to see the Shishou swarm rising like a dragon ascending to the heavens.

They were once again in the lair of demons.

“Are these your pets?” Caesar grabbed Chisei’s collar and demanded angrily.

“Even if I were to keep these creatures, I wouldn’t do it in my own home, just like how the U.S. Department of Defense wouldn’t place a nuclear weapons base inside the Pentagon!” Chisei stared directly into Caesar Gattuso’s eyes.

Caesar hesitated for a moment. Seeing the horde of Death Servitors, his first thought was that Yamata no Orochi was breeding these dangerous creatures in the building, much like how you’d assume you’re near a snake’s nest upon seeing a mass of writhing snakes. But Chisei’s argument also made sense. Even if Yamata no Orochi were experimenting with Death Servitors, they wouldn’t keep the breeding grounds at their headquarters. If the safety measures failed, the building would turn into a hell. Caesar couldn’t immediately determine whether Chisei was lying.

Chu Zihang pulled a flare from his coat, bent it a few times, and threw it down the elevator shaft. The orange light illuminated layers of scales. The steel frames deep in the shaft were crawling with Death Servitors, their long tails wrapped around the metal beams, and their movements were somewhere between a monkey, a snake, and a spider. It was impossible to count them—there could be dozens, maybe hundreds. Some elevators were still operational, with metal cars going up and down, passing dangerously close to the swarm of Death Servitors. Whoever was inside those cars must have been drenched in cold sweat from fear, their sweat mixing with hormones and adrenaline, perhaps even with traces of blood. The combination of these scents was like a drug to the Death Servitors. They scraped their claws against the cars, still trying to figure out how to rip open these metal cans to get at the meat inside.

The people inside the elevators must have already heard the eerie scraping, and there was something breathing heavily just outside the cars. They screamed, but there was nowhere to escape.

“Have you ever seen Death Servitors with long snake tails?” Chu Zihang asked.

“No, the ones I’ve seen were always deformed to some extent, but they still mostly retained a human shape,” Caesar said. “I’ve only seen these serpent-tailed forms in three places: Takamagahara, the mural hall, and a book on demonology.”

Chu Zihang nodded. “They resemble the ‘merfolk’ in Takamagahara, but these things are alive.”

Though they looked similar, the corpse guardians and serpent-tailed Death Servitors were entirely different. The corpse guardians were mummified ancient Hybrids. Their bodies were severely decayed, but a mysterious form of biological alchemy preserved their last bit of spirit and power in the corpses, turning them into city guardians. Human history had similar barbaric customs. In ancient Mesopotamia, kingdoms would build underground chambers around the city’s foundation, and groups of living people would enter to support the foundation with their shoulders. They would remain there until they turned into skeletons, symbolizing their spirits would continue to uphold the city’s foundation even in death. This ritual was something humans had learned from the Dragon civilization, but unlike the dragons’ mummified warrior guardians, humans only copied the form.

On the other hand, Death Servitors were living beings. Though they had lost their minds, their flesh was intact, and they were not much different from humans. In fact, they could even reproduce. Their reappearance signified the return of ancient extinct species, which, from a technical perspective, was no less shocking than the revival of dinosaurs.

Now, they were up against living “ancients,” beings far beyond humans and closer to dragons.

“These Death Servitors’ deformities have been induced,” Chisei suddenly said.

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