Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 30: The King’s Judgement (4)

Dragon Raja 3

He softly hummed a chant, his voice echoing through the heavens and earth. Though separated by the thick glass of their cockpits, the pilots could hear him clearly: “When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number, they are like the sand on the seashore.”

“Awaken, beasts!” He suddenly opened his eyes, his golden pupils illuminating half of the night sky!

The Halo helicopter slowly descended, and the massive dragon bones lay flat on Lenin’s deck. Bondarev approached the incredible giant remains, extending a gloved hand to gently caress the bones, which were harder than steel.

“Captain, shall we set sail now?” The first mate climbed onto the deck.

“Set sail. But keep the speed moderate—we don’t want it to look like we’re fleeing the scene,” Bondarev gestured towards the sky. “There are eyes up there,” he said, referring to the spy satellites in low-Earth orbit.

“Understood. We’ll head to the target site and anchor for Arctic Ocean water quality research. We’re a scientific research vessel.” The first mate gave a military salute.

“Keep it steady. I need to perform a surgery on this thing.” Bondarev opened a prepared box, taking out a folded metal frame, which, when unfolded, fit perfectly onto the dragon’s skull, covering its pale left eye.

Bondarev stepped back a few paces and remotely activated the laser mounted on the metal frame. The frame moved the laser along a circular track, cutting along the dragon’s eye socket. Even the dragon bones couldn’t withstand the high temperature and pressure of the laser. The cutting was soon completed, and Bondarev used a suction handle to extract the dragon’s eye. The eye was about the size of a basketball, resembling a whale’s eye, and after being frozen for many years, it seemed almost petrified, looking like white marble with fine cracks on the surface.

Bondarev gently wiped the surface of the dragon’s eye. Strangely, the eyeball should have been connected to rich blood vessels and nerves, but there was no trace of them on this dragon eye—it was as clean as an ostrich egg.

“After all these years, Herzog never realized there was a true ancient dragon beneath his feet,” Bondarev sighed.

Suddenly, the eye trembled, and Bondarev felt an overwhelming pressure descending from the sky, almost crushing him. It was an awe-inspiring power, akin to a god’s presence—enough to crush a human with a single breath! An aura began expanding from the dragon eye, and Bondarev’s ears rang with the sound of clashing swords and roaring seas, as if tens of thousands of deities were shouting in unison.

“Quick! Liquid nitrogen!” Bondarev shouted.

The sailors immediately opened a prepared metal canister, and milky white steam rapidly crept along its inner walls. This was the physical property of liquid nitrogen—the metal container held liquid nitrogen at minus 200 degrees Celsius. Bondarev tossed the dragon eye into it and connected the container to a liquid nitrogen tank using copper pipes. The nearly endless supply of liquid nitrogen could “cool down” the raging dragon eye at any time.

The violent power within the dragon’s eye gradually subsided, and the crushing pressure Bondarev felt slowly faded away. Bondarev wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “It’s just an egg, and it’s already this fierce. Once you hatch, what kind of monster will you be?”

“Take this thing to the bottom hold. No one is allowed near it without my permission!” Bondarev ordered the sailors.

“What about this big thing?” A sailor pointed at the rest of the dragon bones. “If we dump it in the open sea, it might get discovered by ocean trawlers. But taking it with us is a huge hassle.”

“Honestly, I haven’t figured out what to do with it yet. I don’t know what it could be used for, but throwing it away would be a waste. This skeleton could easily fetch several billion dollars at an auction, but doing that would reveal our secret.” Bondarev shook his head. “Cover it with a waterproof tarp. Let it stay on deck for a few days. The dragon cocoon has already been separated, so there’s no more danger.”

The waterproof tarp covered the dragon bones, and Bondarev was just about to step into the cockpit when suddenly he heard the sailors shout in alarm. He looked toward the southern sky—it was as if the sun was rising from there, and half the heavens were bathed in blinding gold! The atmosphere was trembling, with a deep voice reciting the Bible, like ten million thunderclaps rolling through the night sky.

“Impossible! Impossible!” Bondarev’s face turned pale. He realized that a fatal flaw had appeared in his flawless plan.

It couldn’t be the sun. In the polar night of the Arctic, the sun couldn’t rise from the horizon at this hour.

The cracking of bones was even more terrifying than the sunlight in the south. The dragon bones, covered by the waterproof tarp, slowly stood up. The massive being shook off the tarp and exhaled a ghostly blue breath into the night sky, followed by a long scream inaudible to human ears. In its remaining right eye, golden flames danced. It used its skeletal claws to forcefully push off the deck, soaring straight into the sky. As it descended, it spread its wings, which seemed large enough to cover the heavens, and silently roared as it glided over the ocean surface.

The shockwave split the ice, and black seawater gushed out from the fractures. A white sonic boom cone appeared and vanished—that was proof of it breaking the sound barrier. The thick double-layered glass on the Lenin shattered instantly.

“My God!” Bondarev murmured.

On the targeting screen of the deputy squadron leader, countless lock-on frames converged on the floating boy, accompanied by incessant “beep beep beep” alarms. The entire squadron’s weapons were aimed at the boy—firepower capable of bringing even a god crashing down from heaven.

“Fire!” The deputy squadron leader pressed the launch button.

Countless smoke trails extended across the sky, intertwining with each other. Zero had no way to defend, no way to escape, but he just smiled.

A black shadow swept through the wind and snow. Wherever it went, the snow on the ice field was swept skyward, revealing the solid ice beneath. It was like a black blade cutting through the air, yet so massive, with its single eye glowing brighter than the lights of the Su-27 in the storm.

“Is that… a bat?” The deputy squadron leader couldn’t believe his eyes.

But there could be no bat that enormous—if it flew across a clear night sky, it would obscure the stars. It was a dragon—a broken dragon. Lightning flowed between its teeth, and its entire body of iron scales played a symphony of destruction. This was the friend that had carried Renata’s hope for so many years, now awakened and reborn into magnificent life. It collided head-on with the barrage, its black form enveloped in dazzling light. It charged through the blazing explosions toward the Su-27s, like an eagle striking down swallows, smashing the metal frames of the aircraft to pieces.

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