Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 472: Dark Day (11)

Dragon Raja 3

He drew his last two Tang-style broadswords and advanced across the water! He no longer contented himself with being a rock against the ghostly vipers’ tide—he began his counterattack. The sea, stained silver-blue with viper blood, churned as he marched, leaving storms and shattered waves in his wake. No dragon viper could touch him—he was a lion, a tiger, a demon god. Laughing boldly, he fought with the spirit of the days when he ruled Japan’s underworld.

By now, Caesar and Chu Zihang had helped Anjou onto the helicopter. The countdown for the refined sulfur bomb had already started, and at any moment, fire mixed with deadly sulfur powder would engulf the island. Caesar manned the onboard machine gun, firing to keep Death Servitors from jumping aboard. The helicopter shook violently in the storm, but the stabilizing cables hooked to the crane held firm. If they released the cables in such strong winds, the helicopter would be carried away, unable to return to the island.

“Wait! Don’t take off yet!” Anjou screamed, clinging to the last shred of hope that Koeru might break through the enemies and make it to the helicopter in time.

But when he looked back, Anjou realized Uesugi’s figure had become small in the distance. He was lost in the heat of battle, advancing further and further across the silver-blue sea.

“Koeru! Come back!” Anjou shouted in despair.

But the crashing waves drowned his voice. Uesugi marched on, singing a song in an ancient Japanese dialect that neither Anjou nor the others could understand. His voice split the clouds.

“Life is but fifty years, a fleeting dream, a mirage. Once gone, how can one hope to live forever in this world?”

Anjou recognized the song. “Life is fifty years, and events pass like dreams. In this fleeting world, who can live forever?” It was the death poem of the warlord Oda Nobunaga, sung before his final battle at Okehazama.

Koeru suddenly stopped, dipping his battle-worn broadswords into the sea. He looked up at the sky as the dragon vipers and Death Servitors swirled around him, bathed in the silver-blue glow of the stars. Anjou saw clearly now—countless dragon vipers had burrowed into Uesugi’s back, their writhing tails trying to devour his insides. His tattoo was long gone, and the vipers, like frenzied creatures, gnawed at his body. The Black Sun’s greatest weakness was the back. Without Anjou to cover him, Uesugi had eventually fallen prey to enemies attacking from behind. No one knew how he had endured the excruciating pain to fight this long—perhaps it was his noble bloodline, his underworld king’s spirit, or maybe simply his faith.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” From far across the battlefield, Koeru turned to look at Anjou.

It was 2 Timothy 4:7 from the New Testament.

“Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness,” Anjou murmured softly.

It was from 2 Timothy 4:8. Although Anjou did not believe in God or attend worship, he had graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, famous for its theological studies. Years ago, during a lecture when the professor recited this passage, Anjou had suddenly woken from his nap, struck by the calm and serenity of those words.

Now, there was no need for further farewells. From the beginning, this battle had been under Koeru’s control. Before coming here, he had already sensed that he would die, and so he did, right here. Throughout his life, he had done things haphazardly, but his own funeral was the one thing he had arranged with precision.

The only mistake he made was allowing an uninvited guest to attend his funeral. The stabilizing cable released, and the helicopter carried Anjou into the sky.

For the first time, Caesar saw a glimmer of moisture in Anjou’s eyes. He realized that Anjou was truly old. This man, who had seemed to have no attachments, had lost yet another of the few friends he had left.

Even the “Evil of the World,” the vengeful demon, could still be consumed by sorrow.

“If you’re ever troubled by life, you should consider faith. When you think you’re all alone in the world, there’s someone called God who won’t abandon you,” Koeru’s final words were spoken with a smile. “Farewell, Anjou, you damned demon!”

He stood at the edge of the world, driving two Tang-style broadswords into the ground, his hands resting on the handles as his body gradually turned into a skeleton. Snake-like little fish slithered out of his body, rapidly breaking him down, but he remained standing. Aside from Chisei and Chime, the brothers created through genetic engineering, Koeru was the last Osho in the world. In the first half of his life, he sat on a throne, a complete scoundrel. In the latter half, he lived insignificantly. But in his death, he stood like a true emperor, proud and unwavering.

The helicopter surged upward into the stormy sky. Chu Zihang checked the countdown on his watch. Swarms of Death Servitors gathered around the crane, coiling around the refined sulfur bomb’s warhead.

These once-noble hybrids, descendants of the ancient gods, had degenerated into mindless beasts. They couldn’t comprehend that this cigar-shaped device would write the final chapter of their once-glorious civilization. There would be no return to the human world for them.

The refined sulfur bomb exploded right on time. Unlike conventional bombs that erupt in towering flames, its fire mixed with heavy sulfur powder spread low over the artificial island, like a red tide clinging to the ground, rapidly engulfing everything.

At almost the same moment, the strongest Black Sun collapsed!

When Koeru’s life ended, the uncontrollable black sun collapsed into a powerful gravitational force, pulling everything toward it—whether it was dragon vipers, Death Servitors, seawater, or even the sulfur bomb’s fiery tide.

A massive storm, with the black sun at its center, whipped up ten-meter-high waves, circling the sun, and then rapidly contracted.

Anjou looked toward the collapsing black sun, and it felt like the sun was rising over the sea, casting shimmering light over the waters. He recalled the battle many years ago that destroyed Cassell Manor. Crawling out of the collapsed cellar amidst the morning smoke, he had seen no one. He walked for a long time before spotting Manecke Cassell standing in the fog, leaning on the Atlantean broadsword. Anjou ran toward him, only to realize upon getting closer that it was just a broken figure. The moment he touched Manecke, he crumbled into dust, and the Atlantean broadsword clattered to the ground with a clear, resonant sound that echoed through the morning mist of Hamburg.

History always repeats itself. Anjou closed his eyes, committing the final image of Koeru to memory: a bronze-colored skeleton standing waist-deep in the sea, bathed in the light of dawn.

“We’ve detected high-temperature reactions on the surface of Tokyo Bay!” Researcher Matour announced. “It’s the result of the sulfur bomb explosion! They’ve successfully detonated the bomb!”

In the computing hall of the Tokyo Meteorological Bureau, after a brief moment of silence, the technical staff of the Yamata no Orochi clan and the researchers from the Gear Department collectively stood up and applauded. Though they tried to act nonchalant, as if refined sulfur bombs were outdated technology for the Gear Department and exterminating a mere horde of Death Servitors was no big deal, the excitement on their faces betrayed them.

With just one refined sulfur bomb, they had saved Tokyo from the brink of destruction by the Death Servitors. It was a brilliant operation. To be fair, it had taken the entire Seventh Fleet’s Tomahawk missile barrage to stop the Death Servitors heading toward Atami.

“The explosion caused an ionization effect that’s disrupting radio signals. We can’t contact the principal for now!”

“Sonar scans are still ongoing. We don’t know yet how many Death Servitors survived the explosion, but it’s expected that the toxic fallout from the blast will render them all incapacitated.”

“The Inuyama clan has already deployed personnel at the highway exit connecting the artificial island and the harbor to intercept any surviving Death Servitors!”

Inside the hall, voices of reports and analysis echoed one after another. The vice principal, having lost interest, turned and went upstairs to the rooftop. The virtual girl, Eva, was still sitting in the rain, waiting for him.

“It looks like the principal will return alive,” the vice principal said as he sat down at the small table, scratching his head. “It’s a shame I won’t be promoted to principal anytime soon.”

The air was heavy with the smell of sulfur. The strong winds would carry the sulfur powder from the explosion back to land within ten minutes. Fortunately, for humans, this substance wasn’t particularly toxic, and the concentration of sulfur in the wind was negligible compared to the levels on the artificial island.

“The Watchman will reach Tokyo’s skies in 14 minutes. We’ll have a 12-second window to unleash the Divine Punishment. Otherwise, the satellite will pass Tokyo,” Eva said.

“All the other problems have been dealt with. Now it’s up to headmaster,” the vice principal said, looking toward the west, where the sky was tinged red with fire.

Series Navigation

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