Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 8: Last Grandson of the Emperor (4)

Dragon Raja 3

“Wait! I brought you a gift! Wouldn’t you want to see the gift before you shoot?” Bondarev took an envelope from inside his coat and slid it across the ice toward the doctor, showing that he had no intention of resisting.

The doctor tore open the envelope. Inside was a bank draft from a Swiss bank—for two hundred million dollars.

“A rare large check. What are you trying to buy with this?” the doctor asked.

“Not buy—just a gift,” Bondarev smiled. “We believe this gift will be useful to you. Your research has been ongoing for decades, consuming massive amounts of state funding each year, and it’s still unfinished, right? But now the Soviet Union is about to collapse. Your supporters have already fallen, which means you can no longer get funding to continue your research, nor can anyone protect your secrecy anymore.”

“It does sound like I’m facing quite a dilemma,” the doctor said.

“Why not cooperate with my family then? We understand politics, technology, and war. As long as the secret of this cave yields results, we are willing to invest in it. We can continue to support your project and share in the profits it brings. I’ve shown my sincerity and told you everything I know. Shouldn’t you now share the part I don’t know? And after that, you’ll still have time to shoot me.”

“You are very calm, Comrade Major. You think that presenting a two-hundred-million-dollar bank draft will prevent me from shooting, don’t you?” There was a hint of sarcasm in the doctor’s tone.

“There aren’t many people in the world who can turn down two hundred million dollars,” Bondarev smiled. “And killing me wouldn’t be the best choice. If I don’t return safely to Moscow, my family will know that something has happened to me, and they will never let you go. The secrets of Black Swan Bay will be revealed to the world.”

“Ten times,” the doctor tossed the bank draft back to Bondarev.

Bondarev was stunned. “What did you say?”

“Your family needs to increase the offer tenfold. I need three years and two billion dollars to complete this research. Then we will share the entire world.”

“That amount is beyond what I expected, even for my family. It won’t be easy to raise.”

The doctor gave a cold smile. “It seems you truly don’t know the secret of this cave. In comparison, two billion dollars is a trivial amount. The things here are priceless! Your family should be proud to invest even two billion dollars.”

“Everything has a price—weaponry, women, secrets, even souls,” Bondarev said.

“But who can put a price on God?” the doctor asked.

Hundreds of spotlights above suddenly lit up, illuminating the ice like a crystal stage. The sudden brightness made Bondarev squint.

“Open your eyes,” the doctor’s voice boomed like a bell, “the secret of this cave, the fallen angel, even God, lies beneath your feet!”

Bondarev slowly looked down. The ice beneath him was transparent and pure, allowing him to see all the way to the bottom of the cavern. He felt a dizzying sense of vertigo, as if he were standing at an unfathomable height. The world seemed empty, with only him and the colossal being encased in the ice staring at each other in silence.

He shivered slightly. “My God!”

A massive bluish-green skeleton lay in the ice. Its grandeur, antiquity, and majesty defied all description, yet it could be summed up with one word—“dragon.”

The shadow of dragons had appeared in myths across civilizations. Poets had exhausted their vocabulary trying to describe this mysterious creature, but its exact image had always been elusive. Sometimes it was portrayed as a fearsome lizard, sometimes as a multi-headed beast with wings, and others said it was a gigantic serpent with one leg. Yet Bondarev knew at first glance that this was a dragon—a real dragon. It was so powerful, so perfect, that every detail seemed crafted by the hand of God.

The skeleton was about sixty meters long, and even without its slender tailbone, its body still measured over thirty meters. The long tail and hindquarters were decayed down to the bone, but the entire front half, including the head, remained intact. This mysterious creature was massive, covered in scales, with spines along its spine, and its face full of sharp bone protrusions. Its pale eyes were still intact, glistening with the sheen of white marble. Bondarev had the eerie feeling that the dragon was looking directly at him.

It was a dead dragon, yet even in death, it retained the majesty of an emperor.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the doctor said softly.

Bondarev took a deep breath. “You’re right! It is priceless!”

“When the engineers opened the cave sealed by Rasputin, they didn’t see a fallen angel; they saw this magnificent creature. In the mythic age, they coexisted with humanity. Sometimes humans called them gods, sometimes demons,” the doctor said. “Rasputin used the term ‘fallen angels’ as a metaphor for dragons. In the Bible, the fallen angel Lucifer is depicted in the form of a dragon. Revelation describes how Lucifer, the fallen angel, rebelled against heaven and transformed into a red dragon, bringing one-third of the stars down with him. That one-third of the stars was one-third of the heavenly hosts, who took seven days and nights to cross the boundary between heaven and earth and collide with the ground.”

“To Rasputin, this might indeed have been the fallen angel,” Bondarev said. “He was a zealot who believed in his own doctrines.”

“But I must say that dragons have nothing to do with God. They were an ancient intelligent species, rulers of the world before humanity.”

“Humanity isn’t the only intelligent species?”

“Exactly. According to modern biology, we believe that all species on Earth evolved from a single origin, like branches growing from a tree. We call this tree the ‘tree of evolution.’ The tree of evolution has three main branches, known as three ‘domains’: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. Every known species belongs to one of these three domains. But dragons are an exception—they belong to none of the three.”

“So, there’s a fourth domain on the tree of evolution?” Bondarev asked.

“Precisely. There was once a mysterious evolutionary path—a fourth path of evolution. Along this path, a superior intelligent species evolved, more advanced than humanity and once the rulers of the world.”

“No wonder you call this project ‘Project δ.’ δ is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. It represents the fourth domain,” Bondarev said.

“Yes, the fourth domain—the dragon domain! To this day, the species of this domain are not extinct. There must still be living dragons in the world!”

“How can you be so sure?” Bondarev was astonished. “If there are still living dragons, how has humanity never captured one alive in thousands of years? Not even a fossil—except for this one.”

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