Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 102: Gate of the Nibelungen (6)

Dragon Raja 4

“We haven’t left Nibelungen yet, so we’re not completely safe,” Lu Mingfei said as he closed the sunroof.

“The way to escape Nibelungen is either to kill the one who created it or to figure out its rules.”

“We don’t know anything about the rules of this Nibelungen, and we certainly can’t kill Odin.”

At that moment, a faint light appeared ahead, and a sign flashed above: “1km to the highway exit. Please slow down.”

Through the rain, they could make out a quiet toll station. The wide, eight-lane road was empty, but one lane was lit with a green light, indicating it was open for passage.

Lu Mingfei almost jumped for joy, his head nearly hitting the roof. Could it be that this Maybach had a special pass to leave Nibelungen? After all, it had been a mysterious train that had taken him out of Nibelungen in the Beijing subway. Without a second thought, he steered the car toward the open lane, not even bothering to slow down. If there was a gate, he’d just smash through it. To his surprise, the gate lifted obediently, and the Maybach, shrouded in mist, raced off the overpass and into the city’s central business district (CBD).

Lu Mingfei glanced ahead at the cluster of buildings, and his heart sank.

The rain poured down in torrents, and the sky hung like an iron lid clamped tightly over the skyscrapers. The streets were empty, and the traffic lights changed monotonously.

Every building looked warped, like dominoes on the verge of toppling over. On the giant screens atop the buildings and even in the reflections of their glass walls, Odin’s figure loomed, bathed in the fiery glow of his divine circle. The majestic, eight-legged god-horse, the god standing amidst the storm, looked down on the city from every angle. Even the electronic billboards by the roadside showed Odin’s image—although the low resolution made him look somewhat cute.

They had underestimated this Nibelungen. Its scope went far beyond the overpass, and the toll station wasn’t its boundary. It was like a pet hamster that had escaped its glass cage, thinking it was free, only to realize that the space outside still belonged to its master. The master could pluck it up by its tail and toss it right back into the glass cage.

Lu Mingfei slammed on the brakes, and the Maybach skidded to a halt at the red light, creating a wall of water. This wasn’t according to traffic rules, but in Nibelungen, no one was there to care.

“The nature of this labyrinth is like that. No matter how far we drive, we can’t drive out of it,” Nono said softly. “You’re familiar with the roads here. Do you have any suggestions?”

“The terrain where I live is higher in the east and lower in the west. The east is mountains, and the west is the sea. Heading west won’t help us escape,” Lu Mingfei replied. “The only options left are south or north.”

Nono thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s try heading south.”

Lu Mingfei glanced at her. “What’s your reasoning?”

“South is my lucky direction.”

“Okay,” Lu Mingfei restarted the car.

“You’re not even going to question such a ridiculous answer? You just went with it?” This time, it was Nono’s turn to be surprised.

“Senior sister, a lot of your answers in the past were just as ridiculous, and I always said okay. I just complained about it first.”

The Maybach sped down the famous Xinghai Avenue in the CBD district. In every building’s glass facade, Odin’s figure stood tall, and as the Maybach passed, each figure slowly turned to look at them, their eyes cold and indifferent. Lu Mingfei floored the gas pedal, and the Maybach roared forward, but the cawing of ravens followed them, coming from nowhere.

This was a city that belonged to Odin. It was radiant, ethereal, and eerie. It even looked beautiful, but there was no escaping it.

They drove out of the CBD district, and the landscape on either side of the road turned into fields of blooming rapeseed flowers. The sound of flowing water reached their ears, and a meandering river ran parallel to the highway. This river separated the CBD district from the old town. Seeing the river gave Lu Mingfei a boost of energy. Nibelungen was a fictional space based on reality, but its directions—north, south, east, and west—were accurate. If they followed the river, there would be an iron bridge up ahead, and crossing that bridge would take them out of the city.

Nono had been fiddling with the radio the whole time. Suddenly, a distorted voice came through: “This is… traffic update… drive safely…”

Lu Mingfei was overjoyed. Information inside and outside Nibelungen was usually disconnected, but in the outer edges of this fictional space, they were picking up signals from the outside world.

Nono sighed with relief. “The lucky direction was nonsense. I was just leading you to find this river.”

Lu Mingfei nodded slightly, understanding her intention. A river always has a flow direction. If they followed it downstream, they would eventually reach the edge of this Nibelungen.

Nono’s loud, playful side and Chen Motong’s sharp, meticulous nature—no one knew which was the real her. After all these years, Lu Mingfei still didn’t know which version of her had always lingered in his mind.

In the darkness ahead, an iron bridge appeared—a massive arch bridge with countless steel cables holding up the road. Nono and Lu Mingfei exchanged a glance, and even the engine seemed to hum more cheerfully.

Just then, the sound of a bell rang out behind them. Lu Mingfei glanced back, and that single look shattered his good mood. From their position, they could still clearly see the tallest and most famous clock tower in the CBD district. Inside the glass facade of that tower, Odin’s figure stood as well. The tower was known for the large Roman-style clock on its roof, and at this moment, it was nearing midnight. The bell tolled loudly, and the second hand ticked toward 12. Odin’s figure inside the glass slowly began to move, raising his right arm as if pulling back a mighty bow, preparing to launch the deadly spear.

Lu Mingfei could guess that every Odin in the city was assuming this same position. Was that fabled spear, which never missed its mark, finally about to be unleashed? When aimed at him, it seemed more like a magical staff.

The iron bridge lay just ahead. At the Maybach’s speed, they would be out of the city in a matter of seconds. Lu Mingfei gritted his teeth and drove onto the bridge.

Behind them, Odin’s shadow made his move, the gesture light and casual, as if tossing a paper airplane. Nothing flew out of the glass facade, but Lu Mingfei could feel, somewhere in the distance, that Gungnir had truly been thrown from Odin’s hand, silently slicing through the sky like a bird lost in a rainy night. It was rapidly closing in, yet it was eerily silent.

The car’s headlights illuminated the end of the iron bridge, but the heavy weight of death pressed in from behind. Nono turned her head in terror, only to see an indistinct shadow racing down the highway parallel to the river they had just driven along. It brought with it lightning and storms, snuffing out the lights along the road as it passed, shattering the glass covers of street lamps with a rain of shards. Gungnir had arrived—this was the real spear, not the one that had drawn lightning flowers. It was the spear guided by fate, and perhaps even… the embodiment of death itself!

Gungnir shot up onto the iron bridge, and the steel cables holding the bridge began to vibrate like musical notes. The asphalt surface of the bridge was torn up by the spear’s sharpness. The storm was split into a vacuum, and some immense force seemed to be distorting space itself. The world looked warped through its path. Lu Mingfei stomped on the gas pedal, feeling like he had driven the accelerator straight into the engine. The Maybach roared as it sped off the bridge, past the city’s boundary marker, where giant red numbers read “0,” indicating that from here, the road’s distance would be reset.

They had finally escaped the city just before Gungnir could reach them. At that moment, the red “0” seared itself into Lu Mingfei’s mind like a brand.

Highway 0… Exit 0… A sudden, inexplicable fear exploded in his heart, and he found himself no longer wanting to move forward. Instead, he wanted to slam on the brakes.

Beyond the bridge, the highway should have continued as a broad road, but the Maybach suddenly plummeted downward as if they had driven off a cliff. In the midst of Nono and Lu Mingfei’s startled cries, the car slammed hard into a sloped road, sliding uncontrollably toward the abyss. Lu Mingfei fought to regain control of the vehicle, but water poured down the slope like a waterfall, and the wheels skidded helplessly. Through the windshield, both he and Nono stared wide-eyed in horror. Directly ahead of them was the massive fiery circle of light, and within it sat the imposing god on his eight-legged steed.

Ahead lay the very overpass they had desperately escaped from. The streetlights on either side were glowing. When they had driven on it earlier, they thought it was a straight road, but from this vantage point, it was clear that it wound like a ribbon through the mountains. But how had they ended up back here? With the power of the Ferrari and the Maybach, neither car should have been able to ascend the steep road, yet now they were plummeting down from the clouds.

“Penrose stairs! Penrose stairs!” Nono shouted.

Lu Mingfei suddenly understood. The roads in this twisted city formed a Penrose staircase. It was an impossibility—a structure where you could continue to climb or descend, yet always end up back where you started. Lu Mingfei’s hometown had mountains to the west and the sea to the east, with the terrain sloping downward. He distinctly remembered driving downhill after leaving the overpass, but the Penrose staircase had sent them back. The east and west ends had somehow connected, and the height difference had magically disappeared.

In the three-dimensional world, a Penrose staircase is a geometric paradox, but in a higher-dimensional world, it could exist… So Nibelungen was actually… a higher-dimensional space!

They realized it too late. Odin and his spirits hadn’t pursued them because it wasn’t necessary.

The structure of this Nibelungen might be completely different from what Lu Mingfei had imagined. It was a star-shaped radial maze, where all roads ultimately led to Odin’s feet. There were no real boundaries—it was an eternally repeating Penrose staircase, a revolving Möbius strip, a Klein bottle that couldn’t be filled even with all the rain in the world!

Series Navigation

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