Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 142: Desperados Have No Way Out (4)

Dragon Raja 4

“There’s no point in running. We won’t escape,” Lu Mingfei muttered, looking toward the blazing light of Odin, rain lashing his face. “Might as well face him.”

Lu Mingze had once hinted that the best strategy would be to provoke Odin into activating his Wild Hunt mode, bringing him out from behind his air barrier for a one-on-one duel. But tonight, Odin remained eerily quiet, no matter how many of his minions Lu Mingfei slaughtered. It seemed like, with Kunlungir’s mark planted on Nono, Odin had lost interest in him.

“That’s not how it works! You think it’s instant ramen? Just stir it up and it’s ready?” Finger grinned.

“There’s an air barrier in front of him. Bullets can’t get through, but I noticed it waver when there was an explosion. That means it can be broken.”

“Alright then! Hold on tight, we’re going in!” Finger spit on his hands and rubbed them together.

Lu Mingfei was stunned. “Whoa! You agreed way too easily! Don’t you care about your girlfriends in Cuba anymore? You’re pretty terrifying when you get serious, man!”

“Of course, I’ll help you. Why else would I take on the vice principal’s job? We’re both losers, aren’t we? Losers gotta stick together!” Finger gritted his cigar between his teeth. “I’ve fought the big battles, walked the deadly paths, and upheld my loyalty. I refuse to believe I won’t get the crown of justice someday!”

The firelight illuminated his face, giving him the aura of a lonely noble. Watching from the sunroof, Lu Mingfei was genuinely impressed. Both desperate men, but Finger carried it with more style.

The BGM needed an upgrade—a song to push through this final breath:

“Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses? You’ve been out riding fences for so long now. Oh, you stubborn fool…”

Eagles, 1973, “Desperado.”

Finger flicked a hidden switch beneath the dashboard. The interior lights shifted from sky blue to blood red, and the plastic ruby in the center of the steering wheel pulsed like a beating heart.

He yanked the handbrake, switched to manual mode, gently tapped the gas, and eased off the clutch. With a satisfying click, the clutch engaged, and Finger slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The BYD roared like it was ready to take flight, and two small wings even extended from the rear. It shot straight toward Odin, barrels of black machine guns protruding from beneath the headlights, spewing two feet of muzzle flame. On either side of the car, endless brass shells poured out. It was none other than a pair of M134 Minigun heavy machine guns!

Lu Mingfei muttered, What the hell? This relentless barrage… is this from our Gear Department?

Before he could finish the thought, two rockets streaked through the white smoke and exploded in the midst of the Einherjar, blowing a hole in their ranks. Inside the car, Finger wasn’t idle either; a box of grenades sat on his lap as he tossed them recklessly along the way. No wonder this little BYD could plow through hordes of Einherjar like the Maybach; this thing was undoubtedly a custom model from the Gear Department, or more specifically, a light armored vehicle made just for them.

Lu Mingfei was touched. Maybe the entire academy hadn’t abandoned him—at least the vice principal, Finger, and the lunatics from the Gear Department still had his back. But then again, on second thought, maybe not. Those lunatics in the Gear Department probably just wanted to use him as a test subject for their latest inventions.

Meanwhile, less than 100 kilometers away from Lu Mingfei’s city, a simple airstrip welcomed a sky-blue Gulfstream G700 with the Phoenix family crest painted on its tail. The young passengers stood at the runway, gazing at the strange black storm on the horizon. It bloomed like a massive black dahlia against the night sky.

Normally, a black storm against a black background would be invisible, but this one pulsed with white and violet lightning, and the rumbling thunder was constant. To those within the city, it was just another night of violent wind and rain. But from afar, the terrifying nature of the storm was apparent. The sky was clear with stars scattered across it, except above the city, where flashes of lightning and rolling thunder signaled a force beyond nature, shrouding the area.

“Is that a Hatchery Barrier?” Abbas wondered aloud. “Is a Dragon King awakening?”

These phenomena had appeared many times throughout history. When a Dragon King was about to awaken, it would often isolate its hatchery from the outside world using extreme weather to prevent interference. The Secret Party referred to this phenomenon as a Hatchery Barrier. The city might have already become a hatchery, with the lives within firmly grasped by the Dragon King.

Caesar glanced at Abbas. “So, it was right to bring you. Going to a hellhole like that, someone has to watch my back.”

“Are you sure it’s not just to have someone to die with you?” Abbas smirked.

At the end of the runway, a table was set with a silver ice bucket containing a bottle of aged champagne. The team receiving them, hired by the Gattuso family, had arrived three hours earlier to inspect the runway, roll out the red carpet, and prepare the champagne.

Caesar grabbed a short blade from beside the ice bucket as Abbas lifted the champagne out. With a single stroke, Caesar sliced off the neck of the bottle and poured two full glasses. By this time, the staff had loaded their luggage into a black SUV—two heavy black cases, each marked with the World Tree emblem.

After clinking glasses and downing the champagne, the two men boarded the SUV and headed straight toward the storm of black clouds and lightning on the horizon.

Lu Mingfei stared at Odin’s blazing figure, his pupils reflecting the fierce flames. He shrugged off his coat, letting it blow away in the wind, revealing the black-sheathed long sword strapped to his back.

It was the divine blade Murasame, inscribed with “Morning Mist, Evening Rain, Heaven’s Chaos Destroyed.” Finger had tossed it to him from the car. Lu Mingfei was overflowing with inspiration—this guy was full of secrets. Finger had come from the highway, passing by the Maybach, and had pulled the sword from there.

In the α timeline, Chu Zihang had retrieved it from Nibelungen, keeping it by his side until it broke during his battle with the King of Earth and Mountains. In the β timeline, where Chu Zihang died in Nibelungen, no one inherited it, leaving it to lie quietly in the car door, waiting like Sleeping Beauty for someone to awaken it. Lu Mingfei slowly drew the sword. Its curve was as graceful as a freshly drawn eyebrow, and the mirrored blade reflected layer upon layer of firelight.

The ravens that had been circling above Odin’s head descended, spiraling around him and the eight-legged horse, screeching loudly. They seemed to sense that these men were truly determined and capable of killing a god. The ravens prepared to defend the throne with their bodies. Sure enough, they flew toward the BYD, dense and fast, like a swarm of black boomerangs. Even ordinary ravens at such speed could cause severe injury, let alone these, whose bones were as tough as those of the Death Servitors.

While Lu Mingfei was still wondering how to handle the deadly raven swarm, Finger smashed through the sunroof and leaped onto the roof, holding what appeared to be a long gun. But the gun had a black rubber tube attached to it—it was a flamethrower! Finger shielded Lu Mingfei, spraying a brilliant stream of fire at the raven swarm. He wielded the flamethrower like a long spear of flames, stirring it among the ravens, the air filled with the pungent scent of burning feathers.

“You even brought a flamethrower? How much insider info do you know?” Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded.

A flamethrower was practically the perfect weapon for the current situation, but it required a heavy fuel pack and was not a conventional weapon. Finger wasn’t a Doraemon with an infinite pocket of gadgets. The most likely explanation was that he had anticipated facing a raven swarm. Lu Mingfei had fought in this battlefield over a hundred times, and even he didn’t know the ravens could be used as weapons beyond their role as messengers.

“Insider info? This is just my cigarette lighter,” Finger said, lighting a cigar with the lingering flame from the gun barrel. “Want one?”

“Your car is even self-driving?” Lu Mingfei knew Finger wouldn’t tell the truth, so he figured he’d save the interrogation for later if they made it out alive.

“No, no. I’ve upgraded to a lady chauffeur service!”

Lu Mingfei glanced inside the car. On the dashboard screen, a glowing blue girl waved at him, her large eyes filled with indecipherable symbols.

Lu Mingfei waved back at her. No wonder they hadn’t triggered any Sky Eye alarms along the way—Sky Eye had been too busy driving for them. That supposedly hijacked business jet? Probably arranged by Sky Eye as well, which explained why the flight attendant had been so calm, gentle, and accommodating, offering them juice and asking if they needed anything.

“Self-destruct mode activated. Countdown begins: 20, 19, 18…” EVA announced.

The BYD had already circled Odin a few times. Now it calibrated its direction automatically, aligning like a red arrow aimed directly at him.

“Has the Gear Department ever made something that doesn’t explode?” Lu Mingfei asked Finger. “How big is the blast radius?”

“Refined sulfur and napalm core. Nominal kill radius: 10 meters. But that’s just nominal. With Gear Department bombs, who knows?” Finger patted Lu Mingfei’s shoulder. “Good luck, junior brother!”

He jumped out of the car, rolled upon landing, and stood up to wield the flamethrower, clearing a path through the approaching Death Servitors with a stream of fire.

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