Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 20: Journey to the End of the World (20)

Dragon Raja 4

“A bunch of charlatans,” Guderian dismissed. “Charlatans never accomplish anything significant. Chu Zihang will handle it.”

Schneider frowned slightly. Unlike Guderian, who was so rash, Schneider had indeed studied the theories or beliefs of the Twilight Dogma. It was nothing more than nonsense.

“The college has a clear stance on the Twilight Dogma, but that was before Chu Zihang sent me the passenger list from the Yamal,” EVA said. “I searched the list, and more than half of the passengers boarded with fake passports. I haven’t been able to determine the true identities corresponding to each fake passport yet, but I can confirm that 15 of the passengers belong to recorded hybrid families. Among these 15, 7 have boarded the Yamal multiple times to go to the North Pole, including the Henkel family.”

Guderian was stunned, and Schneider couldn’t help but crush his pen in his hand, spilling ink everywhere. The world of hybrids wasn’t limited to just the Secret Party, they were famous for being the most radical and resolute dragon-slayers, but there were other organizations with influence comparable to theirs. The Henkel family and their affiliates were one such group. In the underworld that knew the secrets of the dragon race, Henkel and Anjou were of equal standing. If the Henkel family had sent their own emissary, this matter was far from simple.

“Do you mean that it’s a ship full of hybrids, more than half of whom know some secret, and yet we know nothing? We sent Chu Zihang just to investigate Herzog.” Schneider’s eyes twitched slightly. “How is that possible? We have you, and our intelligence system is far superior to others. We have insiders in all major intelligence agencies, yet there’s an incident that has alarmed the underworld, and we’re completely unaware? Are we fools…?”

“Have we wasted our funds? Did we grow up eating dirt?” Professor Guderian added sternly. “This is impossible!”

“Guderian, shut up!” Schneider pressed his forehead. “Simulation! Immediately start the ‘Tianyan’ simulator! I need to calculate all possibilities.” Tianyan was a high-level simulator that allowed its user to analyze intelligence with remarkable efficiency and even predict future possibilities. Some said that if the holder of Tianyan were confined in an information-closed room, they could predict everything that would happen in the next few minutes. Although artificial intelligence doesn’t possess Yanling spells, EVA ran this simulator with her formidable computing power. However, such a simulator required immense energy and resources and was not frequently used by the college. Schneider clearly sensed an impending crisis.

“The Tianyan simulator’s analysis is complete. I cannot make effective predictions, but I have found a piece of intelligence with over 98% relevance to what is happening on the Yamal,” EVA said. “In the winter of 1943 to the spring of 1944, biologists monitored an outbreak of biological evolution in the North Sea region. An unprecedented red tide swept the coast, turning the seawater blood-red due to the appearance of a new cold and salt tolerant strain of red tide algae. Crustaceans and mollusks also over-reproduced, causing significant changes to the local marine ecosystem. In the following decades, we received multiple reports of giant creatures appearing, such as giant squid over 20 meters long and cases of oversized great white sharks attacking small boats.”

“The last known major biological explosion was in the Cambrian period, wasn’t it?” Schneider asked.

“Yes, although that explosion was not on the same scale as the Cambrian period, it was still a puzzling event for biologists. The current popular theory is that early humans, lacking experience in nuclear testing, directly dumped nuclear waste into the sea or buried it in coastal wastelands. Due to seawater infiltration, it flowed into the ocean, causing that ecological disaster. However, we all know that not only nuclear pollution can trigger biological super-evolution; dragon blood pollution can do it too. If a pollution source releases a large amount of dragon genes or high-level subspecies, it will alter the ecological environment of an area.”

“Subspecies,” Schneider said, “like the one in Greenland, right?”

“It’s possible. If we connect the series of events happening in the northern seas, there was a significant gene leak incident in the North Sea in 1943, but we never found the original explosion point,” EVA said. “We can hypothesize that there was a door at that explosion point, behind which were vast amounts of dragon genes.”

“The Gate to the Divine Kingdom? Are you suggesting that this door might actually exist? Did the theologians of the Twilight Dogma actually predict the truth?”

“There might be a theoretical basis behind the theology, but the storytellers have either forgotten or had no opportunity to touch the truth.”

Schneider pondered for a moment, then slowly stood up and tore apart the sheet of paper with only a few lines written: “Mobilize all forces and monitor the Arctic Ocean. We need to reestablish contact with Chu Zihang! Have all agents stay online 24 hours a day. War is about to begin again!”’

“I have adjusted the orbits of satellites PRN311 and PRN126 that passed over the Arctic Circle, but polar orbit satellites can only scan the Arctic Circle every 12 hours. I’m trying to deploy high-altitude reconnaissance planes to nearby areas, but this requires special channels,” EVA said. “Also, we noticed a Russian anti-submarine destroyer advanced 80 nautical miles into the Arctic Circle yesterday. We’re investigating the reasons for its unusual movements.”

“Can’t we send other icebreakers to the site?” Schneider frowned.

“There are only a few icebreakers with the same icebreaking capability as the Yamal, but they are all at the outer edge of the Arctic Ocean and won’t arrive in time,” EVA said. “The situation is sudden, and our response measures are limited. Fortunately, Chu Zihang is on that ship. We are only assisting from the outside; the key is his decisions and actions. He is beyond my logical scope, so I can’t speculate on him.”

“Mingfei could solve the problem on the ship!” Guderian interjected. “Why not send Mingfei in by parachute? Let him bring heavy weapons!”

EVA and Schneider exchanged a glance. The chairman of the teaching committee clearly still didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation and was eager to show off his foolishness.

“Before deploying other agents, we first need to locate that ship. Currently, the Yamal has disappeared from the globally used ship positioning system.”

A deafening crash came from the bow, and the moving ship stopped. Outside, Russian voices could be heard shouting.

Chu Zihang looked out the window. They had stopped beside an endless expanse of ice. In the distance, jagged icebergs could be seen. The crew was busy using huge iron hooks to secure the Yamal to the ice field.

In the Arctic Circle, only a few places like Greenland have land glaciers; the rest are floating ice. However, the deeper you go, the thicker the glaciers become. Initially, they could see cliffs formed by floating ice and solid ice, but now all they saw was a vast whiteness. The towering icebergs extended nearly a hundred meters below the sea surface. Originally, they planned to dock next to the ice shelf known as “Mary Glacier” and have crew members guide tourists for ice hiking. This massive floating ice had been stationary here for tens of thousands of years, like a land made of ice.

Chu Zihang followed the scattered tourists to the deck. The atmosphere on the ship was evidently tenser than yesterday. Even the uninformed tourists were uneasy due to the communication interruption and the accidental death of a passenger. What were the passengers who had bought “tickets” planning? Chu Zihang had no idea and couldn’t act blindly. In this situation, drawing his sword might be irreversible.

The crew had lit a bonfire on the ice field and set up a row of food trucks around it. They had actually moved the restaurant onto the ice, and lanterns were hung on the food trucks. In the biting cold wind, a small market appeared. Travelers could receive ten golden tokens from the captain. On the ice market, you could only spend these tokens to buy hot mulled wine, chestnut cakes, ice cream made from Arctic ice, and steaming tomato pasta, though the pasta would quickly freeze into a block after the first bite.

The tourists who went onto the ice field seemed to be only half of those from last night. They lingered around the bonfire or wandered off to whisper in the distance.

When Sasha handed the tokens to Chu Zihang, he lowered his voice: “A sniper is controlling the area.”

Chu Zihang nodded. The atmosphere on the ice field was both harmonious and tense, with an unidentified enemy secretly holding a knife.

Vincent knew his identity, and this news had likely leaked to others. In that case, everyone was speculating about his next move. He represented the position of Cassell College.

He walked across the ice field, brushing past everyone, observing their expressions, and trying to discern if they were ticket holders. Many people raised their glasses to him, perhaps showing hostility or praising him as the most fortunate person on the ship. This reminded Chu Zihang of the historical Caesar entering the Roman Senate, where everyone paid him attention, and half of them wanted to kill him.