Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 30: Journey to the End of the World (30)

Dragon Raja 4

Their structures were quite similar, but the abandoned factory had only two rusty tracks, while the hatchery had dozens. The container used by Fenrir to nurture his body was actually the paint workshop at the end of the factory.

Next came the video footage shot by the exploration team as they ventured deeper into the factory. It hadn’t been long since, but as the technical team opened the factory doors, it felt like they were opening an ancient city that had been sealed for a thousand years.

Tall wormwood grew between the tracks and cracks in the stone, and white wildflowers bloomed among the wormwood. As the exploration team parted the vegetation and moved forward, they suddenly stopped, and the board members watching the video widened their eyes. A girl lay curled up on the coal slag, her porcelain-white body seemingly glowing against the dark coal. No one knew whether it was Xia Mi or Jörmungandr’s remains, nor did anyone know whether to be terrified or awed. She looked as though she might wake up from a long nap at any moment.

But when one of the explorers mustered the courage to touch her shoulder, the lifelike body suddenly collapsed into ashes, as if her sole purpose was to let people witness that poetic moment.

“That’s not Jömungandr’s skeleton!” Duchess Laurent exclaimed in shock, “dragon bones don’t decay with time!”

“Indeed, that was just Xia Mi’s body. We didn’t truly kill Jormungandr; she still has the potential to resurrect,”  Anjou said slowly.

“And Fenrir? Was Fenrir also merely faking his death?” Frost asked, “He wasn’t fully matured at the time, so there shouldn’t have been any cocoon left for incubation.”

Anjou gestured for Eva to continue the playback. After clearing away the tall grass, the team revealed tracks left by construction machinery, indicating that this was once a busy worksite.

“It seems someone discovered this place before we did,”  Anjou said. “It’s possible that Fenrir did leave behind a giant dragon skeleton, and moving it would have required heavy machinery.”

“A more plausible explanation is that someone figured out how to break through the Nibelungen. It didn’t fuse with reality for no reason,” a young female board member said sternly. “But who could break through a space constructed by a Dragon King?”

“Another matter of concern is that our excellent Commissioner Chu Zihang, one of the core participants in the EM. BJ-001 incident, is undergoing inexplicable changes in his body. We once thought that his unstable bloodline had become uncontrollable due to the activation of the Blood Rage technique, so we administered drugs to suppress his bloodline strength. But we’re gradually realizing that the drugs only alleviate his symptoms; we cannot stop the changes happening inside his body. It seems that he has been contaminated by the Dragon Queen’s genes…”

A full-body scan of Chu Zihang was projected above the conference table, showing his skeletal and nervous systems as well as his DNA model. The attendees looked on in fear because those structures no longer resembled those of a human. Some force was destroying Chu Zihang from within, but another force was rapidly rebuilding him. He had to endure pain, but this wasn’t necessarily a precursor to premature aging or death—it seemed more like a difficult rebirth.

“And what about the other core participant, Lu Mingfei?” the vice principal asked. “The kid seems lively and healthy these days, already getting over his failed crush.”

“Though an S-Rank student, no matter how thoroughly we examine his body, he appears to be completely human,” Professor Manstein, who was present, replied. “The contamination seems to have no effect on him at all.”

“We’ll recall Chu Zihang from the Execution Bureau under the guise of health reasons,”  Anjou said, his face impassive. “His mutation might be crucial to us.”

The video ended, and  Anjou had instructed Eva to attach it to the mission briefing sent to Caesar, seemingly hinting at something.

“It’s only now that I realize, among my friends, I might be the most ordinary one,” Caesar said softly.

“You command entire armies, there’s no need to compare yourself to others over something as trivial as bloodlines,” Parsi said courteously. “Besides, you still have Finger among your friends.”

The strange serpents climbed onto the ice, slithering and slowly approaching. Their long necks tangled with each other, and their scales rubbed together, creating a terrifying sound, like some kind of ancient ritual.

At first glance, they looked similar, but upon closer inspection, many differences in their body structures became apparent. Some had bloated bellies, others had bone crests formed by accumulated plates, some had four legs, while others had only hind legs… The genes of dragons could fuse with nearly all other creatures’ genes, forcibly catalyzing mutations, resulting in countless subspecies. These subspecies underwent natural selection, with the strong devouring the weak, and genes recombining repeatedly, eventually creating an entirely new ecosystem.

Dragon genes acted like super-engineers of evolution, constantly creating in madness and simultaneously destroying mercilessly.

Chu Zihang and the crew turned their heads in unison to look at the snowmobiles in the distance. Snowmobiles were not fast vehicles, and in the freezing environment, they required time to start and warm up. There was no time for a calm escape. Sasha and Chu Zihang stepped forward together, preparing to intercept the strange serpents and create a chance for their companions to retreat. The four assault rifles of the Warrior System raised their barrels once more. Sasha shook his arms, and blades popped out from under his forearms. Chu Zihang took a deep breath and casually swung his longsword, as if to cut through the cold wind, and the blade emitted a molten glow.

Sasha glanced at the scorching blade. “It’s an honor to fight alongside you, Mr. Magician.”

A wall of snow and wind stood between them and the serpents. Chu Zihang advanced into the wind. He burned away his diving suit with his “King’s Blaze,” and the black ashes scattered like a swarm of black butterflies, revealing his lean but muscular body. Sasha distanced himself from Chu Zihang, the two quickly defining their roles—one as the main attacker, the other as the fire support.

Chu Zihang raised his twin blades and struck them together overhead, swiftly expanding the domain of King’s Blaze. It was a spherical space with arcs of flowing flames on its surface. The scales of the serpents shimmered in the flickering firelight. Their breath carried sparks, ignited by methane gas that occasionally leaked from their bellies within the flame field, as if the violent power of the Bronze and Fire King was about to explode on the polar ice field.

The serpents encircled Chu Zihang, standing tall with bodies over ten meters long, thick as giant trees covered in scales. Dozens of serpent eyes stared down at him from above, and saliva from their mouths dripped onto the edges of the flame field, vaporizing into wisps of green smoke.

For a long time, there was silence, broken only by the roar of wind and snow. Sasha’s finger on the trigger seemed frozen, but he didn’t dare move an inch, afraid that any movement would break the fragile balance.

Suddenly, one of the serpents hissed, seeming ready to break the stalemate. But another serpent opened its mouth wide and bit its head, fangs piercing through its scales. Black and red blood mixed with translucent brain matter gushed out. The serpent quickly stopped struggling, and its body was casually thrown aside, as if it had never existed. The serpents regrouped, the standoff continuing on the verge of an outbreak.

Chu Zihang was startled, but then he understood—the serpents’ target was him, specifically the dragon bloodline within him, the genes they craved. In this strange evolutionary cycle, genes were like currency. The stronger the creature you devoured, the greater your chance to break through your own limits. A kind of game had formed between Chu Zihang and the serpents, all of them wanting to devour him. However, the serpent that devoured him first would then be seen as prey by the others. In this brutal feast, who would be the final predator? Chu Zihang already had a faint idea of the answer.

A drop of liquid dripped onto the burning edge of the blade, sending up a thin wisp of smoke. The high-temperature domain of Chu Zihang’s King’s Blaze had melted the surrounding snowflakes, and a misty drizzle constantly hovered in the space around him. Neither the rain nor the serpents’ saliva could touch Chu Zihang; they vaporized upon contact with the surface of the flame field. But now, a flaw appeared, and the elemental flow around him became agitated. The serpents seemed to sense this change. Dozens of heads spewed compressed methane gas, pressing down toward Chu Zihang’s head, while countless steel-blue bodies coiled around him.

In the next moment, a piercing dragon roar erupted from within the serpents, and they were blasted back by a powerful burst from the King’s Blaze, flames surging wildly through the gaps between them. This was the most basic and violent use of the King’s Blaze, its power comparable to a napalm bomb, though it still couldn’t completely destroy the serpents’ bodies. They writhed with their wounded bodies, closing in again, frantically vying to devour Chu Zihang or at least tear off a piece of him. Meanwhile, they also bit at each other, not allowing any other serpent to get ahead. It was a grotesque and frenzied feast, where the diners also devoured one another as they rushed toward the food. Sasha immediately pulled the trigger, focusing the firepower of four submachine guns. Brass casings flew into the air like popcorn. Chu Zihang whirled around, slashing with his twin blades—one blade named Kumogiri, the other Dōjigiri—sinking deeply into the serpents’ bodies. The fiery wind generated by the blades made the serpents fear him. Compared to the frenzied predators, the prey seemed even more savage. Black blood, like jets of ink, stained the snow and wind. Sasha’s barrage heavily wounded one of the serpents, which was too focused on attacking Chu Zihang to notice Sasha’s assault from behind.

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