Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 48: Journey to the End of the World (48)

Dragon Raja 4

Macallan drew the black crystal weapon from his waist and slowly approached the beast. It seemed he intended to completely kill and devour the creature, along with its millennia-old gene pool and its naturally nourished flesh. For a human-shaped being like Macallan, this seemed an impossible task, yet he had previously devoured the massive dragon bones left behind by Fenrir. His eyes and steps were weary. The previous violent outburst had completely drained him, and now he resembled an ant that had just defeated an elephant, struggling to reach its corpse to feast.

He stopped because a low voice called out from behind, “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

“Dear sister, your wit never ceases to thrill me,” Macallan sighed. “Every time I think you’re out of the game, you reveal yet another trump card.”

He slowly turned around. A silent figure stood in the distant snowstorm, clad in black-iron scales that faintly glowed with fire. The youthful, handsome face looked familiar, as did the agile and savage body, yet together, they formed something he did not recognize.

Should he still call him Chu Zihang? Or perhaps… the King of Earth and Mountains, Chu Zihang!

Macallan immediately grasped Jörmungandr’s trick. She did not need to fear the blood pact between them, as she dared to let a human inherit her Dragon Queen’s body. Whether this was a contingency after her defeat or a long-prepared backup plan remained unclear. The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Perhaps Jörmungandr had been watching his battle with “Nidhogg” all along, waiting to strike at his weakest moment. No one could fathom the mind of the imperial daughter, not Chu Zihang, not even her brother, and perhaps not even the imperial daughter herself, for she was the kind of actress who played her role not only for others but for herself as well.

“Haven’t we met somewhere before?” Chu Zihang asked again, his gaze fixed coldly yet intensely on the weapon in Macallan’s hand.

Macallan was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, back then, you were just a child.”

He had to answer Chu Zihang’s question seriously because the latter’s throne was equal to his own, and the dragon might emanating from him was just as strong.

Years ago, on that rainy night on Route 0, the eight-legged steed of Norse myth stood firm in the storm, bearing the ancient god draped in a blue cloak. That god, known as Odin in Norse mythology—the King of Poetry and Magic, the God of War and Death, the King of the Gods—had waited in the storm for Chu Zihang and his father, accompanied by a host of shadows, two powerful frost wolves, and two black ravens perched on his shoulders. He had asked Chu Zihang’s father for something, but they hadn’t reached an agreement.

That Odin was far less humorous than Macallan, but the weapon in Macallan’s hand was the spearhead of Odin’s spear, once hung from his saddle.

Chu Zihang had made a pact with Jörmungandr, who had shared her knowledge with him, enabling him to recognize that black weapon.

He didn’t care whether he was being used by Jörmungandr. Destiny had led him to his mortal enemy, and now he just needed a chance to draw his blade… though that kiss had indeed been wonderful.

The two of them stepped back simultaneously. Words had been exchanged, and there was no room for reconciliation between them.

Chu Zihang’s back split open, revealing wings formed from bones, slowly unfurling. A force field of fire elements expanded rapidly, countering Macallan’s domain. He reached toward his shoulder blades and pulled out two blood-stained, slender bones. They glowed like hellfire, curved like blades, with no hilts but golden inscriptions.

In his left hand was “Asa Arashi Yu-u: The Oblivion of Heaven and Demons”; in his right, Murasame, “Heaven and Earth are Unjust: Evil Shall Be Severed.”

This is his father’s sword, the complete form of those sacred blades, the embodiment of the fury drawn from the depths of his soul. He now stood where his father once stood, raising the sword toward the throne of the gods. Fate, after all, had not treated him poorly, granting him a grand conclusion to his long and lonely journey.

Macallan coughed lightly, blood seeping from the corners of his bird-beak mask and through its eye sockets. Though he appeared to have completely crushed the giant beast, the truth was that he hadn’t dared to hold back in front of it. After pushing himself to his limits, even the body of the Dragon King was on the verge of collapse.

He gazed at Chu Zihang, feeling as though fate had played a cruel joke on him. On that rainy night years ago, he had the chance to eradicate him, but for a special reason, he spared the boy and watched him drive away, lowering the spear in his hand. To him, the boy’s bloodline seemed ordinary, no threat at all. Even bearing Odin’s mark, he couldn’t keep pace with the eight-legged steed. Yet the boy was so stubborn, chasing the hoofprints of his horse for years with nothing but a wooden sword in hand, and now, he finally stood before him.

This game had taken him a thousand years to set up, advancing meticulously step by step. Yet at the final moment, an unexpected pawn blocked his path.

He glanced back at the corpse of the beast. “Do you know what that is?”

Chu Zihang nodded, “I have a rough idea.”

“That’s Nidhogg, the strongest known creature on the planet. To the people of this world, it is a god, the eternal ruler, the apex of the food chain,” Macallan said in a singsong voice. “Its body is a genetic treasure trove. Even a small amount of its blood can transform any organism. It was still in its embryonic state when it was killed, so it didn’t have time to transfer its core. It could grant you nearly limitless life, revealing to you the mysteries of everything from alchemy to quantum physics. It could make you a true king, not the false one you are now. You could stand shoulder to shoulder with me and Jörmungandr…”

Chu Zihang interrupted, “I don’t care about any of that. I only want to finish what I started.”

“What do you want to do? I can fulfill any wish you have,” Macallan said arrogantly.

“I’ve been searching for you for many years, just to kill you. Many times, I nearly died. If it weren’t for the fact that I still hadn’t killed you, I wouldn’t have made it this far.”

“Listen! I’m talking about sharing the future of this world with you! You can inherit Jörmungandr’s share!” Macallan’s voice grew cold.

“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t want to be a god or the ruler of the world,” Chu Zihang replied. “My only wish is to kill you.”

Macallan fell silent for a moment, then suddenly snapped, shedding his graceful façade and cursing, “Are you a damn broken record? Is your brain a binary calculator? You have no idea what you’re doing! I’m offering you the throne of the world! Your father’s life is meaningless compared to the throne! Don’t measure others by your pathetic human sense of right and wrong! We’re all just pieces on some chessboard! I spent a thousand years smashing the board, and now that I’m about to step off it, a little pawn is blocking my way, insisting on finishing the game! I’m offering you the most generous deal in the world, and you’re rejecting it, just because you want revenge… And you don’t even know what kind of person your father really was!”

His outburst was oddly comical, like a desperate human, or a boss frustrated with an impossible employee.

Chu Zihang nodded calmly. “I understand how you feel about being trapped on a chessboard. For years, I’ve felt like I was stuck on that same highway, driving the car, always searching for a way back. My dream was to go back and fight alongside my father, to die together so I wouldn’t feel guilty anymore. Only one of us is going to walk away from this. Whether I die in battle or kill you, I’ll leave this battlefield.”

He paused for a moment. “I’m not religious, but I have a friend who is, and he said something that stuck with me. He said that when people make mistakes, they should be punished. If someone cuts off a hand, their hand should be cut off. If they take a foot, their foot should be taken. If someone can make mistakes without being punished, then who will believe in God’s glory?”

Macallan stared, dumbfounded, at this young man, bold enough to preach to the Dragon King himself. After a moment, he lowered his head and rubbed his forehead. “How could my sister possibly fall for you?”

He didn’t waste any more words, regaining his elegance and arrogance, and whistled. A horse’s cry echoed across the sky and sea as the eight-legged steed, breathing thunder, emerged from the waves of the incubation pool, with a curved spear hanging on its back. Thousands of ravens appeared from nowhere, swirling above him in a black vortex. Macallan mounted his horse, spear in hand, transforming back into the fierce warrior of that rainy night. With a casual wave, he donned his iconic sky-blue cloak.

It wasn’t an illusion. The mortal world couldn’t affect an opponent of equal rank. He had truly transformed into the ancient god, Odin, before Chu Zihang’s eyes.

But if he could summon the Nine Infants, creatures nurtured in his consciousness, it was only natural that he could don his armor with a mere gesture. To him, the real and the imaginary were mere concepts.

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