Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 66: The Requisitioned Bride (2)

Dragon Raja 4

“It’s almost laughable,” Anjou continued, shaking his head, “that all these years, it’s been the Dragon Kings themselves suppressing our ambitions. If they’re gone, we’ll steal their thrones and become the enemies of the world. I’m trying to prepare for a new order. Merging the Council of Elders with the School Board might help resolve our conflicts. It’s better for you to fight in the meeting room than outside it. A formally unified Secret Party might become the foundation for a new world order, rather than just a bunch of warring factions.”

The elders exchanged silent glances until Sigurd broke the silence. “So, Principal Anjou, what role do you want to play in this new world? The invisible emperor?”

Anjou’s phone rang. He excused himself and answered, “Lu Mingfei left the college without permission? That’s terrible; he should have requested leave… You can dock his credits—the Academic Committee can decide that, no need to involve me… Are you seriously asking me to call the police over a truant student? What? You’re saying he stole the dragon skeleton? You’d better have evidence before making such claims… Hmm, that does sound serious… Alright, I’ll return to the college immediately to handle it.”

He hung up the phone and shrugged. “There’s a situation at the college, and I need to head back. It’s as simple as that. If you’ve made up your minds, you can sign the document online via EVA at any time.”

Anjou stood up, gazing at the skyscrapers lining both sides of the river. “I love this mundane world. Anyone who threatens it is my enemy. As for the invisible emperor… you’ve known me for many years—I’ve always been a wanderer, haven’t I? The wanderer’s duty is to challenge the emperor when his ambition grows uncontrollable. At other times, the wanderer should roam the wilderness.”

A helicopter flew along the Chicago River, catching up to the boat. A knotted rope was lowered from the aircraft, and Anjou grabbed the rope, rising into the air.

He came lightly and left just as lightly—it really had only been enough time for a cup of coffee.

Sigurd watched the helicopter disappear into the distance. “I have to say, he’s the coolest of all of us. If I were a young woman, I’d pick him as my dance partner too.”

“But he got one thing wrong. History tells us that in the end, it’s always the king who hangs the wanderer on the gallows,” Beowulf said coldly.

A dark green Maserati sped down the highway toward O’Hare Airport, with Anjou himself at the wheel. He deftly changed lanes, accelerating like the wind.

The CC1000 subway line’s terminal was located at O’Hare Airport. Through that station, large quantities of supplies were transported to the campus in the Illinois mountains. At that moment, a special train dispatched just for him was en route to O’Hare.

“In theory, Abyssal Ruins shouldn’t be able to be breached. If the impossible really has happened, we should first investigate what turned the impossible into reality, rather than recklessly issuing an arrest warrant for Lu Mingfei… Alright, I do care about Lu Mingfei, but isn’t it a bit too unserious to ask me now if he’s my illegitimate child?… What? The vice principal said that? Please do me a favor and strangle him… I’m telling you again, don’t disclose this information to the public just yet—let me inspect the scene first…”

Wearing a Bluetooth headset, Anjou continued his phone call. The person on the other end was so flustered they were speaking incoherently, but Anjou calmly listened to Bach.

Up ahead, traffic had come to a halt, stretching for a kilometer, even blocking the emergency lane. Anjou gently tapped the brakes and began to slow down. A traffic jam on the Kennedy Expressway was no surprise—it was, after all, known as the busiest highway in the world. Loud honking came from behind, and Anjou glanced in the rearview mirror to see a container truck tailing him closely. Anjou turned the steering wheel to let it pass, but another large truck was speeding up from the other side, sandwiching the Maserati between them. The three vehicles were now moving side by side.

Anjou frowned slightly and prepared to accelerate, but a large construction vehicle moved in from the front, perfectly blocking his path and view.

Behind him, a water tanker truck approached. Its modified hose was at the front of the vehicle, and it sprayed a large amount of transparent liquid toward the Maserati.

The dashboard screen lit up, and EVA’s avatar appeared: “Principal, we’ve detected an assassination attempt targeting you.”

“Dear, could you send these warnings a bit earlier next time?” Anjou sighed. “Do I still have a chance to escape?”

“No need to retreat. Your car has been modified by the Gear Department to withstand close-range machine gun fire, and it’s equipped with weapons… I’m sorry, your machine guns and missiles have malfunctioned.”

The liquid solidified into a glue-like substance upon contact with air, sealing the doors and windows shut. Anjou used all his strength but couldn’t budge them, meaning the miniature missiles and machine guns mounted inside the car were also sealed off. He scratched his brow, realizing that his opponents knew both him and his car well. His Time Zero was an assassin-type Yanling that allowed him to move freely within his own temporal dimension. In open spaces, he could face off against dozens of hybrid warriors at once, but now, trapped inside his car, Time Zero was rendered useless.

“Our personnel stationed at O’Hare Airport have been deployed and will reach your location in seven minutes,” EVA said.

“I guess I’ll have to hope the car shell can hold out for seven minutes,” Anjou muttered as he inspected the folding knife on his wrist.

“The car shell has been reinforced with regenerative metal and can release high-voltage electricity and poison gas. In theory, it shouldn’t be penetrable.”

“Theoretically, Abyssal Ruins was unbreachable too, but here we are. These days, theories are about as reliable as a girl’s makeup,” Anjou quipped.

The two large trucks on either side began pressing against the Maserati. At the same time, the dump truck’s bed opened, revealing a series of gun barrels.

Gunfire erupted like thunder, bullets raining down on the windshield and side windows, and the car shell screeched under the pressure, metal deforming. Anjou turned the volume knob, and Bach’s piano music remained audible even amidst the gunfire. He stared coldly at the increasingly cracked windshield, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm.

Just as EVA predicted, the car shell, though twisted and deformed, withstood the pressure of the trucks, and the windshield didn’t shatter. Ironically, the glue-like substance that blocked Anjou’s escape also strengthened the glass.

“Rescue is expected in four minutes and thirty seconds. The assassins’ convoy is moving you away from the Kennedy Expressway,” EVA reported. “Satellite tracking remains active.”

“Run a simulation to figure out who’s behind this. I might as well give them a call.”

“I’ve run the simulation already, but, Principal, you have too many enemies, and there are plenty who could pull off this assassination attempt.”

“Am I really that disliked?” Anjou sighed.

“The car shell is nearing its deformation limit. The windshield is expected to collapse within 30 seconds. Rescue is expected in four minutes and ten seconds.”

“They’ll arrive just in time to clean up the scene,” Anjou said, rolling up his sleeves as a large folding knife slipped into his palm.

“Good luck, Principal.”

If the assassins thought they had Anjou in their grasp, they had seriously underestimated him and EVA. EVA had simulated countless assassination attempts on Anjou, and while this one had some novel elements, it was just a combination of a few known tactics. They believed they had trapped Anjou, but to kill him, they would have to open the car shell. The moment they did, Anjou would be free. Unless they surrounded him with gunfire in that first split second, even 0.1 seconds would be enough for him to escape to safety. Anjou counted down silently in his mind, but before he could finish, the shooting stopped. The four vehicles that had boxed in his Maserati suddenly pulled back, leaving the immobilized car in the middle of the road. Anjou’s expression shifted—this wasn’t part of his or EVA’s predictions. The attackers were clearly here to kill him, so why abandon the assault just as they were about to open the car?

The windows were covered in the gluey substance and riddled with bullet holes, so he couldn’t see outside, but he noticed the light dimming significantly. After a brief hesitation, he activated the car’s camera system. The Maserati had cameras on both the front and rear, and they hadn’t been covered by the adhesive. It was then that Anjou realized he was in the middle of a tunnel. The vehicles that had brought him here were now speeding away, while heavy dump trucks parked at both ends of the tunnel began unloading massive amounts of dirt onto the road. At this rate, they would completely seal the 1.5-kilometer tunnel in moments.

Anjou kicked the windshield and side windows with all his strength, but even though the glass was riddled with cracks, his efforts only knocked out small fingernail-sized shards. His strength wasn’t his greatest asset, after all. He pulled out his folding knife and struck the side window with the handle, but it didn’t work. Reluctantly, he tried using the blade, which embedded itself into the glass, but the window still didn’t shatter. The bulletproof glass had layers of high-polymer films that held the broken shards together in an unbreakable web. He attempted to restart the engine, which roared to life, but the wheels wouldn’t turn—the glue had seeped into the transmission system.