Dragon Raja; Chapter 57: The City of Bronze (8)

Dragon Raja

His gaze pierced through the storm, falling on the distant mountains rising from the water. “Baidi City. I like that name.”

“Captain, is there really a City underwater?” Selma asked.

“There is a city—a city built more than two thousand years ago. Decades ago, it was still exposed to the air, but the construction of the Three Gorges Dam raised the water level, submerging most of the city, leaving only the Baidi Temple on the island. The man who built this city was named Gongsun Shu. Over two thousand years ago, he rebelled against the idealistic usurper Wang Mang and established his own state here. Some called him the ‘Baidi.’”

“The name reminds me of the White Emperor,” the third officer said.

“Not the White Emperor, but the Bronze and Fire King, also known as the Ash King—a noble first-generation dragon, one of the ‘Four Monarchs,’ named Norton. He was directly spawned by the Black Emperor, Nidhogg.”

“Self-spawning?” Selma asked. “So is the Black Emperor his… father or mother?”

“You obviously didn’t put much effort into the dragon genealogy class, but this introductory theory class is actually quite important. Not only do you have to master the dragon-slaying techniques, you also have to know the things behind the techniques.” Mance returned to the time when he was in high spirits in the classroom at Cassell Academy. The first-generation dragons are different. The ‘Four Monarchs’ weren’t born through male-female mating. They represent the four elements and were directly split from the Black Emperor. “To put it simply, the dragon princes are arranged according to the four elements, but the elements are expressed differently by Orientals and us. “In Chinese culture, the elements are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, while dragons only have four: earth, water, wind, and fire. This is the west in the ancient Chinese map, and Gongsun Shu believes that his luck comes from metal, and the color of metal is white, so he is called the ‘White Emperor’. In other words, the so-called ‘White Emperor’ actually means ‘King of Metal’ in Chinese.”

“Same as what the Bronze King meant?”

“Yes, Bronze King Norton was named after his unparalleled fire. He refined bronze from the depths of the earth and used it as a weapon.”

“So was that Chinese man, Gongsun Shu, actually a Dragon King?”

“No, it was someone hiding behind Gongsun Shu. Before Gongsun Shu declared himself emperor, he claimed to see a dragon rising from a well and lying in front of his residence. In Chinese history, it’s recorded as ‘the dragon appeared in front of the mansion,’ which Gongsun Shu saw as an auspicious omen,” Mance explained. “In ancient China, Sichuan was in the western part of the territory, and Gongsun Shu believed his fortune came from metal. Metal’s color is white, which is why he was called the ‘White Emperor.’ In reality, the so-called ‘White Emperor’ doesn’t mean the White Emperor; it means ‘King of Metal.’ Coincidentally, the Bronze and Fire King, Norton, had two wonders: unmatched flames and the ability to extract bronze from the depths of the earth to use as a weapon.”

“Why would this person… or rather, why would this dragon do these things? Building a city of bronze is an unimaginable undertaking!”

Mance spread his hands and took the cigar from his mouth. “We don’t know. If we want to understand what dragons are up to, we first have to figure out what dragons really are and what their relationship is to humans. It’s an academic puzzle—just analyzing dragon fossils won’t give us an answer. We might need to capture a living Dragon King to interrogate. And tonight is our chance!”

Ye Sheng glanced at the barometer reading. There was only about an hour of oxygen left. The water jet left a “well”-shaped vertical and horizontal pattern on the bronze wall, about 20 centimeters deep, but they could not penetrate the wall. This behemoth made people feel that it was a piece of pure solid metal. Ye Sheng felt that the “snake” he left inside the metal was getting more uneasy and swam much faster, as if it had sensed something.

A beam of light shot down from above as a figure swam toward them. Mance didn’t say a word; instead, he knocked on his helmet visor in greeting, releasing a stream of bubbles. He looked like a woman nine months pregnant, wearing a specially made diving suit with a rigid transparent compartment at the front. Inside it was a baby in an ultra-small diving suit. In the underwater environment that would terrify even adults, the baby miraculously remained quiet, slowly turning his head to look around, faint golden light flowing in his pupils.

“Evacuate the water cutting machine, Ye Sheng Yaji get ready, we are about to open the door.” Mans gave the order.

“Hey! The key!” Ye Sheng patted Mance’s belly to amuse the baby, “Professor, you look like a diving kangaroo.”

“And you’re like a fox sneaking over to steal my joey! Remember, two hours,” Mance held up two fingers, “Get ready, I’m opening the door.”

Four water cutting machines rose upwards, and Ye Sheng and Ya Ji floated behind Mans, each putting a hand on his shoulder. Mans crossed his hands in front of his chest and patted the hands of his most proud students vigorously.

Mance closed his eyes, placed his hand on the bronze wall, and chanted softly. The sound, somewhere between a song and a roar, resonated powerfully, echoing deep into Ye Sheng and Aki’s minds. Mance suddenly opened his eyes and did something that would make an ordinary diver’s heart stop in fear—he opened the visor of his pressurized diving suit at a depth of 150 meters underwater. The immense water pressure bore directly on his fragile human body, and every bubble in his blood raced to escape, threatening to burst his blood vessels!

Mance’s voice reverberated underwater, and in this moment, he completed his Yanling. “Word Spirit spell “

Yanling · Pure Land.

The water around Mans began to spin, and a transparent water shell rapidly expanded from his forehead. The water under high pressure was repelled by some force, forming a violently rotating vortex. The elegant oxygen leaked from Mans’ oxygen bottle filled the space in the bubble. The vortex spun around them at high speed, and they stood in the air! Aki’s feet were empty, and she lost the buoyancy of the water. The moment she fell, Ye Sheng grabbed her wrist and pulled out the alloy knife on his chest with his other hand and inserted it into the trace left by the water cutter.

“Damn it… I’ve never used this spiritual power underwater before. I was careless.” Mans had the same reaction as Ye Sheng.

At this moment, the violently swirling water surrounded them. In the spherical space with a diameter of several meters, the water was forcibly pushed away, as if the north wind blew across the surface of the bronze wall, and large pieces of copper rust were peeled off, leaving a smooth and dust-free metal surface with a blue-black gleam like oil. This time, the pattern on the wall was clearly revealed. It was a protruding human face with burning firewood in its mouth. It was a strange picture, with a face twisted and painful, but refusing to loosen its teeth that were tightly biting the firewood.

“Baby, the rest is up to you.” Mance hung onto the bronze wall with metal claws and carefully pulled the baby from the abdominal compartment of his diving suit.

Silence enveloped them, with only the “whooshing” of the high-speed swirling vortex. The baby with the golden eyes remained silent for a long time before standing up with effort, standing atop Mance’s hand. He looked to be only a few months old, sucking on a pacifier, dressed in a onesie adorned with various cow prints, and with only sparse hair on his head. But this child straightened his back and stood as solemnly as a priest. He stared at the face on the wall, slowly extending his pudgy hand and pointing a finger at the forehead of the face.

The bronze protrusion cut the infant’s delicate finger, and blood spread over the anguished face. For an instant, Aki saw the face contort, revealing a joyous expression. Ye Sheng reached out to catch the pacifier that fell from the baby’s mouth, and a deep, bell-like sound emerged from the baby’s lips, making the bronze wall resonate faintly.

The baby’s blood flowed into the mouth of the bronze face as if sucked in by a powerful force, yet the baby stood like a martyr, showing no sign of pain from blood loss. He bent slightly, as if to kiss the mouth of the bronze face. Mance held him back, forcibly preventing this eerie act, and wrapped the infant’s finger carefully with a bandage, layer upon layer, patting his cheek, “That’s enough, key, you did great.”

After absorbing the blood, the bronze face was silent for a moment before slowly opening its mouth, almost as if yawning. From deep within the bronze wall came a terrible sound of metal heating and cracking, and a dark hole, about a meter in diameter, appeared in the bronze wall, flanked by the bronze face’s teeth—not human teeth, but sharp as daggers.

“This is the entrance,” Ye Sheng said softly.

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