Nibelungen (I)

"Odin?"

Luo Qiusheng breathed the three words softly. There was not the slightest room for negotiation in his eyes. The densely packed Dead Servants closing in gave him no chance to converse with the towering figure clad in dark silver armor.

Rain poured in torrents. Cold water mingled with the black-red blood on the road and streamed wildly across the pavement. The Dead Servants crowded together, their limbs twisted and their flesh rotting. Hoarse, muddled growls rattled in their throats. Like starving demons crawling out of hell, they bared their drooling fangs and lunged at him, one after another. The stench of blood mingled with the reek of decaying dragon blood and hit him full in the face, constricting his chest.

He never stopped moving. His supple back twisted as he slid sideways and sprang into the air, each dodge narrowly skimming the Dead Servants' sharp claws. Their pointed nails tore his sleeves, leaving deep gashes in the fabric. He escaped each attack by a hair's breadth; the slightest hesitation would have left him torn apart by the monsters.

His gaze swept quickly over the familiar black Maybach beside him. The two empty compartments in the passenger-side glove box weighed heavily on his mind.

He knew those two slots all too well. They had once been used to store Chu Tianjiao's Murasame Divine Blade. Now it was in Chu Zihang's hands.

There wasn't even a decent alchemical dagger within reach. Luo Qiusheng darted among the nearby vehicles, searching. Rain blurred his vision, and only when he reached the red Ferrari parked nearby did he find an extended Barrett heavy sniper rifle in a hidden compartment in the trunk. The weight of the weapon dragged his arm down slightly. Its loaded magazine was heavy, too, but he couldn't tell whether the bullets were coated in alchemical plating.

Luo Qiusheng twisted away from the Dead Servants closing in from three sides. His wings folded briefly to steady him. Taking advantage of the momentary recoil after their lunge, he brought the Barrett up and aimed straight at Odin's face in the distant rain.

Bang—!

The deafening gunshot erupted. The tremendous recoil numbed his shoulder, and a piercing ring instantly flooded his ears, drowning out the Dead Servants' ceaseless cries, roars, and faint murmurs. The world was left with nothing but a lingering buzz.

Thick gray-white smoke billowed from the muzzle, but the cold rain washed most of it away in an instant. Rain lashed Luo Qiusheng's cheek and dripped from his jaw. He stared at Odin beyond the smoke, thinking that the heavy sniper rifle used to shoot Old Tang—Norton—in the Three Gorges Reservoir and pierce a First Generation's body must have been the same kind.

If the chamber held specially made alchemical armor-piercing rounds, perhaps they really could pierce Odin's outer armor and badly wound his true body.

But reality showed him no mercy, delivering a hard blow.

The instant the bullet tore through the rain and raced away, Odin shifted. His dodge was even faster than the high-velocity round. His black cloak left a streaking blur in the rain, and he evaded the lethal shot with ease.

The giant had remained silent throughout, making not a sound. Only his helmeted head turned slightly as he slowly raised his iconic spear—Gungnir. Its icy point fixed firmly on Luo Qiusheng, and an inescapable pressure of fate crashed over him, as if the spear would pierce his soul the very next instant.

The Dead Servants surged in from behind, one after another, sealing off every escape route. Claws, fangs, and rotting bodies drove Luo Qiusheng into a dead end with nowhere to run.

Luo Qiusheng looked up and fixed his gaze on Odin in the distance, poised and gripping Gungnir. A faint crackle of splitting bone sounded from his back as two enormous dark-red wings burst through his outerwear and spread into the torrential rain. Pale golden patterns from Constantine's dragon bones shimmered along their wing bones.

From the distant, empty depths of the highway came the dull, heavy sound of hoofbeats, growing clearer with every thud, each one pounding at the heart. Driven by Odin's power, the Dead Servants attacked with ever greater frenzy, charging and clawing without regard for their own lives. They came endlessly, as though this Nibelungen could give birth to an infinite number of these twisted monsters.

By any measure, this was a certain-death situation.

"Wrath descends from heaven, hideous and fierce?" Several lines from the original story inexplicably surfaced in Luo Qiusheng's mind. His lips twisted in a bitter smile, and he murmured, "A desperate man has nowhere left to run."

He knew he wasn't as lucky as Lu Mingfei. He had no Little Devil called Lu Mingze behind him, controlling the laws of exchange. He had no cheat like "Something for nothing," trading a quarter of his life for power, and no hidden bloodline of the Vinster King to fall back on. He couldn't repeatedly overdraw his soul, learn from each failed attempt, and start over.

Gungnir, the World Tree, fate's lock... Just those three things foretold what awaited anyone targeted by the spear. Once it was thrown, there would be no surviving.

Thoughts raced through his mind as the threat of death clutched his heart. Luo Qiusheng forced himself to stay calm, his gaze fixed on the black Maybach nearby.

It was the only vehicle in the entire Nibelungen capable of breaking through this illusion and returning to reality.

But would Odin let him escape? The answer was obvious: absolutely not. That path had been sealed off from the very beginning.

"Take out the mooks first, then the boss!"

Luo Qiusheng suppressed his panic and called on the two powers within him to drive his wings. The enormous blades swept out, their sharp bones slicing easily through the Dead Servants' rotting bodies. Great sprays of foul blood and flesh burst into the air.

But as soon as one wave was killed, another batch of Dead Servants crawled out of the rain and fog, endless, as if they could never be killed.

Fortunately, Constantine's dragon bones, fused into his body, had brought the Douluo World's Soul Power into this Nibelungen illusion as well. The two forces intertwined and flowed without end, replenishing the energy his wings consumed.

With every slash, his wings became giant guillotines of flowing flame, fierce and razor-sharp. Any Dead Servant caught by their edges was ripped apart on the spot, its severed limbs falling into the standing water.

As Soul Power continued to pour through them, these Soul Bones, born from a First Generation's blood and bones, grew stronger. A warm force coursed from his spine through his limbs and organs. A Skill hidden deep within the Soul Bones abruptly surfaced in his mind, though he couldn't tell whether it was a power innate to the Dragon Tribe's dragon bones or a unique Soul Skill belonging to the Douluo Soul Bones.

But Luo Qiusheng had no time to investigate. If he hesitated much longer, Gungnir would come hurtling through the air, and he would have no room left to maneuver.

[Spirit Word: Candle Dragon.]

The silent incantation sounded in his mind. Luo Qiusheng's pupils suddenly blazed with dazzling golden light. The pure radiance of his Golden Pupil pierced the rain and fog, while a vast, searing fire power surged out of him. It was the supreme power of the King of Bronze and Fire's lineage, drawn from the flame source of the First Generation Constantine.

He raised a hand and gave a slight wave. A tuft of scarlet flame rose from his palm, and fine tongues of fire quickly spread outward, slowly devouring the surrounding Dead Servants. Wherever the flames touched, their rotting bodies instantly carbonized and burned to ash. A pungent, charred stench filled the air.

The flames' temperature continued climbing sharply without limit. Centered on Luo Qiusheng, a blazing barrier of fire took shape from thin air, shutting out the cold rain. Raindrops evaporated the instant they neared it, turning into a vast white mist.

Every time he lifted his hand and swept it out, a surging sea of fire rolled forward, consuming swaths of Dead Servants. They were swallowed by the flames before they could even scream. The monstrous tide that had just been bearing down on him collapsed in an instant.

The moment the Candle Dragon's flames spread, the roles of hunter and prey were completely reversed.

Just then, a streak of cold black light cut through the rain. Odin finally opened his hand and hurled Gungnir straight at him, the spear wrapped in the pressure of a destiny that could lock onto anything!

Luo Qiusheng's pupils tightened. His deep gaze remained fixed on the spear racing toward him as he silently prayed, staking his entire life on the bet that the Gungnir in Odin's hand was not the genuine article, forged from a branch of the World Tree!

The genuine Gungnir was rooted in the world's source and bore the laws of fate. Even every Spirit Word in the world combined couldn't damage it in the slightest. But the spear before him was only an imitation projected through Odin's power, made from high-grade alchemical metal and lacking the World Tree's source power.

The King of Bronze and Fire was a First Generation, and the Candle Dragon was the pinnacle of fire-based world-destroying Spirit Words. With the complete flame powers of two Dragon Kings within it, burning an imitation was well within its reach!

The surging sea of fire swept forward of its own accord, wrapping Gungnir in layer upon layer of flame. The spear's alchemical metal surface quickly glowed red under the extreme heat, softening and cracking. The fierce light of its point gradually dimmed.

Watching Gungnir slowly swallowed and dissolved by the Candle Dragon's flames, Luo Qiusheng's tense shoulders suddenly relaxed. A smile of relief rose from the bottom of his heart.

The torrential rain continued to scour the highway, but the sea of fire all around him showed no sign of dying. In his Golden Pupil, not a trace remained of the fear that had gripped him on the brink of death.