King and the Rebel Minister (II)

In her eyes, Lu Mingfei's performance today had been completely outside the plan. Almost none of the Academy insiders' evaluations of him had been true.

The one and only S-Rank in forty years, supposedly not even worthy of D-Rank... Who were they trying to fool?

Jormungandr looked down at the boy who normally carried an air of perpetual bad luck that he could never shake off.

He felt somewhat like one of the elder Kings, Norton, the King of Bronze and Fire. But Norton had never deigned to imitate Word Spirits of the Sky and Wind lineage. Even if he had yet to awaken, he should not have ended up in such a sorry state.

There really was some kind of problem within Cassell College. How could Norton have died to... a Storm Torpedo?

Without further hesitation, Jormungandr temporarily ignored Chu Zihang beside her. Her tail sent Chu Zihang, blade and all, flying backward, while her dark blue-black claws swung down vertically at Lu Mingfei, who had barely managed to raise both swords in defense.

The other Sovereign had come to provoke her. The fury in her heart was unleashed, blazing like a wildfire sweeping across the plains.

Deep down, there was also a faint hope born of the Abandoned Race... Another of her kind had delivered himself to her doorstep. Perhaps she would no longer need to devour Fenrir. Hadn't she infiltrated the Academy in the first place because she needed a Dragon Bone Cross?

She even hoped Lu Mingfei was the one among the Eight Great Kings whom she hated most. Then she could devour him with a clear conscience, without so much grief welling up inside her.

No matter what, today would be a battle between Kings.

Jormungandr suddenly let out a Sovereign's low roar, utterly exhilarated.

Her body was light and agile. Every scale and every part of her body was a flawless design, yet the force of her impact far surpassed that of most medium-caliber steel shells in the world.

Soft cracks came from all over his body, his bones creaking in rapid succession. Lu Mingfei felt as though all his internal organs were about to shift out of place.

So he stopped deliberately suppressing the medicine's effects within him... but his body did not change much. The active medicine infused with dragon-blood genes seemed too frightened to recover, buried deep inside his body and offering him almost no response.

It merely made him a little tougher and healed him a little faster. There was no qualitative change.

Could the medicine's effects have inherited their owner's personality too? They went wild when they shouldn't, then failed to come through when it mattered.

In less than three minutes, the two figures had crashed from the subway platform into the thick stone walls of the tunnel, smashing through several partition walls in succession. Iron claws and Original Sin clashed again and again. The skill of man and dragon were simply not on the same level.

Chu Zihang, in Second Blood Rage, tried several times to intervene in the battle. But Lu Mingfei and Jormungandr shifted the battlefield far too quickly. While trying to entangle them, he was sent flying twice.

Was this level of Blood Rage... still not enough? Closing his eyes, Chu Zihang gritted his teeth and activated Third Blood Rage.

"You are... One of your eyes cannot be fully disguised. It's your old problem. Now that you've let yourself go, are you not even going to bother pretending?" Jormungandr slowed her steps as she watched Lu Mingfei's burning left eye. Blood streamed all over her body, murky dragon blood running down her scales to pool at her feet.

"Are you still going to hide?" Jormungandr said softly. "I already know who you are."

"You understand the despair of the Abandoned Race too, don't you? All these years, I haven't had anyone I could truly talk to." Red fluid trailed from the corners of her eyes, but her gaze was astonishingly cold. "I'm very curious. When did you set your sights on my brother and me?"

"When did you decide to 'hunt' us?"

Most of it was her blood, but it did not matter. They were only minor flesh wounds.

In order to end this quickly, she had unleashed her Throne Might.

Besides Elemental Authority, each of the Four Great Sovereigns possessed the power of a corresponding throne, like the Alchemical Throne of Norton and Constantine, the King of Bronze and Fire.

In her state of explosive speed, her scales had spread apart. Dense Blood Sickles gathered together and flowed into the gaps between her scales, inflicting countless fine wounds on her.

The only wound that could truly be called an injury came when Lu Mingfei traded injury for injury and stabbed her in the abdomen with Lust. But she had adjusted in time, so the wound was not deep.

"Damn, damn! Junior sister, aren't you playing favorites? You didn't hit me with the same force you used on Chu Zihang, did you?" Lu Mingfei protested helplessly. If his recovery ability had not been so strong, he would not even have been able to stand by now.

The moment she saw my Forbidden Domain, why did this boss seem to stack a Bloodrage buff on herself?

So this was a First-Generation Species? Unlike Fenrir, who had been restrained and had weaknesses, Fenrir might possess strength far greater than Jormungandr's. Even in his incomplete state, even with Chu Zihang holding him back, he had still crushed me with that kind of pressure.

Fifteen shots of Evolution Potion were too few. Far, far too few.

Jormungandr continued to look at him coldly and let out a heavy sigh. "Upon the throne of the Abandoned Race, only Kings and Kings can embrace one another for warmth... Perhaps you would not understand this feeling."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Meeting Jormungandr's gaze head-on, Lu Mingfei straightened amid a heap of jagged rubble and set Wrath aside. That horse-chopping saber was far more powerful than Lust, but against an opponent as mobile as Xia Mi, there was simply no chance of landing a hit.

"That hurt, junior sister. I only kicked you twice... I need to correct you on something."

Blood flowing down from Lu Mingfei's forehead clouded his vision, making it blurry. Jormungandr's body seemed doubled before his eyes. He raised two fingers and pointed vaguely at his own forehead.

"First, I'm a viviparous mammal. I have a birth certificate issued by the national health authorities."

"Second, although I don't think it's realistic for us to hold a reptile family-recognition conference in the Nibelungen right now, could you leave out the word 'sisters'?"

"However you look at it, I'm male, you bastard?!" Lu Mingfei laughed in anger. After staggering once, he gripped his blade and walked toward Jormungandr.

Before encountering a Dragon King, he had harbored a faint fear that he would retreat. Yet after truly facing a Dragon King and witnessing power beyond compare, he was no longer quite so afraid.

From where he stood, he could already see Chu Zihang, whose body was undergoing further draconification, approaching Jormungandr from behind. He did not know how likely Chu Zihang's next move was to succeed, but for now, he would hold her off from the front for as long as he could.

"The playful warm-up is over."

Jormungandr turned her head slightly in impatience. Her dragon wings trembled as her feet left the ground, and she looked down at Lu Mingfei from above. "The little fellow you took a liking to has already lost the ability to keep fighting... Oh, no, that's not right. He's about to become a Deadpool. I'm badly wounded as well, so—"

"There's no need to keep showing yourself in this form and posture, is there?"

"Or is it that once you put on the iron mask, you become someone who looks down on everyone?"

Jormungandr's Golden Eyes burned ever more fiercely. Her dark blue-black scales rippled, and her facial bones gave off faint cracking sounds. Her face twisted with anger as she voiced her guess in an almost certain tone.

"Though I expected it beforehand, I never thought you would truly choose this moment to appear... Odin!"

Chu Zihang, who had just activated Third Blood Rage, felt his pupils shake violently.

Lu Mingfei: "???"