"Fūma Kotarō," he said.
Fūma Kotarō trembled all over, his heart racing. He felt the oppressive dragon might bearing down on him and instinctively answered, "Here!"
"Test the DNA remaining in these bones." Lu Mingfei stopped what he was doing. "Then take me to see Tachibana Masamune."
Fūma Kotarō let out a long breath, believing that Lu Mingfei had made a concession. Right now, the damage to the building, the monster's corpse, and even arranging a meeting between Lu Mingfei and the patriarch were all less important than Uesugi Erii's physical condition. Fūma Kotarō was one of the few senior officers who knew the truth. The underworld princess most people saw was, in his eyes, a monster capable of losing control and destroying Tokyo.
Yet Lu Mingfei did not hand Uesugi Erii over as Fūma Kotarō had expected. Instead, he turned around and cupped her hands, seemingly saying something.
Before the frowning Fūma Kotarō could work out what Lu Mingfei was doing, his eyes widened. A little crystalline tree radiating golden light grew from Erii's palm. The ξ Layer's lighting system had been completely destroyed, and there could not possibly be any projection equipment there. He could not imagine what means could produce such an effect. A Word Spirit? Supposedly, the Secret Party had an enhancement surgery code-named the "Nibelungen Project" that could give hybrids two Word Spirits. But Kaguya-hime's analytical model already suspected Lu Mingfei of possessing multiple Word Spirits, including Time Zero, Wrath of Indra, Eye of the Wind King, and King's Flame. Could this be a new, unrecorded Word Spirit he had mastered?
What happened next truly left Fūma Kotarō dumbfounded. As the golden radiance enveloped Uesugi Erii, color rapidly returned to her face. Her Golden Eyes, whose pupils had turned into vertical slits, returned to normal,