Lu Mingfei looked in surprise at the woman who had remained silent all this time. Her expression was complicated, and she did seem to care about the answer.
"You can't move forward if you're afraid. Just as smoke kills more people than flames, sometimes it isn't danger that brings death, but fear." After a moment's thought, Lu Mingfei shared his modest understanding of the mindset needed for battle.
The woman fell silent.
Lu Mingfei didn't mind whether she accepted his explanation. After all, she had never spent time in that nightmarish world. She couldn't understand the feeling of seeing nothing but despair ahead, wanting to end her own life, only to discover that even death had been locked away.
Professor Mans soon returned and helped Lu Mingfei put on his diving gear before donning his own.
His custom diving suit had a rigid, transparent pouch in front, containing a baby dressed in a tiny diving suit. Lu Mingfei put on an ordinary suit, and a signal cable connected the two of them so they could communicate underwater.
Standing in the storm, they felt buffeted by wind and rain, the fury of nature threatening to tear them apart. Yet the moment they entered the water, that vast underwater world swallowed every frenzied sound and sight, leaving them with an entirely different kind of awe-inspiring terror.
After entering the water, the two gradually swam deeper.
In the aft cabin, the woman's gaze was cold. "To be able to snuff out even fear... how frighteningly heartless."
There was no telling whom she had been reminded of.
It was quiet underwater. Apart from their breathing, there was only the sound of churning bubbles.
They soon approached the area where Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu were waiting. At last, the beams of four spotlights drove back some of the dim, murky green darkness.
An immense bronze wall towered directly before them, extending up, down, and to either side. It seemed boundless, infinitely vast. Lu Mingfei distinctly heard Professor Mans's breathing quicken.
Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu, who had been waiting there for some time, were also holding tightly to each other's hands.
Looking at them, Lu Mingfei briefly drifted into a daze.
He seemed to have seen a scene like this somewhere before, a very, very long time ago, amid the endless blizzards of the Consecrated Snowfield. There had been neither sky nor earth, only a cold that felt like the end of the world, where time itself had ceased to flow.
Yes, loneliness like that could only be eased by two people huddling around a fire for warmth.
"The signal cable." Mans's voice brought Lu Mingfei back. To him, this S-rank student seemed to have been frightened.
Lu Mingfei came to his senses and calmly handed Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu new signal cables. Once they were connected, Professor Mans also replaced their oxygen tanks.
Chapter 22: Opening the Door
After replacing Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu's equipment, Professor Mans gently kicked through the water and approached the bronze wall.
"Hold on to me," Professor Mans's voice sounded in their three headsets.
Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu moved forward and placed their hands on his shoulders. Lu Mingfei followed suit.
Professor Mans closed his eyes, pressed his hand against the bronze wall, and chanted softly. It sounded like both singing and roaring. The majestic sound came not only through their communications equipment, but also penetrated their metal helmets and the deep water itself, echoing in the depths of their minds.
Lu Mingfei stared intently at Professor Mans's back. He remembered those notes.
In the underground laboratory at Cassell College, that fierce-looking man had brought recordings of various Dragon Script chants and played them for Lu Mingfei one after another. Lu Mingfei had felt no resonance, but he had memorized every recording.
What Professor Mans was using now was one of them.
Word Spirit: Dust-Free Land.
Professor Mans opened his diving helmet at the same time.
Lu Mingfei could clearly sense the mixed air pouring from Professor Mans's oxygen tank, artificially formulated for prolonged human respiration, being drawn by a powerful force into a spinning current that pushed the water outward.
A bubble of air rapidly expanded around Professor Mans.
It was not simply a matter of directing the wind. Before the air even touched the water, something "empty" had already pushed it away-against dozens of tons of water pressure.
Lu Mingfei saw it clearly. As the boundary between that "emptiness" and the water-the shell of the enormous bubble-passed over his diving helmet, its irresistible repulsive force left not even a single drop clinging to the glass.
Yes, this was more than simple wind manipulation. Nor did it evoke the power of storms that Lu Mingfei knew so well. It was a deeper application of wind. High-density air spun, perfectly confined within a narrow domain, to produce an effect of "repulsion."
Within that domain, they stood on dry ground at the bottom of the water!
Professor Mans's Word Spirit also swept the mottled corrosion from the bronze wall, exposing the dark, greenish metal beneath. A huge, grotesque relief appeared before them: a twisted human face with a matchstick in its mouth.
Professor Mans carefully lifted the baby from the abdominal pouch of his diving suit. "Sweetheart, the rest is up to you."
Lu Mingfei watched the baby wobble upright, tiny feet planted on Professor Mans's hands. Then the presence emanating from the baby changed.
Had Lu Mingfei moved around to the front, he would have seen the baby's solemn expression and radiant Golden Eyes.
The little fellow straightened up and pressed a finger to the bronze sculpture's forehead. Blood welled from the fingertip and slowly flowed along the cracks in the bronze.
The bronze sculpture's face came alive. As the dark, greenish metal writhed, its painfully contorted features actually took on an expression of delighted surprise.
That made it look as though it were crying and laughing at once, hideous and terrifying.
The baby opened its mouth and chanted in a deep voice like the tolling of an enormous bell.
Lu Mingfei had never heard this passage of Dragon Script before. He silently committed it to memory.
Judging by the earlier references to the baby as a "key," it was probably some kind of Word Spirit for opening doors or finding paths.
A moment later, the bronze face's expression stopped changing.
Professor Mans gathered the baby back into his arms. "Key, that's enough. You did wonderfully."
Then the bronze face slowly opened its mouth as though yawning. Terrifying sounds of heated metal cracking came from deep within the bronze wall, and a pitch-black opening roughly a meter in diameter appeared in it. The bronze face's teeth lined its upper and lower edges. They were nothing like human teeth; every one was as sharp as a dagger.
"This is the entrance," Ye Sheng said quietly.
Lu Mingfei lightly hopped onto the edge of that "mouth," bent down to peer into the darkness, and prepared to jump.
"Junior!" Jude Jiqu hastily grabbed his arm.
Lu Mingfei turned back with a slightly puzzled look before realization dawned.
He wasn't fighting alone anymore. He had a team and a commander.
The baby, who had just returned to the suit's abdominal pouch, blinked clear eyes and sucked on a finger. Professor Mans, meanwhile, looked stern and distinctly displeased.
"Lu Mingfei, we're only here to deliver the 'key.' Ye Sheng and Jiqu are the operational team!" Mans said in a low voice.
He had no spare time or energy to reprimand this disobedient S-rank student. He immediately turned to Ye Sheng. "You have about two hours. This bronze face is a living-spirit guardian, created by housing a consciousness in pure material. Highly concentrated dragon blood will satisfy it temporarily, but it will eventually close the door."
He unfastened a black iron box secured to his diving suit's straps and handed it to Ye Sheng.
"It isn't time for the Dragon King Norton to awaken yet. Your objective is to find his egg, but if that proves impossible, destroy it outright. This is an alchemical device from the Equipment Department. It can destroy the egg. Get at least fifty meters away before detonating it."
"Understood." Ye Sheng gave him a thumbs-up.
Professor Mans turned to Lu Mingfei again, ready to order him to withdraw.
Once they were back aboard the boat, he would have to complain to the principal about this fellow who refused to follow orders.
"Ah-" Yet Jude Jiqu suddenly cried out.
All three saw it at the same time.
Lu Mingfei swung his sword in one clean, decisive motion. The alchemical sword's keen blade sliced neatly through the signal cable, exposing the copper wires inside.
The severed cable drooped limply. At the same time, the direct communication link between Lu Mingfei and Professor Mans went dead, leaving only the channel relayed through the boat's central control station.
"Lu Mingfei!" Professor Mans's anger carried a note of alarm. "Do you know what you're doing?"
Lu Mingfei calmly returned Red Skies to its sheath, a faintly apologetic look on his face.
This would cause Professor Mans, and even Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu, an enormous amount of trouble.
But only he knew that the Bronze and Fire King really was in there, and would most likely come to life. According to Lu Mingze, a "Dragon King" would be dangerous even for someone at his S-rank level. Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu would have a hard time completing their mission safely.
His source was Lu Mingze, so he couldn't explain it outright. He could only act first and explain afterward.
"Someone is inviting me inside," he said softly.
Hearing Lu Mingfei's answer, Professor Mans, Ye Sheng, and Jude Jiqu instantly felt a chill of horror crawl down their spines.
The underwater silence suddenly became unfathomable.
So the strangely reckless S-rank student hadn't gone mad or simply been defiant. When had he received the call? When the "key" opened the door and activated the living spirit? Or had something set its sights on him as soon as he entered the water?
While they had all been focused on the door, some conscious entity within that palace had contacted the S-rank student behind them. Formless and invisible, it had spoken directly to the Hybrid with the strongest bloodline.
Who was it? What did it want? Had it heard the plan Mans described?
Perhaps what lay inside the living spirit's pitch-black maw was not a Dragon King's egg waiting helplessly to be destroyed, but...
At that thought, all three felt cold all over.
Chapter 23: The Bronze City
Professor Mans was the field commander for this mission. Countless thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, including evacuating everyone.
But he immediately rejected that option.
Quite apart from whether the opening created by the earthquake was stable, or whether an ordinary underwater archaeological team might disrupt their operation at any moment, if there really was a Dragon King in the palace, and he had truly awakened and was communicating mentally with the S-rank student, then every minute they delayed entering meant another minute of danger.
Not only could they not cancel this operation, they had to destroy anything that might awaken or already had, no matter how great the risk.
That was what slaying dragons meant.
A commander was not merely someone who devised plans. When faced with a complex battlefield rife with unexpected developments, he also had to make decisions on the spot and take responsibility for them.
Professor Mans was just such an excellent commander. He quickly put aside all his shock and unease.
"Lu Mingfei, are you sure you heard an invitation?" His gaze was like a sword pointed straight at Lu Mingfei. "It wasn't an auditory hallucination? Were there specific words? Repeat them for us."
Sometimes people experienced auditory hallucinations for psychological reasons. Yet those were not real sounds, but something like the blurred images seen in dreams-vague thoughts in the subconscious. When a person heard a real sound, the auditory nerves transmitted it to the appropriate area of the cerebral cortex, where the hippocampus or other, as yet unexplored neural structures analyzed and stored it, forming information. During an auditory hallucination, a person received information directly from the subconscious. Moreover, the circumstances that triggered this phenomenon usually caused tension or intense emotional fluctuations, making the person even more likely to overlook details and mistakenly believe that the intervening process of "hearing" had actually occurred.
If asked to repeat what they had heard, they might be able to convey its meaning, but not reproduce the exact words. They would usually stumble and speak vaguely.
"If you keep going, you'll face him directly," Lu Mingfei said word by word, quoting part of Lu Mingze's cryptic remarks. "Professor, those were the exact words."
Mans had been watching his expression all along. Seeing no sign that he was struggling to think, nor any signs of lying such as a nervous gaze, twitching lips, or unconsciously flaring nostrils, he believed what the S-rank student had said.
His gaze moved away from Lu Mingfei and lowered to the bronze face's hideous features.
Soon, Lu Mingfei, Ye Sheng, and Jude Jiqu heard his calm voice through their headsets. "There is reason to suspect that a living entity capable of summoning Hybrids with powerful bloodlines exists within the Bronze and Fire King's palace. The plan is now changing. Lu Mingfei will join you, serving as our S-rank bloodline sensor. I will also report this to the principal immediately and call in additional firepower. Your mission objectives remain unchanged, with one addition: kill anything living you encounter on sight. You are authorized to withdraw if necessary."
"Understood," Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu immediately replied.
Lu Mingfei gave the Cassell College professor an approving glance and replied as well, "Understood."
"Good luck." Mans put on his helmet and withdrew the domain sustained by his Word Spirit. The water immediately compressed the air that had lost its support. The enormous bubble's smooth boundary abruptly contracted, violently crumpling like a ball of paper being squeezed. A second later, it rose and broke into countless bubbles of every size, disappearing into the dark water above their heads.
Lu Mingfei barely moved, while Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu were knocked askew by the sudden rush of water. They quickly steadied themselves, however.
Mans gave the three young people one final look, activated the water-pressure propulsion equipment on his back, and sped upward like a black fish until even the beam of his spotlight was swallowed by the darkness.