Lu Mingze summoned a vast, flat fragment of the Bronze City and stood on it with Lu Mingfei.
"Brother." Lu Mingze's voice was drowned out by the water, but Lu Mingfei's hearing picked it up clearly.
Instinct told Lu Mingfei that what he was about to say was no ordinary remark.
Lu Mingze suddenly stepped close beside Lu Mingfei and raised the hand holding the umbrella. It was just large enough to shelter both brothers.
Rain broke through the domain and crashed down. In an instant, sheets of rain obscured everything beyond the umbrella, and thousands of droplets hammered its black canopy in an unbroken rattle.
Lu Mingze gazed at the downpour and spoke quietly. "I'm leaving. I won't be around for a while. I don't think you need me worrying about you anymore, brother."
Lu Mingfei waited silently for him to continue.
"But if one day you really are about to die, don't just grit your teeth and hold on, brother... try calling out to something for help, whatever might answer you," Lu Mingze said softly.
Lu Mingfei nodded, accepting this would-be ally's concern.
"Also, remember that 3E Exam?" Lu Mingze continued. "I don't know what it was, but something really did follow you here from the depths of your spiritual vision."
Lu Mingfei's pupils contracted sharply. He turned to look at him, but Lu Mingze had already vanished, leaving only his voice behind.
Lu Mingfei reached out and caught the black umbrella's handle. Half the space beneath it was now empty.
"Water is the medium. Head upward."
Lu Mingze's voice drifted from somewhere far off in the rain, as though he had not vanished abruptly but had simply walked out from under the umbrella and into the boundless downpour.
Lu Mingfei called for Lu Mingze several times. Once he was sure there would be no answer, he flew toward the "sky" with Norton.
In theory, raindrops formed among the clouds, so the rain had to have an upper boundary. Yet Lu Mingfei traveled for a long time without reaching any rain clouds. The rain merely grew denser, until the drops were almost joined together.
Suddenly, a faint ringing sounded.
Lu Mingfei searched and discovered its source on Old Tang-the clothes Lu Mingze had left behind.
He took a phone out of them. It was the one Angers had given him, destroyed during his battle with Norton, yet now it was as good as new. The illuminated screen displayed the caller: "Freshman, Zero," the lone entry in the contact group labeled "Three."
The Russian girl was now somewhere near the boundary between reality and the Nibelungen, calling him. Lu Mingfei answered, but no voice came through, only a piercing hiss of static.
He was not disappointed. He began carefully sensing the elements around him and, sure enough, discovered the Nibelungen's "door" a short distance away.
He rushed toward it with Norton. For an instant, it felt as if an invisible membrane of wind had brushed across his body.
Gravity and the surrounding sounds changed abruptly. On the other side of the door lay the bottom of the Three Gorges Reservoir. In the gloom, a single bright searchlight shone down from above, illuminating the murky green water in its path. The beam disappeared into the darkness below, and Lu Mingfei was right inside it.
His gaze pierced the light, revealing the diver carrying the searchlight-a petite girl.
Word Spirit: Dust-Free Land.
The water around Lu Mingfei retreated, creating an enormous cavity.
Zero descended farther and entered the domain.
At that moment, the phone in Lu Mingfei's hand also picked up a signal.
"The hook." The girl's voice was soft and calm.
Lu Mingfei took the hook and fastened it to Old Tang's bronze cage, then gripped one of the bars and hung from it.
He reversed the dragon transformation covering his body and used some of the bronze to cast an armored skirt that would preserve his modesty.
"Take us up," Lu Mingfei said over the phone.
The girl seemed utterly unconcerned about whether Lu Mingfei was wearing any protective equipment. She spoke softly over another communications channel. "Take us up."
A tremendous force pulled on the cable, hauling the two of them and the bronze cage rapidly upward.
When they reached the surface, it was night. Helicopter rotors thundered above the river, and the other end of the cable was secured to a winch aboard the aircraft.
Lu Mingfei remembered that it had been around nine in the evening when he and Norton entered the Nibelungen in the United States. He certainly had not spent a full day in the Bronze City. By all rights, it should have been noon or afternoon at the Three Gorges.
"Zero, how long was I missing?" Lu Mingfei asked as they hung in midair.
"Three days."
Chapter 68: Three Assistants
Heavy rain fell over the river, severely limiting visibility, yet the enormous helicopter held steady in the wind and rain.
It was an AC313 large multipurpose helicopter, also known as the Z-8F 100, a conventional single-main-rotor helicopter with a tail rotor and side-by-side pilot seats. Most of its fuselage was painted white, with a red nose and sky-blue wing-shaped markings along both sides.
This helicopter was a derivative of a Z-8 derivative. Like most transitional Chinese equipment, it had undergone so many modifications that it shared little beyond its appearance with the original model. It featured a composite spherical flexible rotor system, full-authority digital engine control, extensive composite structures, and integrated avionics, as well as three turboshaft engines. Its maximum takeoff weight was 13.8 tonnes and its maximum range 900 kilometers. It could carry 27 passengers or transport 15 casualties in a single trip.
This was a copy of a prototype. The model was not due to make its public test flight until early next year, but since it was primarily a civilian adaptation of the Z-8F, achieving stable flight and basic transport capability was not actually a problem.
As the winch reeled them in, Lu Mingfei, Zero, and the bronze cage finally reached the spacious transport cabin.
A girl in black tactical clothing stood at the cabin door.
She had Asian features but did not look like someone from the Executive Department. Her long hair was dyed chestnut brown, and everything from her posture to her expression exuded a languid air.
When Zero reached the doorway, the girl reached out and pulled her aboard.
When Lu Mingfei's turn came, he tightened his grip slightly on the bronze cage and launched himself upward like a nimble swift. Pushing off the cage with one foot, he landed lightly inside the cabin.
"Holy crap," the chestnut-haired girl quipped. "Are you Spider-Man?"
Lu Mingfei was not Spider-Man. He wore nothing but an armored skirt. Replace it with leaves, and he would have looked exactly like a caveman.
Still wearing her deep-water pressure-resistant diving suit, Zero silently took a seat.
"You're not from Cassell College?" Lu Mingfei had initially wondered why Zero was at the Three Gorges. He had assumed the Executive Department had located the Nibelungen from halfway around the world.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Su Enxi, the boss's chief assistant. You already know this one, but she has another role on our team: the boss's special assistant. The one flying the helicopter is Long-Legged Girl, the boss's second assistant," the girl calling herself Su Enxi explained.
"So you work for Lu Mingze." Lu Mingfei immediately guessed who she meant by the boss. Lu Mingze had left those clothes behind, and it was also Lu Mingze who had guided him toward the Nibelungen's exit. "He sent you to rescue me?"
"That's only a small part of it. Mainly, the boss said he was going away on a long business trip and told the three of us to follow your orders for now." Su Enxi seemed entirely unsurprised that Lu Mingfei had guessed the boss's identity. "In short, you're our boss while he's away."
"I think I get it." Lu Mingfei nodded. "Get me some clothes first."
Su Enxi seemed to have prepared in advance. From a case on a nearby seat, she took out a complete set of underwear, trousers, a coat, and boots.
As Lu Mingfei took the clothes, he noticed a faint fragrance on them, apparently perfume. He glanced at Su Enxi with a hint of puzzlement.
Su Enxi caught the look immediately. "Don't get the wrong idea. The clothes are new. It's just the case that's old."
Lu Mingfei did not particularly care. Long ago, he had endured armor reeking of blood and sweat because, most of the time, there had been no practical way to clean it. Only upon reaching a relatively safe place with water could he retrieve his accumulated dirty clothes from a Site of Grace and wash them all at once, then light a campfire and slowly dry his clothes and armor.
Those had been rare moments of warmth. The whole world had narrowed to damp clothes and a crackling campfire, with nothing else he needed to think about.
He turned away and changed into the clothes Su Enxi had given him.
He wore a long-sleeved black shirt and straight-cut black trousers, with a coat so loose it was almost a cloak. Su Enxi had indulged her own tastes in choosing the outfit, making Lu Mingfei look like Kazuto Kirigaya, the protagonist of the anime Sword Art Online. Only, the weapon on Lu Mingfei's back was not the famous pair of black-and-white swords-the Dark Repulser and the Elucidator-but an imposing two-meter curved greatsword.
Without drawing attention to herself, Su Enxi secretly snapped a photo with her phone.
At that moment, Zero removed her diving helmet, then stripped off her diving equipment piece by piece. A trace of exhaustion showed on her face. She must have been waiting underwater for a long time.
"I'll fly," she said, walking toward the cockpit.
"Are you up to it?" Su Enxi asked.
"With winds like these, leave the landing to me." Zero's tone was matter-of-fact.
Long-Legged Girl, who occupied the pilot's seat, first switched on the Z-8F 100's AFCS-automatic flight control system-and SAS-stability augmentation system-before getting up and yielding her seat to Zero.
"Hey, little monster!" As soon as the woman from the pilot's seat entered the cabin, she greeted Lu Mingfei with cheerful exuberance. "I'm Shudey May, now your second assistant."
The first thing that struck anyone about Shudey May was her superb figure: graceful curves and astonishingly long legs, with two straight-bladed ninja short swords tucked at her slender waist. Her long hair was tied in a ponytail, giving her the look of an athletic girl, yet her face was strikingly beautiful. The elongated corners of her eyes, lightly brushed with eyeshadow, resembled crimson blades.
"Hello," Lu Mingfei replied quietly.
He was already feeling rather tired.
The cabin door remained open. They were passing over a pitch-black stretch of woodland, and the lights of a distant city flickered between streaks of rain illuminated by the searchlight.
"You can give us any order you like, even tell us to warm your bed. That's what assistants are for." Shudey May shrugged, unoffended by Lu Mingfei's indifference. Instead, she thoughtfully reminded him just how broad an assistant's duties could be, then casually sat down opposite Su Enxi.
"That's just you. I'm not agreeing to anything that far outside reasonable limits," Su Enxi retorted, pursing her lips at Shudey May's words.
"The Princess would do whatever he said, too." Shudey May cast a mischievous look at the petite figure in the pilot's seat.
Lu Mingfei did not join in the two girls' banter.
Lu Mingze had even entrusted his team to him. It seemed he truly had left-entering the world of Lu Mingfei's "memories" in some unimaginable way, perhaps through that power of dreams.
Of the three girls, Zero was a spy planted in Cassell College, and Shudey May was probably a fighter. Judging by her title, Su Enxi seemed to rank highest, yet she did not appear to possess much combat ability. Perhaps she was a strategist or an administrator.
Chapter 69: A Private Conversation
The survey work Ye Sheng was directing was nearing its end, with almost no valuable information uncovered. Following instructions from the college, he had also had the personnel on site use drones to photograph the cleared Alchemical Matrix ruins section by section.
These photographs would be sent to the Vice Principal, Nicholas Flamel.
The Flamels could be considered a hybrid family, but what they passed down was knowledge rather than blood. The first Flamel had originally been a Parisian scribe who reconstructed ancient alchemy from lost records, abruptly becoming a grandmaster of the art. He was also the only person in recorded history to have successfully created the Philosopher's Stone.
The 76 phrases of Dragon Script he had compiled were all the Dragon Script the Secret Party could currently decipher. Each year, Cassell College selected questions for its 3E Exam from among them.
He had joined the Secret Party in the early fifteenth century, and every inheritor of his surname had also been a member. Each generation's Flamel passed the name on to his most highly regarded student.
The current Flamel was the Vice Principal. Supposedly, he too had been a formidable figure in his youth.
If even the Vice Principal could find nothing, every lead would be exhausted. They could only classify it as an unsolved case of a dragon awakening. There were many such cases: the Tunguska Explosion, Summer's Lament, the explosion at an icebound port north of Verkhoyansk, the mysterious heartbeat in Greenland's icy sea...
The greatest loss in this incident was the S-Rank student Lu Mingfei, who had apparently vanished along with the dragon.
Ye Sheng firmly believed that, if Lu Mingfei could grow into his potential, he would become a dragon-slaying leader who dazzled an entire era. Not merely because he had defeated Caesar and Chu Zihang, but because of that look in his eyes that had left such a deep impression on Ye Sheng... an eagle, a lion, a powerful man as brilliant as the sun.
Had a man like that really fallen so abruptly?
Could the dragons have secretly awakened long ago and begun deliberately hunting down humanity's geniuses?
"Principal Angers has just arrived on site." The voice over the communications channel interrupted Ye Sheng's mourning and speculation.
"All right. I'll be right there," Ye Sheng said.
He gave the personnel on site a few instructions to continue their work, then left to meet Angers, who had made a special trip here.
Perhaps the Vice Principal really had discovered something. The principal valued Lu Mingfei highly. His coming in person meant there was still hope.
Angers was at the hospital.
All the seriously injured Executive Department personnel had been transferred to a private hospital in Amarillo early the morning after the incident.