Chapter 76: The civilization of dragons
The balcony curtains had been drawn fully open. Outside, the sky was overcast and the wind fierce. Distant hills were faintly visible, their lush trees like washes of dark green ink.
In the ground-floor living room, the four-person meeting had become a five-person meeting.
Lu Mingfei had changed into the flashy cosplay outfit Su Enxi had prepared. He was someone who cared little about fashion, something Melina had nagged him about countless times. But to Lu Mingfei, the priorities for clothing remained defense over comfort, comfort over fun, and fun over appearance.
After his shower, Old Tang had also found a shirt and jeans to put on. He now sat beside Lu Mingfei.
Shudey May wore black leather trousers and a leather top, a burgundy cropped jacket, and red strappy sandals with three-inch heels. Her outfit had initially intimidated Old Tang. He had thought she was some delinquent girl, with Su Enxi and Zero, both dressed in loungewear, as her sidekicks.
"Now we can talk about dragons." Su Enxi resumed the conversation they had left unfinished the previous night.
Lu Mingfei already had a general understanding of where hybrids stood in this world. Now the conversation had reached the most important subject: dragons.
They were ancient gods, humanity's former masters. They had once possessed a glorious civilization. They were fanatical worshippers of power and authority, convinced that destruction was the best fate for those who refused to submit. They were also the observers closest to "truth" on the scale of the world itself. Lu Mingze seemed to know a great deal about them. Would he hear anything valuable here?
"Cassell College actually has plenty of information on dragons," Su Enxi said. "The Secret Party once captured a dragon that was still hatching. They used the little fellow for biological research and reached some interesting conclusions. For instance, refined sulfur and mercury are highly toxic to dragons. Most of the compact anti-dragon weapons produced by that research institute called the Equipment Department rely on those biological findings."
"Now, back to that question: the greatest difference between humans and dragons." Su Enxi shifted the subject. "We already said the answer was their genes. Dragon DNA has four helices and is far more complex than that of any other creature on Earth. They occupy a very high position on the evolutionary tree, which gives them many powers that could be called miracles, such as incredibly strong bones and scales, and the ability to manipulate elements. Their knowledge and power are stored in their genes, and they can plunder those innate treasures by devouring one another's bones and blood."
She paused there, apparently giving Lu Mingfei time to think.
Old Tang, sitting beside him, was simply listening as though it were a story. So far, the strangest thing he had seen with his own eyes was that "Alchemical Matrix," and even that had been man-made.
These secrets Su Enxi was describing did little to interest him.
Lu Mingfei followed the line of reasoning she had laid out.
Dragons and humans were both intelligent beings, yet the differences between them were so great that dragons might as well have been aliens. They even resembled the Zerg created by the Xel'Naga in StarCraft, able to seize the knowledge and power within genes by devouring others. A civilization following such a path was bound to develop differently from humanity.
"The more they devour, the stronger they become, even crossing bloodline ranks... So dragon civilization is actually structured like an inverted pyramid, with a handful of powerful individuals holding most of its information and wealth. Taken to its extreme, that structure must produce a few individuals at the very pinnacle, each capable of representing the entire civilization." Using the Zerg as his model, Lu Mingfei reached that conclusion.
"Those would be the Black King, the White King, and the four pairs of twins on the four great thrones." Su Enxi nodded. "Hybrids have excavated pitifully few remnants of dragon civilization. Ruins of dragon settlements are hard to find, especially those dating from before the Black King Nidhogg was killed. Not a single one of those has been unearthed. That's because dragon civilization is really the civilization of the Dragon Kings, and all their cities were built inside Nibelungen, the safest places for hatching. They enslaved humans to build magnificent cities. The Bronze and Fire King lived in the northern ice fields, where they cast bronze palaces towering like mountains. There was also the famous Sky-Piercing Bronze Pillar, where the Black King nailed the White King to death. That enormous pillar recorded the Black King's long history of warfare. The Black King also ordered the construction of the Divine Road across the ocean. Calculations put its width at four hundred meters, making it a greater undertaking than any highway today. All those ruins are inside Nibelungen."
"And so are the Dragon Kings, or their eggs." Lu Mingfei glanced at Old Tang, making him feel inexplicably guilty in the middle of his daydreaming.
"Exactly. Dragons never declined. On the day Nidhogg returns, dragon civilization will rise again with him," Su Enxi said. "But in the prophecies the dragons left behind, that day is Ragnarök..."
Understanding seemed to dawn on Lu Mingfei's face. He quietly continued her thought. "Because Nidhogg is the civilization of the entire 'species' itself. He'll kill every traitor, then begin a new civilization."
Su Enxi thought he was surprised by this entirely new model of civilization, unaware that his thoughts had gone much further.
The outline of Nidhogg in his mind was becoming clearer and clearer. But rather than a god or a bearer of Order, did he seem more like a crucible?
"Then do you have any specific intelligence on the Dragon Kings?" he asked.
"Yes and no," Su Enxi said frankly. "What we know at present concerns the brothers who are the Bronze and Fire King, Constantine and Norton. One is sleeping in the Bronze City beneath the waters of the Three Gorges, while the other is working as a bounty hunter in the United States under the alias Ronald Tang..."
Before she finished, Old Tang suddenly stood up. Then he looked around at everyone's expressions and awkwardly sat back down.
He was startled because he had heard his own name, ignoring all the supernatural talk about kings of this and that. What had really made him nearly jump out of his seat was the word "brothers."
"So you're saying I have an older or younger brother?" Seeing that no one seemed inclined to continue the subject, Old Tang simply asked outright.
"A younger brother. He's at Cassell College right now," Lu Mingfei said.
"Then..." Old Tang asked hesitantly, "what about our parents?"
Lu Mingfei had only given him a rough explanation of dragons and hybrids. He had not mentioned the Black and White Kings or the four great monarchs, so Old Tang had not connected himself to the one they had just been discussing-Nidhogg.
"Your father is Nidhogg, the supreme Black King of the dragons. As for your mother, academia hasn't reached a conclusion yet. The most widespread theory is that the Black King reproduced on his own to create you and your siblings," Lu Mingfei answered from a professional academic standpoint.
"Why does it feel like you're insulting me..." Old Tang muttered. "Wasn't there a White King too? Black and white make a pair. Maybe that was my mother?"
"The White King was also created by the Black King," Su Enxi said.
"Then that's a little ethically questionable..." Old Tang nodded blankly.
Chapter 77: Nibelungen
"Your father is synonymous with destruction and the end in every prophecy, while you're one of the original kings on the four great thrones. Don't you have any thoughts about that?" Shudey May stared into Old Tang's eyes, hoping to find something there.
"What good does it do, no matter how badass it sounds?" Old Tang, however, was remarkably philosophical about it. "I'm already in my twenties, and he's never shown up in front of me. And that younger brother of mine-I don't even know whether he's been doing all right all these years..."
"Wang Wei is your younger brother. His real name is Constantine," Lu Mingfei said. "Actually, he slept for almost two thousand years and only woke up recently."
"Holy shit... Holy shit!" Old Tang could no longer remember how many exclamations he had uttered that day. Each revelation seemed more explosive than the last. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"
At that news, he forgot that the people in front of him were human-dragon hybrid monsters and questioned Lu Mingfei with wide eyes.
"We weren't certain either. In fact, bringing you into that Alchemical Matrix was meant to test whether you were the Dragon King Norton," Lu Mingfei said. "In Constantine's memories, Norton is his older brother."
Old Tang deflated a little when he heard that.
In other words, he had spent more than twenty years as an orphan, only to discover today that he had family. But neither his biological father nor his biological brother recognized his human identity. In their eyes, their family member was that ancient monster sitting majestically on a throne...
At that thought, he shivered slightly. He suddenly realized he was like a vessel housing a spirit returned from the dead, something even lonelier than an orphan-not someone whose parents could not be found or had died, but someone who had never had human parents at all.
"Don't be sad. Even as a dragon, you don't have any family affection," Shudey May offered some timely consolation. "The Black King died because you and your siblings joined forces to kill him. He declared that when he came back to life, he would kill all you unfilial children. And you siblings weren't exactly united either. You even forged seven alchemical weapons to kill the other Dragon Kings, including your closest twin brother, Constantine."
"Huh?" Old Tang was dumbfounded. "That personality of mine called Norton... Is my dragon personality really that vicious?"
"I wouldn't necessarily call it vicious." Shudey May shrugged. "Probably every Dragon King thinks that way."
Old Tang nodded numbly.
Indeed, he had been overthinking things. Dragons and humans did not even belong to the same biological class. Perhaps devouring one another was how dragons expressed familial affection.
In that case, he would pass on that kind of affection. He was better off being an orphan.
"I don't have any more questions." He sighed wearily. "You guys should get back to talking about saving the world."
"We were just discussing intelligence on the Dragon Kings." Su Enxi continued her report to Lu Mingfei. "Besides the Bronze and Fire King, we also know the location of a Nibelungen. It's in your and Chu Zihang's hometown. It opened once five years ago and let two people in. Chu Zihang was the one who came out."
"Is one of the Dragon Kings inside?" Lu Mingfei asked.
"We don't know." Su Enxi shook her head frankly. "Everything we know about the Dragon Kings comes from the boss. He only gives us specific information when it becomes necessary. Aside from that, there are just certain arrangements, like having us monitor this Nibelungen."
Lu Mingfei had wanted to ask a question for a long time. "Why are you so open with me? Surely intelligence like this isn't usually something you can disclose so casually."
"We don't have a choice. The last time the boss appeared, he said, 'While I'm away, Lu Mingfei will be your acting boss.'" Su Enxi sounded rather helpless. "He can be very willful sometimes, but every word he says is bound to come true. If he says you're the boss, then we treat you as the boss. When the boss wants an intelligence report from his little bookkeeping maid, can she hold anything back?"
"If he's that powerful, why doesn't he just say the Black King's dead as a doornail and be done with it?" Old Tang seemed to have recovered from the shadow of being a True Orphan, enough to butt in with a sarcastic remark.
"The Black King is your father," Su Enxi said. "You were upset about not having a father's love just a moment ago, and now you want to curse him to death?"
"What father's love?" Old Tang had figured things out by now, and his face sagged. "He said he'd kill all the kids in the family when he came back! That dragon personality of mine is so vicious, he might have been the ringleader. If the old man comes looking for revenge and comes after me, who am I supposed to appeal to?"
"Don't worry. The Black King's revenge is aimed at the whole world. He'll slaughter every human and dragon together. He won't have time to show up at your door under the pretext of checking the water meter," Shudey May said blandly.
"Isn't that even worse?" Old Tang covered his face.
"Has there been any unusual activity in that Nibelungen lately?" Lu Mingfei hurriedly brought the conversation back on track.
"No. We have people monitoring it and the belongings left behind by the man who disappeared inside. That man was Chu Zihang's father," Su Enxi answered. "We can't break into Nibelungen either. To enter, you either need a brand from having been inside before, or you have to be chosen by its master."
That put an end to Lu Mingfei's plan to fly back to his hometown that very day. He thought for a moment. "Chu Zihang has a Nibelungen brand on him? So he's a key, right?"
"In theory, yes," Su Enxi said. "But having a brand doesn't mean you can enter whenever you like. Otherwise, Chu Zihang would have gone in to avenge his father long ago."
That also put an end to Lu Mingfei's idea of strapping Chu Zihang into a car and charging into Nibelungen.
"This is tricky."
Rome, Italy.
Frost Gattuso sat upright in a patch of sunlight behind his desk. As the de facto head of the Gattuso Family, he sat there almost every day, managing hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide without leaving the house.
A Recorder now sat on this "desktop of power." The conversation it contained had already been played twice.
As the conversation approached its end, the breathing suddenly grew unusually heavy. The hypnotized subject seemed to clench his teeth and force the words from the depths of his fear. "Human... I shall grant you life!"
Yet it was easy to imagine how indifferent and condescending the king who had truly spoken those words must have been. To him, your death was your own fault, because you refused to submit.
"How is the investigation into Ronald Tang progressing?" Frost pressed the stop button.
"We purchased that old apartment building. The search of Ronald Tang's residence is complete. There was nothing related to dragons or alchemy." Pazzi bowed slightly, his pale golden fringe falling to cover half his face.
"And the situation at the Three Gorges?"
"Norma raised the priority of the Bronze City exploration again. The Executive Department has temporarily secured the surface, but repeated dives have still uncovered no sign of a dragon, and the elemental turbulence has almost dissipated," Pazzi said. "The Executive Department's worst-case assessment is that the Dragon King finished hatching and left, while the S-Rank student Lu Mingfei was killed."
"Or turned into a deadpool," Frost said coldly. "That was a promise from a Dragon King. What he calls life means being granted divine blood and becoming a servant of a god."
Chapter 78: An ally
By this point in the conversation, Lu Mingfei had nothing else he wanted to ask.
"Boss, what are your next instructions?" Su Enxi asked.
"Keep monitoring that Nibelungen, and report to me immediately if anything happens." Lu Mingfei issued his first order as acting boss. "As for running your organization, you know far more about it than I do, so I'll leave that in your hands."
"What about Cassell College?" Su Enxi said. "They've sent a lot of Executive Department personnel to the Panhandle Plateau and the Three Gorges to look for you. You'll have to stay here for now and keep out of sight in the short term."
"Wait, isn't Mingfei with Cassell College? Why does he have to stay hidden?" Old Tang grew anxious. "Is this college actually up to no good? Then you have to get my brother out."
"Your brother is safe there. Someone will take good care of him," Lu Mingfei reassured him.
"You've been caught up in two suspected Dragon King awakenings in just two months, yet emerged unscathed. The first time could be explained as luck. The second proves that you must have some secret. Given how the Secret Party's Council of Elders operates, they'll decide you're a deadpool, a dragon, or a key figure bearing the brand of the Land of the Dead. There's no way they'll let you roam free." Su Enxi seemed very familiar with Cassell College's Board of Trustees. "They'll imprison you and study you. And if they decide you're beyond their control and can't be captured, they'll issue a warrant for you."
"I have an ally. He promised he would hold off the pressure from the Board of Trustees," Lu Mingfei said.
"Angers? He can't." Su Enxi shook her head. "The Board of Trustees is already unhappy with him. They'll use this incident to move against him too."
"Assassinate the trustees and put Angers in charge of Cassell College for us?" Shudey May suggested.
Su Enxi pressed a hand to her forehead. "Can we not be so violent? The trustees are only representatives of those families. Killing them would just anger the families. We couldn't truly control Cassell College anyway. That would only lead to all-out war."
"We can't go to war." Lu Mingfei agreed with Su Enxi.
"I thought you'd support me." Shudey May raised an eyebrow, rather surprised by his response.
"Because a war would give a third party an opening. Besides Bronze and Fire, another Dragon King has awakened. He was on that Greyhound bus and followed us all the way to Amarillo," Lu Mingfei said. "Norton sensed him."
Everyone turned to Old Tang at once.
"I don't know anything!" Old Tang's eyes widened. "Wasn't there only one other passenger on that bus besides us? It must have been that person."
"Can you investigate?" Lu Mingfei turned to ask Su Enxi.