He had simply chosen to trust Lu Mingfei.
Lu Mingfei liked that feeling.
(End of volume one)
Chapter 82: Bait
Late at night, on the top floor of the principal's office.
Two men sat facing each other beneath a desk lamp. A black mask covered Schneider's face, with an air tube running to a steel cylinder on a cart. Dark red scars covered his neck. His breathing was low and thick, like a broken bellows, and his iron-grey eyes stared coldly at the document on the desk.
It was a special assignment order, assigning one S-Rank student and two A-Rank students to an indefinite special mission. They would nominally remain students of Cassell College, but would receive the privileges of senior Executive Department operatives and be placed on the grey list.
Everyone on the grey list was a senior operative whose identity was kept secret. Their work was so confidential that they had disappeared from the Executive Department's official roster. One could say that everyone on the grey list had an S-Rank secret mission behind them.
"There has never been a precedent for this in the college's entire history," Schneider said hoarsely.
He was here today because Angers had suddenly sent this document to him.
"A lack of precedent isn't a problem." Angers calmly sipped his black tea. "Isn't this the precedent right here?"
Seeing that he did not appear to be joking, Schneider frowned. "You should know that the training senior operatives undergo is beyond anything these students can imagine. And they haven't even graduated!"
"Be patient, my friend." Angers smiled. "We've always judged talent by results, not seniority, haven't we? All three are outstanding students who have carried out S-Rank missions. Their abilities and bloodlines are trustworthy. Besides, I don't need them to become actual senior operatives. I only need them to carry out a covert S-Rank mission."
"Only?" Schneider's terrifying, usually expressionless face twitched. "What happened on the last mission? Lu Mingfei went missing for three months. Fingel and Wang Wei were investigated by the Board of Trustees. The investigation team accused you of covering up the truth, withholding information, and devising an unreasonable, high-risk plan!"
"I prepared an Alchemical Matrix personally designed by the Vice Principal, heavy fire support from the Executive Department, bullets tipped with the Philosopher's Stone, and a super hybrid with an S-Rank bloodline." Angers spread his hands. "Wasn't that reasonable enough? A second-generation dragon wouldn't even have had a chance to struggle against that lineup."
"But they actually faced a Dragon King!" Schneider growled under his breath. "Wasn't making that mistake once enough? You can't keep playing this game of withholding information!"
Angers knew what he meant. Twelve years ago, during the Greenland incident, a mysterious creature suspected to be a Dragon King had frozen an entire stretch of sea. Schneider had been the sole survivor. Though he had escaped with his life, the extreme cold had destroyed his face and respiratory system, leaving him neither fully human nor quite a ghost, forced to wear a respirator for the rest of his life.
That incident had resulted from the Board of Trustees' mistaken assessment of a Dragon King's embryo. The price of that mistake had been the lives of six outstanding young people, all students Schneider had valued most and taken the greatest pride in.
Angers tapped the antique desktop with two long, distinctly jointed fingers. The crisp sound pulled Schneider out of his anger. "Do you want to know the truth?"
Schneider froze. Angers had said "you," meaning him alone.
Angers acted like a shameless rogue, utterly unruffled, yet saw straight through his purpose.
As head of the Executive Department, Schneider was indeed displeased with this outrageous, unprecedented assignment order. More importantly, however, as a fellow avenger, he had sensed that something was off about Angers.
Since the S-Rank Lu Mingfei had enrolled, the Board of Trustees had first come in person to supervise his 3E Exam, and then he had taken part in two missions involving suspected Dragon King awakenings. The man connecting it all was Angers, pulling the strings behind the scenes: assigning Lu Mingfei's rank, allowing him into the Bronze City, and setting a trap on the Panhandle Plateau. First-generation dragons, which had rarely awakened throughout the long years, had appeared one after another. It was hard to believe that was a coincidence.
"Yes, I want to know." The dragon Schneider was hunting was suspected to be a first-generation dragon. He hoped to obtain Angers's intelligence.
"Do you remember those prophecies of the apocalypse hidden in myths?" Angers asked. "Disasters like floods, wind serpents, rains of fire, upheavals of the earth..."
"Of course. Dragons lurk behind all those myths. They foretell the destruction of the world-Ragnarök." The Executive Department Schneider commanded had always been regarded by the other departments as crude "pig butchers." Yet this "pig butcher" of a department head expected himself to excel in both scholarship and combat, and regularly kept up with academic research.
"Exactly. Ragnarök." Angers stared into Schneider's eyes. "I've now confirmed one thing: Ragnarök really is drawing near."
"What?" Schneider was startled.
"Before the greatest black dragon awakens, the other Dragon Kings have already begun awakening together," Angers said. "That's what I know."
"What does that have to do with assigning Lu Mingfei, Fingel, and Wang Wei as senior Executive Department operatives?" Schneider frowned.
"It's simple," Angers said slowly. "Lu Mingfei carries something belonging to the Bronze and Fire King."
Schneider was silent for a moment before asking, "You mean some kind of mark?"
"Exactly. He was marked by the Bronze and Fire King for the first time beneath the Bronze City, and for the second time on the Panhandle Plateau, because he entered the realm belonging to the Fire King," Angers said. "Just like what that student of yours is suspected to have experienced. The Board of Trustees secretly investigated his past."
"Nibelungen, the realm of the dead," Schneider said quietly. "It may only be a legend. It might not exist at all."
"But only that can explain the sudden disappearance of dragon civilization. We can find almost no ruins left by ancient dragons, not because they were utterly destroyed, but because they aren't in the dimension of reality at all," Angers explained. "I've discussed this with the Vice Principal."
"We don't yet understand what that mark is, but the Dragon Kings do, correct?" Schneider understood now.
"They're bait." Angers revealed the true purpose of the plan.
A trap to lure in and kill a Dragon King.
"One last question," Schneider said. "How can you guarantee they'll be bait rather than a gift to the Dragon King?"
"I have a secret dragon-slaying system that will ensure any Dragon King who comes never leaves." As soon as Angers finished, he raised a hand to stop the curious Schneider. "Hey! Professor Von Schneider! Could you respect my privacy? You've learned enough for today."
"All right. I'll accept this assignment order." Schneider picked up the document on the desk. "But let me remind you: the Executive Department also answers to the Board of Trustees. They don't yet know Lu Mingfei is still alive. This time, they definitely won't leave empty-handed."
"Don't worry." Angers waved him off. "Mingfei will be fine."
Chapter 83
Schneider ran into Guderian.
Guderian was wearing pajamas and a nightcap patterned with Pikachu. He had clearly rushed over halfway through sleeping.
After Schneider agreed to Angers's assignment order, Norma changed the status of the students Fingel and "Wang Wei" to "pending graduation," deleted their records from the college database, and transferred them to the Executive Department's grey list.
Guderian received Norma's email in the middle of the night and discovered that the number of students under his supervision had dropped to zero. He had previously made Fingel and "Wang Wei" enroll in the course he taught. Now both had vanished from the class roster as well.
He had no idea what had happened, so he hurried to Schneider's office.
"What happened to my two students?"
The moment Schneider entered his office, Guderian grabbed him.
"An Executive Department assignment order. They've been assigned to a highly classified mission. Don't ask any more questions." Schneider brusquely knocked away Guderian's hand from his shoulder.
"A mission is a mission. Why have their records been changed to pending graduation?" Guderian pressed.
"I told you not to ask. It won't do you any good," Schneider said coldly. "They'll graduate automatically when the time comes, and they'll still count as students you trained."
"It's precisely because they're my students that I have to ask." Guderian was still uneasy. "You haven't sent them on another dangerous mission beyond what students can handle, have you?"
"Not me." Schneider shook his head. "It's the principal's assignment order. This is an indefinite mission, which is why Norma classified them as pending graduation."
"Mingfei went missing last time. Why are they picking on my students again?" Once Guderian heard that it was the principal's arrangement, his bluster immediately faded. "Even if they have to use students, aren't Chu Zihang and Caesar available?"
"In any case, don't look into this any further," Schneider said firmly. "Just prepare for your tenure review when the time comes."
Guderian took off his nightcap, still dissatisfied. "That makes it feel like I sold out my students for personal honors."
Schneider looked at his deeply conflicted colleague and sighed. "Don't worry. You're not important enough to say you 'sold them out.'"
"What do you mean?" Guderian's ears pricked up.
"What's involved here is already beyond anything you or I can influence. Perhaps all we can do is choose," Schneider said. "I choose to trust the principal."
"Of course we'd choose the principal." Guderian had not understood what he meant. "He's our boss, after all."
"No. I trust him." A cold light flashed in Schneider's iron-grey eyes. "Because of his hatred of dragons. That's something those people on the Board of Trustees don't have."
Beijing, in the twelfth lunar month. The weather was bitterly cold.
A girl wearing a face mask hurried through the cold wind with short, quick steps, a schoolbag on her back. The stairwell was filled with the aroma of dinners cooking, and the sound of her heels rang out like a cheerful tune.
"I'm home!" she called loudly as she pushed open the door.
Only the howl of cold wind sweeping between the buildings answered her. The sky had darkened, and the lingering sunlight stretched the shadows of the trees outside the window.
Xia Mi took off her shoes and socks, then flopped spread-eagled onto the soft, large bed.
Breathing in the crisp scent of winter sunshine lingering on the quilt, she pulled a document envelope from her schoolbag.
The World Tree, half withered and half flourishing, was printed on the front of the envelope. Inside was a thick stack of material.
She scanned the shocking photographs one by one. Some showed ruins on a wasteland; others showed various half-melted, resolidified fragments salvaged from the Bronze City. The dates and locations were written on the backs.
There were also many photographs of people.
A delicate-looking boy in a classroom, sunlight illuminating the side of his face; a blurry duel with blades captured by a surveillance camera; a cold-faced boy making a layup alone on a basketball court...
The last photograph had been taken in a library. A boy sat in the shadows between rows of tall bookshelves, with a shaft of sunlight from the window falling just in front of him. He had raised his head warily to look at the photographer, an indescribable stillness in his expression. The clear sunlight haloed him, making his skin seem translucent.
Xia Mi stared at the photograph, trying to look straight into the boy's soul. After a moment, she lowered it in defeat.
"Each one's more trouble than the last." She abruptly sat up on the bed, crossed her legs, and pulled a black-cloth-wrapped object from her schoolbag.
When she unwrapped the cloth, a small mirror was revealed.
The mirror seemed to be made of silver, but was much lighter. Its body was a small square, with a handle beneath it that could be held in one hand. The craftsman had decorated the frame, back, and handle with ornate reliefs, but Xia Mi seemed unimpressed.
She cut her finger, letting thick blood drip onto the mirror.
The mirror's silver surface corroded violently the moment it touched the blood. Soon, after bubbling as though boiling, the outer layer turned into rust-like residue and dripped onto the floor.
The mirror seemed reborn, shrinking a little and revealing its original dark blue-green material.
Xia Mi rubbed the mirror's surface with the pad of her already healed finger. After a simple wipe, the antique mirror immediately gleamed brightly enough to reflect her.
Humming a cheerful tune, she placed the mirror on the dressing table, facing the room.
The girl in the mirror seemed shrouded in golden light, her figure indistinct. She wore a red dress and a golden crown, and golden flames flowed through her eyes.
In the lavishly equipped gaming room, Old Tang sat up straight, directing his army of Dragoons onto the high ground. Berserkers carrying ion blades formed ranks behind them, Scarabs slowly crawled forward, and Templars cloaked in blue lightning hovered in the air.
On the opposing side, Constantine had built a typical Terran fortress, its buildings densely packed and neatly arranged. Rows of supply depots stood at the front, followed by bunkers crammed with marines, then clusters of tanks deployed in siege mode. Valkyrie squadrons patrolled around the base, while the radar of missile turrets covered every area to prevent Lu Mingfei's Dark Templars from exploiting any gaps in the chaos.
This was the final showdown, and even Old Tang was not sure he could win. Constantine's skills had been improving rapidly.
He had played countless matches like this over the past three months. Sometimes his opponent was Constantine, sometimes Fingel, and sometimes a mysterious expert using Fingel's account-though that expert only appeared when he and Fingel wagered a meal on the match.
The gaming room in this luxurious penthouse duplex had practically become a little internet café. Its counterpart was the study on the other side of the master bedroom, which served as Lu Mingfei's office.
Su Enxi, Shudey May, and Zero regularly reported intelligence to Lu Mingfei. He recorded matters worth watching on sticky notes, then put them on a huge whiteboard, connecting key events with lines.
At that moment, "Hunter Website" was enclosed in a huge red circle.
Chapter 84: Hunter
In Cassell College's terminology, "Hunter" referred specifically to a certain group of people.
They were a loose organization hired to solve problems. Its members included desperate outlaws, artists, avant-garde young people, and gangsters-a complicated mix. But the jobs they accepted weren't things like rescuing a kitten that had climbed a neighbor's tree for an elderly lady. They took work straddling the boundary between legal and illegal, including theft, grave robbing, and looting cultural artifacts.
A considerable portion of these jobs had connections to dragons, such as stealing alchemical implements from tombs.