Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from Japan

After confirming that no one was in the office, Shudeya carefully moved the grille of the ventilation duct opening and landed lightly like an elegant cat in the nearest shelter.

Without a doubt, such offices are mostly equipped with cameras, and she discovered this relatively safe spot after observing for some time.

However, after landing, Aki didn't linger for long. After scanning the area and quickly locating the positions of the office's security cameras, she rapidly created a 3D model of the office in her mind, identifying potential blind spots.

With a few nimble movements, she arrived at the desk, squatted under it, and plugged the USB flash drive she was carrying into the computer's USB port.

……

Chapter 213 The Hand in the Dark

"Norma, I've already plugged the USB drive into the other computer."

Aki spoke to Norma through the earpiece, and the pleasant female voice replied coldly in the earpiece:

"Received, locating the system..."

The moment the USB drive was inserted into the host, Norma had already accurately located the host's position using the web crawler on the USB drive, and locked all the hosts on the local area network.

"I have gained access to all the surveillance cameras and am monitoring everyone's movements for you. No one is approaching your room at the moment, so you can rest assured for now. This computer has a deeply encrypted subsystem, and it will take some time to break through the encryption system's firewall. Please wait patiently."

"it is good."

Hearing Norma say that they had gained access to the camera, Aki finally breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did she notice that her face and body were completely covered in black soot. Fortunately, she had crawled on her knees, so the soles of her shoes weren't dirty and she hadn't left any footprints on the floor.

At this point, the mission is more than halfway complete. Up to this point, Aki's entire mission process has been quite smooth, and she has reached the target location without encountering any obstacles.

Next, all she had to do was wait for Norma to break through the computer's firewall and retrieve all the information on the computer before she could leave with peace of mind.

However, things obviously couldn't always go so smoothly. Just as Aki was about to lean against something to rest, Norma's voice suddenly came through her earpiece.

"Attention, Executive Officer Shudeya, someone is approaching your location."

Aki paused for a moment, then calmly asked, "Norma, I need the exact number of people on the other side."

"Now reporting to you, the target number: 1 person."

Hearing that there was only one person on the other end, Aki immediately calmed down. She smoothed her hair and whispered into her earpiece, "Norma, please remind me when they are about to arrive."

"Instructions received. The other party is currently about 30 meters away and is estimated to arrive in 40 seconds."

After receiving the reply, Aki first walked to the middle of the office and carefully surveyed the entire room. Then, a voice came through the earpiece: "The other party is about 20 meters away from you and is estimated to arrive in 25 seconds. Please take cover or evacuate."

“I understand,” Aki said, closing her eyes and quickly recalling every frame she had just seen.

"The other party is about 5 meters away from you and is estimated to arrive in 5 seconds. Time is of the essence, please take cover immediately."

“Received. Don’t worry, Norma, I know what I’m doing.”

The moment the mechanical creaking sound came from the doorway, Aki's beautiful eyes snapped open. In that instant, her brownish-gray pupils turned a vibrant golden yellow, as if golden flames were burning within them. The bespectacled man who entered the room met Aki's gaze at that very moment. An invisible domain instantly opened up.

In that instant, time seemed to be paused, because the two of them stood motionless, facing each other.

But the next moment, the bespectacled man acted as if he hadn't seen anything, turned around and locked the door. Under Aki's gaze, he walked nonchalantly to the boss's chair behind the desk, whistling leisurely.

Aki secretly breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that her words of power had taken effect. At this moment, in the bespectacled man's eyes, she was completely invisible, and he was completely oblivious to the USB drive on the computer and the data transfer screen on the monitor.

This is her Word of Power, Word of Power: Senro, a rather rare Word of Power. Its effect is not invisibility or visual deception, but a purely mental one. The effect is to control the opponent's mind with one's eyes, writing one's thoughts into the opponent's mind, and even inducing or forcing the opponent to see any scene.

At a glance, the whole world is revealed.

The reason she spent so much time observing the entire layout of the room was to use her words to control the person who entered the room, to deceive his mind, and to make his brain believe that he was seeing a clean and empty room.

She had clearly succeeded; the other party had successfully entered the illusion she had created, and even when faced with the screen displaying the file transfer, it was as if they couldn't see it.

However, although she has successfully controlled her opponent so far, Aki dares not let her guard down. She has not used the power of words very often, and her control over it is not yet proficient.

Ultimately, the reason is that she cannot openly and honestly cultivate her Word Power like Ye Sheng. In fact, very few people even know that she possesses Word Power.

So far, only a handful of people at the entire Kassel College know that she possesses the power of words, including the principal Angers, the vice-principal Night Watchman, and her mentor, Professor Mans.

Among her classmates, she only told a handful of people, including Ye Sheng, whom she had known for a long time, and Selma, about how she had awakened the power of words.

It was Headmaster Angers' suggestion that she conceal her Word of Power. This was because Senro was actually a Word of Power belonging to a branch of the White King, meaning her dragon bloodline might be mixed with the White King's blood. If the other board members, especially Frost, the representative of the Gattuso family, knew that she might be a hybrid of the White King's bloodline, the academy might no longer have a place for her.

Aki took a deep breath, her golden eyes fixed on the man with glasses.

The bespectacled man casually propped his legs up on the desk, pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and lit one. Then a phone call came in, and he answered it nonchalantly, cigarette still dangling from his lips.

Aki wanted to listen carefully to the conversation, but the bespectacled man seemed to be speaking some kind of Portuguese dialect. Aki tried hard to listen for a while but still couldn't understand what he was saying, so she had to give up, walk to her desk, and glance at the progress bar on the monitor.

The file copying progress has reached 80%. In another one or two minutes, she will be able to unplug the USB drive and get out of there.

After saying a few words in a garbled language, the bespectacled man hung up the phone, then opened a drawer and started rummaging through it. He then took out a brown paper bag from the drawer.

Aki hadn't paid any attention at first, but the logo on the lacquerware rim that she caught a glimpse of made her pause, as if she had seen the logo somewhere before.

Before she could think it through, Norma's voice rang out again in her earpiece:

"Attention, Executive Officer Shudeya, several people are approaching your location. Number of targets: 5. They are about 30 meters away and are expected to arrive in 40 seconds."

Upon hearing Norma's sudden reminder in her earpiece, Aki was immediately taken aback.

Her Word of Power, Senro, while almost overpowered in one-on-one combat, lacked the ability to control multiple opponents. Although her physical abilities made it easy for her to take down several people without bloodlines, this was, after all, the enemy's stronghold, and the noise of the fight would inevitably attract more people. Her only escape route was the ventilation duct above her head.

Aki glanced at the progress bar on the monitor; it was 96%, with about 20 seconds left.

The data copy is almost complete... She has to... take a gamble!

"Attention, multiple people are approaching your location. Number of people: 5. They are about 20 meters away from you and are expected to arrive in 25 seconds."

"Attention, multiple people are approaching your location. Number of people: 5. They are about 10 meters away from you and are expected to arrive in 15 seconds."

"Attention, multiple people are approaching your location. Number of people: 5. They are about 5 meters away from you and are expected to arrive in 5 seconds."

The alerts in the headset grew increasingly urgent. Aki watched the progress bar slowly advance, and finally, when the distance was "approximately 2 meters," the monitor displayed that the transmission was complete.

Aki immediately bent down and pulled out the USB drive, then squatted down to gather her strength, jumped up, and reached the entrance of the ventilation duct.

Before she could even curl her legs into the pipe, the door was suddenly opened, and the guard who came in saw two slender, long legs retracting into the pipe.

"who?"

The guards simultaneously drew their guns, each equipped with a laser sight, the red dots pointing uniformly at the ventilation duct entrance. But before they could fire, one of the guards suddenly turned and pointed his weapon at his teammate.

The gunshots were as rhythmic as the graceful sliding of piano keys, interspersed with the Portuguese phrase, "Are you crazy?" This was, of course, Aki's handiwork; in a split second, she had switched targets, causing one of the guards to mistake his teammates for enemies.

However, not everyone was distracted by the suddenly crazed guard. Several guards quickly reacted, unleashing a barrage of fire on the ventilation ducts in the ceiling. But Aki had already taken the lead and darted out of the room's ventilation ducts.

It was only then that the bespectacled man, who had been controlled by Aki, belatedly came to his senses. Looking at the messy office with dust everywhere, he had no idea what had happened.

"Warning, intruder has broken in and is currently hiding in the ventilation duct. I repeat, warning, intruder has broken in and is currently hiding in the ventilation duct." A guard picked up his walkie-talkie to report.

Aki moved swiftly through the pipe, like an agile snake, constantly swimming forward in the narrow conduit. Her joints seemed to have completely softened, and she didn't hesitate at all when she encountered extremely narrow welded joints.

She pulled out her headset and stuffed it into her bag. At this point, there was no time to listen to Norma's instructions and move slowly. The enemy was now also looking for her location, and might even get angry and start firing at every ventilation duct. Perhaps even the entrance she came from had been blocked.

She could only keep climbing, keep climbing forward, praying that she could leave this place safely.

In the darkness, something suddenly grabbed her ankle.

Aki jumped in fright. The enemy had already caught up with her? So fast? She quickly reached into her clothes with her dirty hands, gripped the handle of the Beretta pistol, and put her index finger on the trigger.

The magazine was filled with Friga bullets, which wouldn't be fatal. However, there was a risk of ricochets in the narrow ventilation duct. Even if ricochets occurred, she would have no choice but to fight to the death.

Before she could even draw her gun and fire, a cold, unfamiliar female voice called out her name in Chinese.

Her real name.

"Don't shoot, Shudeaki," the voice said. "I'm here to help you."

Chapter 214 The mysterious girl

A emotionless female voice echoed in the small ventilation duct. The darkness completely concealed the person, making it impossible for Aki to see her face.

Aki was momentarily stunned, then quickly searched her memory to confirm that she had no recollection of the voice.

"Who are you?" Aki asked coldly, pointing the Beretta pistol in her arms at the direction of the voice through her clothes.

Although the other party claimed to be there to help her, Aki, as a seasoned executive, was highly cautious and wouldn't easily trust someone. However, she didn't immediately fire, since the other party hadn't shown any hostility towards her so far. Therefore, Aki merely cautiously pointed her gun at the other party, just in case something unexpected happened.

The only thing that made Aki somewhat uneasy was that the ventilation duct was extremely dark. In her haste to retreat, she hadn't had time to take a flashlight out of her bag. In this almost invisible state, her Word of Power, Senro, was completely ineffective.

“Who I am is not important. All you need to know is that you can only get out by following me. The way you came in has been blocked, and there are dozens of guns pointed at the exit from the curator’s office right now,” the person in the darkness said.

Although Aki had a premonition that the other party had most likely blocked the exit, she still did not intend to trust them easily. After all, the timing and location of their appearance were too suspicious, making it hard for her not to be wary.

“Give me a reason to believe you,” Aki said.

For a fleeting moment, Aki thought the person in front of her had left, because not only was there no sound coming from directly in front of her, but even breathing had ceased. Only a long silence suddenly spread through the air, and the person who had suddenly appeared seemed to merge back into the darkness like a drop of ink.

But after a moment, the other party spoke again.

"I will turn my back to you. If anything happens, you can shoot me at any time."

After the other person finished speaking, there was a clanging sound of metal clashing and the rustling of clothes in the air. Although she was in the dark and couldn't see anything, incredibly, she actually felt that the person in front of her had turned over and was facing away from her.

"I will continue on my own path, and whether you follow me or not is up to you."

The sound rose up ahead, followed by a soft crawling sound. The human presence seemed to vanish in an instant. Aki hesitated for only a moment before immediately following the direction of the sound.

Although she wasn't completely at ease yet, as the other party said, if they had blocked every exit, it would be almost impossible for her to return the way she came. Being trapped inside the pipe was only a matter of time.

Unlike Teacher Mans's "Dustless Land," which has strong combat attributes, her Word of Power only has an advantage in one-on-one situations. In someone else's home turf, trying to break through without harming ordinary people is indeed a bit risky.

Therefore, after a brief moment of thought, Aki decided to trust the person who had suddenly appeared in the pipe this once. Besides, she seemed to have no better choice than to trust her now. If what awaited her was indeed a trap, she could take her hostage.

However, the direction this mysterious person was crawling in was completely different from the route Norma had given her in her memory. Several times, Aki wanted to question the direction the person was taking, but she held back in the end.

Since I've already chosen to follow them, I can only trust them unconditionally.

The pipes twisted and turned. Aki hadn't noticed it when following the route Norma had given her, but now she realized that the design of the ventilation ducts was much more complicated than she had imagined. It seemed that the actual area of ​​this artifact forgery workshop must be quite large.

That's understandable, considering that the art museum alone occupies tens of thousands of square meters. Venues of that size are common in large countries like China or the USA, but quite rare in a smaller country like Portugal.

In the pitch black, she had lost all sense of time and didn't know how long she had been climbing before she finally saw that someone had made a hole in the wall of the ventilation duct ahead, and a sliver of light was shining in from the opening.

With the help of this light source, she was able to see the appearance of the mysterious guide—or rather, the appearance, since the person was completely covered in a black combat suit, including her head and face. However, it was still possible to tell that she was a girl, because her figure was curvaceous and her slender waist was slightly bent downwards, like a kitten that was always stretching.

The other person's attire clearly indicated an intention to conceal their identity, which didn't surprise Aki. She hadn't naively assumed the other person would so easily reveal their appearance. She was simply curious about who this mysterious girl was and why she happened to be here at this crucial moment when Aki was in trouble.

The first one to be ruled out is the Academy, because if the Academy had sent a reserve force to support her, Norma or Professor Mans would have definitely notified her in advance, and the people from the Academy would have no reason to hide their identities from her.

Who would that be?