Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

It feels cool to the touch, and seems to be jade.

Suddenly, Genji felt a severe sense of weightlessness. His consciousness seemed to leave his body and rise rapidly, breaking through the fog and clouds, reaching a place at an extremely high and cold altitude. Above him, magnificent galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and intergalactic space unfolded before his eyes. As his consciousness continued to rise, he saw what humans define as galaxy clusters and superclusters, and even a chain-like cosmic Great Wall formed by numerous superclusters and galaxy clusters.

In the blink of an eye, the slender, feather-like radiance of the Great Wall of the Universe drifted slowly, time flew by, and then the starlight dimmed, and perhaps only nothingness remained in the vast space beyond the observable universe.

The deepest darkness! The deepest darkness!

It wasn't until he vaguely heard Sakura's call that Genji came back to his senses.

For a moment, the brain enhanced by the super hybrid bloodline didn't react, seemingly still immersed in that state of touching the essence of the starry sky, and even felt unfamiliar with its own body.

"Don't touch these stones." Genji knew where the report of observing the stars came from.

Although this stuff isn't fatal, it can affect a person's mental state. As a combat unit, we can't let our squad members come into contact with it. It's best to wait for the professors and doctoral students from the Ganryu Research Institute to come and take samples for testing, and then just wait for the report.

With this point as the dividing line, the surrounding scenery was no longer terrifying, but rather had a fantastical quality. Everyone's eyes were filled with astonishment, and the group continued to move forward in silence.

They eventually reached the source of the anomaly—a wall formed by a grayish-white, semi-transparent barrier amidst a dense, liquid-like mist.

The gate was covered by a magnificent emblem, with two birds flanking a stone tablet carved with the moon, stars, and sun. As Genji once again took the lead and touched the mark, a voice rose in his mind: "No one may enter without the permission of the King of Stars, Lu Mingfei."

The situation has finally become clear.

"Set up a perimeter here. No one is allowed to approach, not even you." Yuan Zhisheng's expression was more solemn than ever before; he hadn't been this distraught even when encountering the dragon subspecies. He knew what this thing was; it had transcended Lu Mingfei's political role as an ally. Anyone who came into contact with such a thing would worship Lu Mingfei as a god…

Chapter 234 The White King, Earth and Fire

The Nibelungen, with its underground tunnels, exhibits labyrinthine characteristics. At the very center of this labyrinth—a vast cavern that is both the beginning and the end—a heartbeat emanates from a giant, snow-white cocoon. The white silk that makes up the cocoon wriggles incessantly, spreading along the ground from the cocoon's center. The entire cavern seems to have been blanketed in a heavy snowfall, deathly silent, chilling, and utterly white.

Finally, the giant cocoon was torn apart from the inside out by a pure white claw, and the perfect creature rose abruptly from the crack, unfurling its white membranous wings in the air. It was strikingly handsome, gracefully elegant, somewhere between an angel and a demon—the White King, Herzog the White King!

It felt an overwhelming surge of power within it, and with each breath, it seemed as if the heavens and earth were forced to breathe in and out. With its mere will, it could stir up a massive tide of magma from the earth. It inherited everything from the White King—power, bloodline, even memories—but retained its own consciousness. From this day forward, it was the new White King.

A great being second only to the king, in the era before the Black King, he was the throne of the world.

It gazed with delight at the world before it, able to see the flow of elements: red fire, blue water, black earth, and white sky, a chaotic storm of elements swirling around it. This storm of elements, caused by the royal domain, was devouring the crumbling Nibelungen. The mysterious dragon king who created Nibelungen as a cage was utterly ridiculous! To the White King, everything in this world that could be called a cage had been lost with the Black King's slumber.

How can one know the beauty of power without reaching the pinnacle of the world? How can one dye the banner of the new king red without slaughtering countless beings?

Herzog was filled with excitement. He waved his arms powerfully like a conductor, and a destructive storm, as sharp as a knife, erupted from him. It wanted to destroy Nibelungen, to find that arrogant traitor, and to devour him!

The coming era will surely be one of soaring dragons! All dragons will awaken, but will prostrate themselves before its throne. The white banner of Herzog, the Dragon King, will fly across the world map. Like the Persian king, it will ride in a golden chariot, carried on the shoulders of slaves, traversing the entire continent. All the land it passes through will belong to it, its path stained crimson with the blood of rebels!

A heavy sound echoed from afar, interrupting Herzog's thoughts, and it slowly stopped moving... The elemental storm was being halted.

Those were the footsteps of metal armor, and a blurry figure slowly emerged at the edge of the storm, followed by an extremely violent fire element appearing in Herzog's perception.

Herzog had no interest in entanglement with its opponent. The exhilaration of power and a deep-seated destructive urge filled its heart. It raised its hand and unleashed an extremely dangerous Word of Power. As it awoke, countless Words of Power echoed deep within its mind—a vast array of incantations far exceeding the periodic table of Words of Power.

The towering ice crystal storm took shape instantly, looking like pure white mist rising from the sky and the ground at the same time. When the two merged, they swept up the entire world!

On the other side of the storm, Lu Mingfei, clad in demon armor, reached out his hand against the biting wind. A miraculous scene unfolded: the frigid storm, filled with icy crystals, vanished upon touching his palm. In a short time, a cone-shaped blank area appeared within the overwhelming storm, centered on him.

As the storm subsided, Lu Mingfei made a grasping motion again, and an extremely cold ice cone longsword condensed and grew in his hand. He extracted elements and recreated elements. Having mastered the three elements, he could now do things that even the newly born White King could not understand.

Herzog's elation was instantly cooled by this sight; compared to this, it was just a child throwing stones, while the other could extract gold from them.

At this point, Herzog finally saw the newcomer clearly. The metal armor and the two weapons, one of ice and one of fire, made the man look like a knight straight out of a fantasy novel.

"Even Don Quixote has come out?" Herzog laughed, a deep sarcasm on his狰狞 face covered with fine scales. "How amusing."

“So, you are Herzog, not the White King,” Lu Mingfei stated, looking at the monster being lifted into the air by the gale.

"Oh?" Herzog was finally intrigued. "You are different from those insects outside. You should be able to witness the power of the gods, but you don't seem to understand... A new great era has arrived. I am the white god, and I will be eternal!"

"Eternity? Even the halo of gods will fade, and perfect laws will decay... How dare a fragmented monarch with absurd ambitions speak of eternity?" Lu Mingfei raised an extremely cold ice blade.

The high-risk Word of Power that Herzog had unleashed was recreated in his hands, and a white blizzard instantly engulfed everything.

“Foolish,” Herzog said coldly, but it did not retaliate. Instead, it suddenly folded its wings and, under the cover of the elemental storm, flew straight towards the sky above Nibelungen.

It wasn't stupid. Lu Mingfei clearly possessed the attributes of multiple Dragon Kings. As the newly born White King, it considered itself superior to Lu Mingfei, but it hadn't yet digested the inherited memories and wasn't familiar with the fighting style of dragons. If it could break through this weak Nibelungen, it could grow rapidly in a very short time, even creating its own next-generation army and human servants.

However, when it saw the sky clearly, its heart suddenly tightened.

Sometime later, the labyrinthine rock formations had completely vanished. The sun remained about a third of the way across the sky, its light obscured by the moon's shadow, leaving only an eerie, dark red corona. The sky was terribly dark, yet a blood-red glow enveloped the earth... Silent waves surged across the pitch-black land, and undulating mountains stretched endlessly in all directions.

It could sense the activity of the flames deep within the earth.

The Nibelungen has been reset, which is unimaginable even within the knowledge inherited from the White King.

A new wave of elemental storms is forming, but this time the source is from the ground. Storm clouds are gathering at a speed visible to the naked eye, and hurricanes with astonishing speeds are crashing into Herzog's domain, carrying ice crystals.

This had little effect on it, but it was a great insult.

"Fire and earth... do you think that's enough to defy me?" Herzog's tone was filled with venomous resentment.

Its response was a sudden surge of fire elemental energy, with six malevolent flames sealing it within a confined space before erupting simultaneously.

The low-altitude clouds were briefly illuminated, and Herzog's disheveled figure broke through the blast radius, feeling the lingering burning pain on its body with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty. The reason it failed to dodge was because it confidently believed itself to be a complete elemental master, capable of controlling elements purely with its consciousness, including the fire element manipulated by the King of Bronze and Fire. Therefore, it immediately attempted to cancel Lu Mingfei's incantation.

However, the strange incantation could not be canceled or affected by the White King's authority.

Chapter 235 Divine Body Transforms into a Sword

Since his battle with Odin, Lu Mingfei hadn't unleashed his full mental power in a long time. As the almost materialized boundary of his domain expanded to its maximum extent from his center, the entire world seemed to slow down in his eyes, as if even the air had turned into a thick gel. Everything was collapsing, and colorful lines jumped, connected, and changed on everything.

The world of elements changed according to his will. He took a step forward, and in the empty air, white torrents condensed out of thin air. Countless wind elements intertwined and then exploded, making a pleasant sound.

In reality, however, a powerful burst of air, strong enough to shatter hard rock, accelerated Lu Mingfei's figure into the air amidst a deafening explosion.

Conceptual Armament: Lu Mingfei's Twin Blades. This super alchemical weapon, crafted by Lu Mingze and incorporating the power of the fire element and Melina's spirit, can change form at will according to Lu Mingfei's will. In its initial state, it consists of two curved blades burning with golden and red flames.

At this moment, Lu Mingfei crossed his two swords and slashed out in a crisscross pattern.

He collided with Herzog like a meteor cutting through storms, fire, and clouds.

The red storm briefly dispelled other colors, with extremely chaotic elemental turbulence churning between the colors and red, creating a deadly boundary. In reality, superstorms several orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest hurricanes in the Atlantic appeared over the battlefield. Such high-speed storms generally do not form naturally on a planet the size and rotation speed of Earth. Thunderstorms raged between the clouds, with the most intense lightning illuminating thousands of square kilometers of cloud cover.

To Lu Mingfei and Herzog, all of this was abstract and warm; what they saw and heard far exceeded the human definition of visible light and audible waves. But there was a difference between the two. Herzog was, after all, the new king, and everything he was experiencing—the reshaping of his worldview—was something Lu Mingfei had already gone through a century ago—through the baptism of death.

The same dark slash that had once destroyed Fenrir's body now tore Herzog's flesh apart, causing far greater mental anguish than physical damage. The flames of rage seared every nerve in Herzog; it could not accept this outcome. It would allow the remnant to revive within the Maiden of the Source, then exchange blood with the unborn White King. The King's blood possessed the strongest potency and the weakest toxicity—a panacea… a perfect plan!

The plan, which should have been perfect, was thwarted by the appearance of Lu Mingfei.

It roared furiously, brandishing the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, an unparalleled sword in Japanese mythology. In the myth, Susanoo, wielding the divine sword Ame-no-Habakiri (Heavenly Feather Blade) of his father, Izanagi, went to slay the Yamata-no-Orochi. However, while dismembering the serpent's body, the sword broke at the hilt. He then found the sword, named "Ame-no-Murakumo," hidden within the serpent's tail. If the serpent hadn't fallen asleep after drinking sake when it was killed, the Yamata-no-Orochi wouldn't have died from Ame-no-Habakiri, but rather Susanoo would have perished within Ame-no-Murakumo.

No one seriously discusses the plausibility of myths, so no one has ever tried to explain why a sword would be hidden in the tail of a snake, yet at this moment the sword is indeed in Herzog's hand—it is the sharp bone at the end of the long tail of the White King's juvenile!

Herzog found it on the remains of the White King's infant body that Genji had slain, but the mythical weapon could only barely parry the twin blades in Lu Mingfei's hands.

It's about to collapse. Why? By what right?

A young man who is too naive seems to be born with everything he has planned his whole life for... even better.

The two engaged in close combat, reaching an altitude of nearly 30 kilometers. This was almost the upper boundary of the Nibelungen, where even the world's structure had become rough and lazy. Apart from the sun corona, which still hung high in the sky and represented the supreme element of fire, the other physical rules were close to those of the real world. The thin atmosphere of the stratosphere could not gather enough power to allow the two to continue ascending.

Looking down from this frigid space of -50 degrees Celsius, the waves formed by the mountains are completely obscured by the clouds, and the chaotic turbulent flow of elements appears much more orderly. With the circular earth as the boundary, the various vortexes of elements, large and small, are distributed in a somewhat orderly manner, forming a colorful canvas, and the outline of the earth is vaguely revealed.

Such a spectacular sight shocked both sides of the battle, who had briefly separated and fallen after losing the support of the gale. The difference was that Herzog was filled with a burgeoning lust for power, while Lu Mingfei felt a long-lost sense of emotion.

It was a strange sense of reality, as if he had only now truly felt far removed from the borderlands and the golden tree's radiance that he could see with his head held high, after being back on Earth for so long. This stemmed from the influence of the law on his way of seeing the world; as a king, the reality of the world itself was far more important than the concepts of all things.

But he only needed to search his memory a little to recall those nights when he encountered wandering merchants setting up camp around a campfire, when he felt at ease encountering rational living beings in a chaotic world, when he finally escaped the excitement and danger of battle... At first, he would be curious about the merchants and the horses carrying their goods, but later he would only politely buy some arrows and gravel and then sit down and stare blankly at the fire.

The wandering merchants always kept their campfires burning brightly, with numerous sparks bursting from the tall flames, and warm smoke rising upwards, gradually disappearing into the night sky from fiery red to deep blue.

Both being wandering travelers, the merchant truly belonged to this land, but he did not; he had a true homeland. At that time, his mind was filled with such wild thoughts, far from the warrior's awareness that later earned him the admiration of Alexander the Great.

When he returned to the wilderness after a short rest, he would often look back and watch the firelight of the wandering merchants' camp gradually shrink until it became a faint dot in the night. Each time he experienced this, he felt that something was happening inside him, a change that he did not like, but that was more suitable for this world.

At first, he still held onto a fantasy: perhaps behind some rock, at a bend in the road, on the other side of some dense forest, a group of rescue teams would be calling his name. First, search dogs would find him by following his scent, then the rescue team and medical personnel would arrive, and he would be surrounded by warm lights and people, with someone whispering in his ear, "Lu Mingfei, your family is waiting for you, hang in there."

However, gradually, such thoughts lessened in his mind, and he was able to fall asleep peacefully amidst the eerie howling of the wind across the wilderness, the low growls of monsters, the flapping of their wings, the sharpening of their claws, and the snorting of Torret.

Perhaps from that day on, he no longer belonged to Earth, but also not to the border region.

Herzog was horrified to discover that a power not belonging to the five elements was beginning to emanate from Lu Mingfei's body; it was a golden radiance that did not belong to this world.

In the thin atmosphere, Lu Mingfei accelerated suddenly in a way that even the Dragon King could not achieve, merging his two swords into a strangely shaped greatsword, a sword born from the remains of a god who should have been eternally immortal.

People see different meanings in it—serious crime, destruction, the end of an era, or perhaps the beginning.

The divine body transformed into a sword.

The greatsword pierced Herzog's body, and the two became entangled, spinning rapidly before plummeting straight to the ground, leaving behind a trail of golden ripples, like a gleaming golden spear piercing through a dark storm.

As they glided through the stratosphere, surrounded by boundless desolation, a thunderous roar suddenly erupted in their ears as they plunged into the clouds. The two seemed oblivious to everything around them, unleashing torrents of elemental energy upon each other, each trying to drag the other into an extremely dangerous vortex of elements.

Chapter 236 Confrontation of Authority

Unlike the Kusanagi, which is a naturally formed sword shape from the tailbone of the Yamata no Orochi, the Divine Body Sword is a manifestation of the Elden Ring, the guardian of the Ring, and a subordinate of the Supreme Will—the Elden Beast, which borrowed the body of Radagan. Its structure is somewhat unique: the neck of the Divine Body becomes the hilt, the arms become the guard, the blade has a distinct spine in the middle, and the legs are wrapped around it to become the blade.

The sword contains ancient gold, capable of generating magnificent golden fluctuations.

This is the sword that Lu Mingfei wore when he sat on his throne. For the residents of the Borderlands who were fortunate enough to have seen the king, this greatsword was a symbol of an era. It also appeared frequently in the hands of the numerous statues of Lu Mingfei scattered throughout the Borderlands, a tangible expression of the Golden Law King's power and benevolence.

As the blades clashed, countless elemental vortexes were born, raged, and vanished in an instant. These elemental phenomena, which had not appeared since ancient times, left behind terrifying energy when they ended, like countless miniature Rhinestones being released every moment. But the Rhinestones' radiance was only fit to illuminate the faces of the two warring parties. Their spirits were in great distress, and only such intense light could dispel the hallucinations and whispers caused by the mental shock.

In hundreds of battles, Herzog had sustained several severe sword wounds, but it had also successfully destroyed Lu Mingfei's armor. As the blazing light tore through the chaos, a flash of horror suddenly crossed its mind.

"It's you! It's you! It's you!" Herzog cried out in a frenzy, "You're Zero!"

It finally remembered. In its eyes, Lu Mingfei's appearance gradually overlapped with that of the boy in Black Swan Harbor. "That makes sense, that makes sense. You are such a great being."

Herzog abruptly retreated, spreading its wings and hovering in the middle of the thunderstorm. Hearing its muttering, Lu Mingfei also stopped attacking and retreated a distance as well. The dark clouds churned, and the wind howled like knives. The two fell into a brief silence, listening only to the rumble of thunder.

“So I was once so close to the end of the world! But I missed it!” Herzog’s expression suddenly twisted again.

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” Lu Mingfei really wanted to hear the story of Black Swan Harbor, but he knew that revealing his purpose in front of a cunning and treacherous guy like Herzog would be very disadvantageous, so he could only say calmly, “I think you’re talking about Lu Mingze, also known as Zero. Unfortunately, he’s not here.”

“No,” Herzog said, but a hint of hesitation flashed across his face. “I won’t mistake it.”

It recognized that face! That boy! That child it had locked at the end of the corridor for ten long years! It had collected vast amounts of data from this boy, conducted its research by nearly destroying him, and finally decided to discard this useless experimental subject. For years, it firmly believed itself to be the sole survivor of Black Swan Harbor, having consumed the value of everyone in that harbor. Yet this boy had survived—he was another evil spirit of Black Swan Harbor!

Herzog suddenly fell into extreme silence, staring intently at Lu Mingfei's face, trying to discern another person in it.

It became aware of something it hadn't noticed since the start of the war: Lu Mingfei's form. Unlike its monstrous appearance, a fusion of dragon, snake, and human, Lu Mingfei had always been a humanoid figure clad in armor. Initially, it thought it was just a young person's role-playing game, but the course of the battle had proven this assumption wrong.

Lu Mingfei's armor and weapons didn't match the style of the Dragon Clan, but they truly possessed the power to challenge the White Emperor.

Herzog was unsure whether the fully re-incubated White King's body could defeat Lu Mingfei, but that might force him to reveal his true form as well.