Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

With EVA's absolute support, they broke away from the main force of the Secret Party, using the snowstorm to avoid satellite surveillance, and deliberately advanced into areas ravaged by blizzards, like a lone boat entering the sea.

During their nighttime rest, the trio discovered something unusual that the main Secret Society forces couldn't detect. They were unaware that it wasn't from the Nibelungen, the Doomsday Faction.

In the snowstorm, another team was only a few dozen meters away, their figures indistinct, with only faint lights visible. The fact that their lights could penetrate such a thick snow curtain indicated that they were well-prepared. However, Caesar and his group were already far from the main force of the Secret Party; according to EVA's intelligence, this place should have been deserted.

Caesar's Kamaitachi was released, but it encountered an invisible domain and could not get close.

The other side also noticed them, and after a brief standoff, both sides chose to move closer to each other.

Caesar, Abbas, and Fingel advanced, guns in hand. In the vast Siberian snowfield, encountering the other side might indeed be a breakthrough. This was another reason Caesar hadn't mentioned—another reason for choosing Abbas as a team member. This web of puzzles had many knots, and Abbas was one of them; clues would lie alongside the puzzle.

Finally, as the distance decreased, the wind and snow gradually ceased to be an obstacle, and their eyes met.

Both sides were at a standstill.

Caesar, and there's another Caesar on the other side. There are three people on this side, and two on that side: "Caesar" and a young Asian man of similar age. The man is wearing a military uniform with dragon elements on his epaulets, but these have never appeared in the armed forces of the Secret Service.

Chapter 317 True or False

All three of them stared intently at the Asian man. The young man opposite them looked exactly like Chu Zihang, who was standing next to Lu Mingfei. In comparison, this "Chu Zihang" had a more consistent demeanor with what Lu Mingfei had described.

Another Caesar? Another Chu Zihang? Just as Lu Mingfei said, in his memory, Caesar and Chu Zihang were friends who had gone through life and death together, as well as sworn enemies.

Caesar and Chu Zihang on the other side also dared not make any rash moves. They were trapped in a communication blackout and were preparing to return to their base to investigate the situation when they encountered "Caesar", "Fingal" and a Middle Eastern man on the way.

The two sides stood frozen in the cold wind of the snow-covered plain, the wind and snow cutting through two worlds like knives.

Having witnessed cloning technology inherited from the former Soviet Union, and even seen deities, no one can trust the authenticity of what's on the other side, but neither can they underestimate the power of deception.

“Finger, weren’t you seconded to the New York branch?” Caesar suddenly shouted from across the room.

The only breakthrough point among both sides was Fingel.

Fingel immediately exchanged a glance with Caesar and Abbas, and after receiving the signal, he also shouted, "Yeah, yeah, what's going on with you guys? Still not done?"

At the same time, Abbas and Caesar beside him prepared to engage the enemy. Since the clone's bloodline was likely identical to the original's, and neither side could break through the barrier, Caesar could use his firepower to coordinate with Abbas's surprise attack.

The moment Fingel finished speaking, the two opposite him moved simultaneously. To the surprise of all three, two balls of Sovereign Flame ignited—Caesar on the other side possessed Sovereign Flame!

Fortunately, the King's Flame only obscured vision and did not include the three in its kill zone; only the heatwave hit, making it temporarily suffocating. Abbas immediately chanted dragon incantations, while Caesar and Fingel sought cover on either side and provided suppressive fire.

At this moment, another change occurred. The flames of the sovereign, which should have dissipated, condensed again. The distance between the two sides had far exceeded the range of the sovereign's domain, and it was impossible for the opponent to still be able to manipulate the fire element at this distance.

"It's the wind!" Caesar shouted, "The Eye of the Wind King!"

At some point, the blizzard stopped lashing through the forest and instead enveloped them, forming a small, storm-like wind domain. Caesar's katana had been on guard around the perimeter, but Caesar's lord's flames distracted him, causing him to overlook the change in sound after the wind changed direction. That slight noise became a fatal oversight.

From the very beginning, the opponent was setting up a plan. There must have been a third person in the shadows. The opponent knew Kamaitachi very well, and all the preparations were for this decisive blow!

At this moment, Abbas's domain had taken shape. Indra, like Junyan, belonged to a high-level incantation. Blazing white electric arcs continuously pierced the air, emitting explosions, and the space within the domain was highly ionized.

If it comes down to a head-on confrontation, Abbas might not necessarily lose.

"Fingal!" Caesar suddenly shouted and fired a shot in the direction behind Fingel.

The bullet disappeared into the darkness without any feedback, but Fingel's figure suddenly twisted, as if he was fighting with someone. The next second, Fingel disappeared from the spot, whether he fell into the snow or was dragged away.

Caesar had been tricked again. In his territory, the weasels were being hunted down one by one, the biting wind seeming to carry the attacks of precise scalpels… a one-sided massacre. Just as the weasels behind Fingel disappeared, Caesar immediately retaliated, but his blind shots were completely ineffective.

The Vampire Scythe... could it be a fourth person?

Caesar recalled the other's initial surprise followed by a tentative reaction upon their encounter; it didn't seem like an ambush. His mind was in turmoil.

At that moment, the fire tornado formed by the combined power of the King's Flame and the Eye of the Wind collided with Indra, unleashing an indescribable burst of light. Lightning continued to strike forward, and the impact even sent Abbas flying. Caesar had not anticipated this at all.

A molten gold-like humanoid figure burst forth from the flames, wielding a long sword wreathed in flames, and thrust it towards Abbas against the shockwave.

Chu Zihang, who has suffered five blood explosions!

Caesar's Kamaitachi were all dead, but amidst his shock, he could still sense something amiss behind him. He crouched down, intending to shoot at the back from under his armpit, but the person behind him grabbed the back of his neck and arm first. The strength was exactly as intimidating as the impression Genji had given Caesar.

Turning around, Caesar finally saw the attacker, another Caesar, whose eyes shone with a golden light as bright as a gas lamp. "Ask them where they came from; maybe it's related to what we encountered," he heard the other say calmly.

The two men tied Caesar, the unconscious Abbas, and the lifeless Fingel together.

For Caesar and Chu Zihang, who had experienced numerous battles and all-out wars, this battle was not even a fight to the death. Nevertheless, the two still went all out. Chu Zihang ignited his fifth level of Blood Explosion, while Caesar activated his third level of Blood Explosion and made full use of the alchemical sword given to him by Lu Mingfei.

Bound and silent, Caesar was surrounded by the unconscious Abbas and Fingel, making him the sole subject of interrogation.

“Fingal has always served on the Council and has never been seconded by the Regulatory Bureau. Who are you? Who are you acting on my orders? What have you used to block communications? What are you trying to do?” Caesar kicked “himself”; his military boots could easily make the other person uncomfortable. “Speak!”

Chu Zihang stood to the side and said calmly, "The council has relevant proposals to deal with this kind of thing. Confessing can help you get lenient treatment. Times have changed. As long as you are willing to repent, we will not object to you, a hybrid who can still maintain his mind, undergoing reformation."

"What perfect teamwork," Caesar muttered inexplicably, still bound. "It's just like the real thing."

"Who is he? If you're impersonating someone else, you should bring another version of yourself. It's a huge risk for you, and you can't afford to make any mistakes." Seeing that he couldn't get any information, Chu Zihang pointed to Abbas and asked more specific and simpler questions.

"I don't think we'll get anything out of them. Just execute them on the spot. The most important thing now is to get back to the camp, report to the regulatory bureau, and have them deal with these counterfeit goods." Caesar impatiently cocked his pistol.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! Brothers, we secretly broke away from the main force." Fingel, who had woken up at some point, immediately betrayed the group upon hearing Caesar and Chu Zihang's coordinated threats. "We came here to wipe out the Doomsday Faction and Lu Mingfei in one fell swoop. As for the other slang you're using, we really don't understand it!"

Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged a glance, both noticing each other's surprise.

"I have a few questions. Does the Doomsday Faction still exist? Is Lu Mingfei in Siberia? The Secret Party... dares to attack Lu Mingfei?" Caesar asked doubtfully. He couldn't play the good cop anymore. He just felt that the person in front of him was either mentally unstable or had been given false information to deceive people, but this was too fake.

Chapter 318 Warrior

"Of course the Doomsday Faction is still around, and so is Lu Mingfei. The Secret Society has been hunting him down for months; it's no news." The bound Caesar sneered. "You're the ones pulling the strings, aren't you? Don't you get any professional training before you start doing this?"

Silence fell, and the snowstorm dispersed by the explosion began to fall again, mingling with cold raindrops.

“I understand,” Chu Zihang said. He recalled the phenomenon of world fusion he had witnessed before, and he looked at Caesar, who nodded in agreement.

“Listen carefully, I don’t know where you come from, but in the world as we know it, the Doomsday Party has long ceased to exist. Right now, the Allied Fleet is engaged in a decisive battle with Nidhogg in the Arctic,” Caesar continued. “As for the Secret Party… many people say that the Secret Party is practically defunct, and its most influential council of elders has been gradually dismantled by the dictator.”

“A dictator?” Fingel asked.

“Under special circumstances, one person can be elected to exercise dictatorship over the decisions of the Senate, such as during wartime,” Caesar, who was bound, explained.

“That’s right. Since Lu Mingfei is a dictator, the Secret Party can’t use force against him. Besides…” Caesar’s expression was strange, “even if the entire Secret Party came out, they might not be a match for Lu Mingfei.”

“Okay, now I really believe we’ve arrived in a parallel world,” Fingel said. “Could you untie me? Since we’re all good people, it’s not good to be fighting.”

“No.” Chu Zihang shook his head. He half-squatted down, took out a medical kit, and gave the unconscious Abbas a simple bandage and tried to wake him up.

“We’ve lost contact with our base and don’t know what’s happening there,” Caesar said. “Even if we know you come from a parallel world and are 'ourselves' that we can trust, we must still be cautious. The differences between worlds can lead to serious dangers. For example, if one plus one equals three in your world, there are such fundamental differences between worlds. No matter how similar we are, we cannot allow you to move freely. Perhaps a subconscious action of yours could cause us trouble.”

“Perhaps it is you who came to our world.” Caesar, who was bound, said with a stern face. “You are responsible, and we are also responsible. In our world, Lu Mingfei is in danger of becoming a dragon, but only our team is willing to investigate the truth.”

"Since your Lu Mingfei is being hunted down by the Secret Party, it's impossible that we came into your world," Chu Zihang said calmly.

Both Caesar, who was trapped, and Fingel, who was standing nearby, pondered the logic in these words and remained silent for a moment.

A moment later, Abbas woke up from his coma. The two people beside him briefly explained the current situation to him. He was the only one among them who was somewhat excited. "In other words, I have replaced Chu Zihang. Perhaps it is because of the change in the timeline, rather than the effect of the illusory power of words."

No one paid him any attention.

Seeing that the three bound men had regained their senses, Chu Zihang put away their weapons, straightened their clothes, and changed their bindings to make it easier for them to walk in the snow. He also promised, "Once we reach the encampment, someone will assess your condition. Don't worry, the most severe measure we'll take is detention for observation."

Unable to win in a fight or in a conversation, the three had no choice but to accept it, and the group began to head towards the mysterious, lost camp.

In the original timeline, Caesar and Chu Zihang were attacked by a nuclear weapon after killing all the Deadpools. Because they deviated from the original route and a battle broke out, a lot of time was wasted. All five of them died while fighting the Deadpools, and the nuclear weapon brought the timeline back together.

Caesar opened his eyes amidst the violent shaking, the fierce, knife-like wind tearing at his clothes and bare skin, and everything around him was shrouded in a devastating noise.

A stream of memories, condensed from different perspectives, was hammered into his mind like nails. It mainly consisted of training memories, as well as fragmented memories from dozens of timelines. It took him about half a minute to piece together the cause and effect.

Caesar, the glorious paratrooper, carries out the Council's tactical orders. His existence signifies that the previous Caesar perished somewhere on this battlefield. Below lies the Nibelungen ruins of the dragon race, from which the modern-day dragons mine ancient resources and awaken ancient legions of the Dead Servants and dragon princes.

The goal of this attack was to strike and destroy production activities here.

Caesar looked out of the cabin at the sky. In the far distance, there was a clean horizon, and the clouds clung to the earth's curves like ironed fabric, while the sunlight was taut like a bowstring. Those ferocious dragon shadows flew between heaven and earth, a sight he had never imagined before.

"Don't look at those things, your Air Force colleagues will shoot down those bastards. Your mission is on the ground, God bless you!" the parachute commander shouted into the communication microphone in the gale.

Caesar's memories had mostly returned, and he looked across at the person opposite him, following his recollections. Abbas met his gaze.

In the original world's death incident, another Caesar and Chu Zihang survived a few milliseconds longer than him, Abbas, and Fingel during the nuclear explosion. As a result, their fates were postponed. When Caesar died, the muscular version of Caesar who could unleash a third burst of blood would take his place.

What kind of world is this? What kind of battlefield is this? It's so exciting and exhilarating!

On the other side, Abbas felt much the same way. He knew very well that both he and Caesar had shed their dragon bloodlines and existed purely as humans, free from suspicion and unease. Here, they were fearless warriors; their lives, battles, and deaths would be tangible and resounding events in this world. How many such opportunities had there been throughout human history?

"Stand up!" the parachute commander shouted.

Finally, the final moment arrived. With a series of orders, the soldiers completed their final checks. Caesar followed the ranks, checking the ropes for his comrades ahead of him. He turned to Abbas, and they nodded to each other in silence.

The first soldier was already standing at the edge of the hatch. The parachute commander patted him on the shoulder and encouraged him, "For humanity! For victory!"

When it was Abbas's turn, Caesar watched him jump, and soon he followed suit. The parachute commander's voice was swallowed by the wind, "Jump! Jump! Jump!"

The wind, clouds, smoke, and the whole world rushed towards him. Caesar recalled the feeling of the world's vastness filling his heart when he sailed a hydrofoil through a sun-drenched bay, as if he were about to fly over the sea, mountains, and sky at any moment.

Descending to the designated altitude, he deployed his parachute. The massive Nibelungen ruins were already beginning to take shape. It was an ancient settlement of dragons hidden deep in the sea, now transformed into a military base after being driven out of the sea by dragon alchemists and surrounded by the mud and rocks of the continental shelf.

Chapter 319 Situation, Starry Sky, Veteran

Dragons have a natural racial advantage over humans, so Lu Mingfei had to abandon the steady, positional warfare approach and the late-game all-out attack strategy. After opening two mines, he constantly harassed on multiple fronts, trying to disrupt Nidhogg's offensive as much as possible.

In contrast, Nidhogg chose a suppressive strategy, sending fire dragons to harass Lu Mingfei's mining area multiple times in the early stages. Once the economy improved, they began to use fire dragons and wind dragons as cover to airdrop earth and mountain species into Lu Mingfei's mining area. Once these earth dragons successfully released their incantations, they could wipe out most of the engineering corps in the mining area in one go.

In response to this widespread destructive attack, the troops around Lu Mingfei's mining area maintained their distance from each other, reconnaissance aircraft formations were deployed in the sky for constant vigilance, and Rocket Force lines were arranged at every key intersection.

Overall, no major event has yet occurred in this battle that concerns the fate of the entire planet, enough to change the course of the war. Both the humans and the dragons are extremely cautious and have not truly attempted to launch a strategic offensive in the style of a final showdown. Instead, they are both trying to find weaknesses in each other's defenses.

Nidhogg's formidable assault force retreated immediately each time it was exposed, while Lu Mingfei constantly sought opportunities to severely damage key dragon units during the intervals between defensive and mobile warfare. For a time, sporadic firefights occurred everywhere, but the situation maintained an extremely restrained balance.

From a higher vantage point, in the cosmic space beyond the planet, or rather, in the vision of the celestial deities, Earth shines intensely, almost indistinguishable from a star. Several watchful eyes converge here, attempting to find an opportunity to strike between the two lucrative forces of destiny, but their methods are blocked by the two divine powers.

One is from the most common god of night in the starry sky, and the other's divine power has transcended the concept of a single entity—this is actually a planet that has attracted the attention of a complete god, and all those who covet it must weigh the cost of reaching out.

Across tens of thousands of kilometers, Lani faced the physical form of the Supreme Will for the first time at such close range. She had many questions, but the Supreme Will seemed uninterested in uttering a single word to her. When the Supreme Will descended, a divine consciousness in the Himalayas attempted to communicate with it. Lani only heard a shout of "Where did this stupid thing come from?" before the divine being fell silent.

The supreme will came here solely because of Lu Mingfei's existence.

Realizing this, Lani decided not to make a fool of herself. Besides, she was no longer a god-like figure in the borderlands, so asking many questions would be pointless and would only satisfy her curiosity.

After Lu Mingfei and Nidhogg's "duel" began, the Supreme Will froze the spacetime around Earth, making the battle of destiny even more complete. Lu Mingfei was unaware of all this, and even if he had, he probably wouldn't have cared; he was completely immersed in the game.

If there truly is a destiny that renders all efforts futile, then he is shattering that destiny, and all preparations have been made for this moment.

From a material, linear perspective, deities may have existed long before their birth, like a cycle, a vortex, or a ouroboros-like reincarnation. In the eyes of the deities, the birth of their kind is like a chaotic energy suddenly stirred, with a condensation nucleus becoming the focal point at a certain moment, thus giving this energy a discernible form.