Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

"You actually joked..."

"I'm the head of the executive department, but I'm almost becoming a bystander on the battlefield of slaying dragons. What can I do but feel helpless?" Schneider looked out the window. The rain was pouring down, and the raindrops were hitting the glass with a pattering sound.

"Which dragon is it? There's already a battlefield?" Manstein gasped. "I feel like I'm from a different world."

Chapter 120 Arrival

The security guard looked at the young man in the black trench coat with some suspicion. He had an oversized black long bag slung over his back, which, in the guard's experience, likely contained metal cosplay props. In the past, young people attending anime conventions had tried to bring metal swords onto the subway; even if the exaggerated props weren't sharpened, they weren't allowed on the train.

The boy obediently took off his cloth bag, put it into the conveyor belt of the security scanner, and then calmly accepted the metal detector search by the uncle.

Surprisingly, there were no problems.

The middle-aged man watched with a puzzled expression as the boy descended the stairs leading to the platform level. He then peered at the perspective image on the screen. Inside the large cloth bag was a set of fishing gear: a lure rod, bait box, accessory box, lure bag... The middle-aged man sighed, never expecting that the boy, so young, had embarked on a path of no return.

Lu Mingfei stood on the platform, carrying his hunting dog, Long Teeth. The older man hadn't initially guessed wrong; the bag contained an exaggeratedly designed curved sword, but the security scanner failed to detect it. Beijing Metro's security scanners have long been intelligent, supporting network connectivity and linking to a higher-level security network management platform. This allows for local storage, viewing, and retrieval of videos, images, and alarm information. When necessary, they can also organically combine X-ray bag images with passenger video information to achieve person-bag tracking.

Norma can operate the system as long as she has an internet connection.

When the signal from the dual-energy semiconductor detector reaches the signal processing unit, Norma replaces it with pre-prepared signal data. The resulting image output from the unit shows a fishing device. This process is very simple for Norma; he only needs to control the timing. To security personnel, the image output delay is only a fraction of a second.

On the platform, two girls approached Lu Mingfei. "Hello, may I collect stamps with you?"

Lu Mingfei knew that "stamp collecting" was a term used at comic conventions, not referring to collecting stamps, but rather to taking photos with cosplayers. It seemed that the two girls mistook him for a cosplayer attending the comic convention.

Lu Mingfei used to go to anime conventions with his uncle. His uncle loved collecting photos, and whenever he saw a cosplayer, he would ask if he could take a picture with her/collect a photo. Lu Mingfei was usually the photographer in charge. Actually, his uncle didn't care about taking pictures and didn't understand ACG culture. To him, cosplayers were like car models at auto shows—beautiful sights appearing in specific situations. He was very polite when taking pictures with cosplayers, but on the way home, he would repeatedly check his camera storage to make sure he had deleted everything.

There was a time when boys taking photos would be asked by girls if they could collect stamps together.

“Okay.” Lu Mingfei nodded slightly, keeping a low profile.

He had surveyed the waiting crowd at the subway station and found no mixed-race individuals or strange elemental fluctuations. The two girls were just ordinary people who might have mistaken him for someone at a large anime convention while out shopping on the weekend. The executive department's trench coats were flamboyant, because they were large enough to hold enough weapons—knives, pistols, and submachine guns could all be stuffed inside.

Two girls leaned against him on either side, one on each side. One of them took out her phone, turned on the front camera, and held it up high at a 45° angle to take a picture.

"Thank you." "You're a very handsome young man."

After the photo was taken, the girl politely thanked them and then left hand in hand, their car heading in the opposite direction.

The subway arrived with a whoosh, the ground trembled slightly, and the carriage slowly came to a stop.

Lu Mingfei carried a huge black cloth bag and joined the flow of people into the carriage. It was very crowded inside, and he was pushed slowly by the people behind him until he finally stood near the connection between the carriages.

This is the last stop. Lu Mingfei took out his subway card. The card did not turn gold as the urban legend said, which was not surprising. If there were such an anomaly, the two missing agents would have noticed it too.

"Lu Mingfei?"

Lu Mingfei looked in the direction of the sound and saw a girl with a haggard face.

Chen Wenwen looked up at Lu Mingfei, her eyes bloodshot, her long eyelashes unable to conceal it.

Lu Mingfei should have been able to sense her presence, but these past few days he had been intensely monitoring for anomalies in the subway, and before Chen Wenwen called him, that location was just a faint spark of consciousness in his eyes.

He knew why Chen Wenwen had come to Beijing. Zhao Menghua made two phone calls: the first to the police, and the second to Chen Wenwen. Zhao Menghua's vague and fantastical descriptions were hard to believe, but this girl trusted him completely.

"Are you going fishing?" Chen Wenwen stared blankly at Lu Mingfei's attire, not understanding why Lu Mingfei was in Beijing at this time.

"Why are you here?" Lu Mingfei had a vague feeling that something was wrong. His encounter with Chen Wenwen was too coincidental. There were more than 20 million people in this city, and the probability of two people meeting was as low as winning the lottery, especially since he had just finished scanning the lines according to the urban legend.

Chen Wenwen looked very haggard, with her hair tied up and covered by a hat, clearly lacking the energy to dress up as she used to.

“Zhao Menghua has disappeared… I want to look for him on the subway.” She lowered her eyes, speaking in a cryptic tone, not expecting Lu Mingfei to understand. She had approached many people these past few days, but they were all considered to have suffered a mental breakdown.

Did you read that blog?

Lu Mingfei's words were like a sharp sword. Chen Wenwen was shocked. She looked up at Lu Mingfei and then froze.

"Why... do you also believe in that legend?" As if grasping at a straw, she ignored Lu Mingfei's unfamiliar and stern gaze, leaning forward to grab his hand.

She has been somewhat dazed these past few days, and now she even suspects that she is hallucinating, imagining a fake person coming to comfort her.

Lu Mingfei gripped her wrist tightly, then released it. "How many stops have you been on?"

"This is the last stop," Chen Wenwen said, half joyful and half apprehensive.

The fact that she could believe in such a fantastical legend shows that she was truly desperate. If urban legends were useless, she could only hope for a miracle.

"Next stop: Xidan Station," the announcement came over the loudspeaker.

Everything became clear. Everyone was looking for Zhao Menghua. The police initially searched the subway system near the place of his disappearance, but found nothing. A psychology expert speculated that the kidnapping gang had given Zhao Menghua hallucinogenic drugs and locked him in a place similar to an abandoned subway station, causing him to make that insane phone call.

But Chen Wenwen really believed he was trapped on a ghost train. This girl had already started her winter vacation, but now she ran back to Beijing and somehow found that blog. So, like Lu Mingfei, she embarked on a journey to sweep the lines, and they met at the last stop.

The subway slowly came to a stop, but no passengers moved. The platform outside the doors was quiet and deserted.

Chapter 121 The Curtain Rises

On the day Caesar bought the wedding building, a low-intensity earthquake of magnitude 2.1 struck Beijing. Earthquakes of such low intensity are commonplace; only those working on the top floors of high-rise buildings in the CBD would feel slightly dizzy. Therefore, the news was quickly ignored.

But Caesar's experience inside the wedding building was completely different. The tremors were clearly felt inside the building when the earthquake struck; the shelves and plants around him shook noticeably. According to the Richter scale, this should have been a magnitude 3 or 4 earthquake.

Based on the intelligence he had, it was easy to deduce that the building on the former site of Wanggongchang was in a special location, and that the abnormal earthquake there had not been weakened.

For the past few days, following the instructions in that ancient book, he had been wandering around here with a compass and the Book of Changes, but hadn't found anything. There was a lot of foot traffic here, people coming and going every day; if there were anything unusual, there was no reason it wouldn't have been noticed.

There is only one possibility left: the Nibelungen that gave birth to the ancient dragon is located underground.

He temporarily closed the entire building, citing aging and damaged facilities, and hired a drilling team. The building is close to Beijing Metro Line 4, and part of its eastern side is within the rail transit safety protection zone. Construction requires approval procedures, and a qualified professional unit must prepare a work plan and safety protection plan and sign a construction safety agreement with the metro before construction can begin.

Caesar had no choice but to work outside the subway tunnel safety protection zone to avoid violating regulations and causing unnecessary investigations and trouble.

The company responsible for the construction was controlled by the Gattuso family, and the construction workers were trained so that they wouldn't reveal any secrets even if they actually dug up something like a keel.

The wedding building has three underground floors. The first underground floor is a shopping mall, the second underground floor is a parking lot, and the third underground floor, where the construction team is working, mainly has some photography studios and wedding dress experience halls.

Large drilling equipment is not convenient to use in underground spaces, so only small surface sampling machines can be used. Sampling holes are located on the drill rod, and soil is squeezed into the sampling holes. By analyzing the soil samples, information about the strata at different depths can be obtained.

The drilling has reached a depth of about 35 meters, which is close to the maximum drilling depth of this small equipment.

Just as Caesar was considering replacing the equipment with a larger one, the roar of the drilling rig suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" Caesar asked. "Is the drilling rig malfunctioning?"

"The machine has reached its maximum drilling depth." The construction workers were operating the drilling rig to retrieve the drill rod. "It seems like it drilled into a cavity at the very end."

The drill rod was retrieved section by section, stirring up a mixture of mud, sand, and rock fragments around the borehole. Finally, all the drill rods were retrieved, leaving only the dark borehole.

Caesar's expression suddenly changed. As the drilling machine stopped roaring, he released the Kamaitachi. At that moment, a strange sound came from deep underground. It was the sound of some kind of animal, but not a cave-dwelling animal. And no cave-dwelling animal would live more than 40 meters underground.

The sharp sound of the wind, like something flying... about a dozen.

"Retreat completely," he ordered in a low voice.

The construction workers didn't know why their boss suddenly looked so serious, but they still put down their work and left in an orderly manner.

Caesar opened the equipment box the board of directors had given him, took out the Philosopher's Stone bullets, filled the bottom of the magazine, and then filled it with mercury-core blunt gold armor-piercing bullets. The bronze-colored metal bullets were engraved with cross patterns; these were bullets specifically designed for dragons, deadly weapons against species below the third generation. They could penetrate dragon scales and split along the cross patterns upon impact with dragon bones, and the liquid mercury inside was highly poisonous to dragons.

The submachine guns and assault rifles in the box were loaded. The most powerful weapon was a uniquely shaped "refined sulfur bomb." The equipment department, following the instructions of the board of directors, did indeed provide the most advanced weapon. When this bomb exploded, it would release special sulfur powder refined by alchemy and evaporate a huge amount of mercury vapor. The mercury vapor would be absorbed by the sulfur powder and stick to the dragon's body and penetrate it.

Although it is not very powerful, it has the effects of penetration, corrosion and erosion, and is a lethal weapon designed for Dragon King-level targets.

Something was rushing rapidly from the borehole toward the ground. Caesar could hear the rock dust being blown down by the wind along the way. He kept his eyes fixed on the pit entrance. If he could withstand this attack, the rest would be simple: bring in heavy machinery, break through the cave, and drop refined sulfur bombs.

The sound of the wind reached the cave entrance and turned into a sharp hissing sound, as if something unseen was rapidly escaping from the cave. Caesar dared not relax for a moment.

After a while, the wind subsided and everything calmed down.

The sounds of wind and flight vanished. Caesar shivered slowly. The sounds of the construction workers who had not yet gone far away, the sounds inside the building, and the noise from the outside world all disappeared, as if something that flew out of a void had devoured all the sounds.

The lights flickered, and he looked towards the distant shops, where it was dark and a blue mist was billowing out like a tide.

……

Chu Zihang was startled awake from his sleep. He looked out the window at the daylight, where heavy rain was pounding against the window and the curtains were swaying.

The window was closed, but when he turned to look at the ward door, it was indeed ajar, letting in a damp and chilly atmosphere. Susie usually came around this time to bring him food and chat with him for a while. Today, lunchtime had passed an hour ago, and Susie still hadn't arrived.

Not only Susie, Chu Zihang frowned as he recalled that not even the doctors and nurses had come today.

He raised his hand and slammed it against the wall, the plaster shattering instantly. The "blood explosion" had strengthened his body, making his healing abilities far surpass those of ordinary mixed-race individuals; the injury on his arm had long since healed. He pulled open the collar of his hospital gown, and the "birthmark" on his shoulder blade felt as hot as if it had been scorched by a raging fire.

Once again, that rainy night has returned.

Chu Zihang got up from the bed, picked up the sacred sword Murasame from beside the bed, and quietly went to the outside of the ward.

I had always thought there were a few people walking around in the corridor, but now I realize that this place is actually completely empty. He has been the only person on this floor from beginning to end.

The fluorescent lights flickered, and the air was filled with the buzzing sound of electricity. He gripped the hilt of Murasame's sword and moved step by step down the corridor. Rainwater began to seep into the cracks in the ceiling, walls, and floorboards. Outside the corridor's glass windows, a thick fog enveloped the entire city, blurring the outlines of the tall buildings, making them appear like distant mountain shadows.

He pushed open the door to the hospital room, and his heart suddenly raced.

The room was full of people. They stood on the floor, on the hospital beds, and on the chairs for patients. No one spoke or moved. Everyone had bright golden eyes.

Chapter 122 Passengers, Patients, and Foreigners

As Lu Mingfei stepped onto the platform, a desolate atmosphere hit him. All the framed advertisements on the opposite subway tunnel had been removed, leaving only pure white backdrops. The ground was covered with newspaper scraps, as if no one had cleaned it for years.

He looked back at the subway train that had brought him there. The carriage was extremely dimly lit, and some passengers were sitting while others were holding onto the handrails. No one seemed to realize that the train had stopped. A middle-aged man in a white shirt, with a listless expression, met Lu Mingfei's gaze, but the focus of his eyes seemed to pass right through Lu Mingfei's body, looking at something in the distance.

Chen Wenwen followed her off; she was on the invitation list. After she got off, the subway finally started moving slowly, gradually accelerating until it disappeared into the dark tunnel, until even the roaring sound faded completely into the distance.

"You stay here." Lu Mingfei pulled a Walther P99 pistol from his trench coat, filled with Friga bullets in plastic casings, and tossed it to Chen Wenwen.

This gun was 3D printed, perfectly replicating the original gun; except for the firing pin, the entire gun is made of plastic.

Chen Wenwen's mental state was worrying. She stared blankly at the light-weight gun in her hand, then looked at Lu Mingfei, "Zhao Menghua is here, right?"

“He might be here, so don’t wander around and don’t cause any trouble for the rescue work.” Lu Mingfei took the cloth bag off his back and carried it in his hand instead.

"You... I won't run away, please be sure to rescue Zhao Menghua." Chen Wenwen took out her phone, which showed no signal. She gripped her pistol, looked around, then found a bench to sit on, watching anxiously as Lu Mingfei walked steadily into the gloomy passage.

She no longer had time to think about why Lu Mingfei could pull out a gun or which secret department he belonged to. Lu Mingfei was the only person who believed her so far, and the only one who truly had a chance to rescue Zhao Menghua. That was enough.

Lu Mingfei walked along the subway transfer passage. The underground passage was winding and twisting. The further he went in, the more scraps of paper there were on the ground, as if a truck loaded with waste newspapers had just passed by.

Unlike Odin's Nibelungen, there is no torrential rain here. The master of the alchemical labyrinth did not use water as a medium, but everything around him, just like in Portofino, was rapidly changing, clearly evolving from the platform of reality towards Nibelungen.

The white walls gradually peeled and turned yellow, the aluminum alloy ceiling panels were replaced by a lime ceiling from the last century, and the LED light sources hidden in the grooves were replaced by pale fluorescent tubes.

The ground trembled slightly, which means the subway is entering the station.

Lu Mingfei passed a turnstile and then arrived at a Russian-style platform. The building was grand and spacious, and a cold wind blew from the end of the tunnel. The fluorescent lights made people's faces look pale. It seemed as if he had traveled to another city in a short transfer passage, but in reality, he was not traveling through space, but through time.