Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

The sword light "slowly" fell in Genji's eyes, calmly striking the middle of the Spider Cutter. That was the "waist" of the sword, the weakest point of the entire blade. The clean, swift, and murderous thrust was instantly shattered.

No matter how hard Yuan Zhisheng gritted his teeth and exerted all his strength, he could not reverse the Spider Cutter's loss of control and sinking.

Lu Mingfei then shifted his stance again, raising his straight sword high.

The third sword strike.

Yuan Zhisheng was powerless to turn the tide. He watched as the sword light fell on his body, the burning sensation spreading through his skin, yet there was also a chilling feeling like a cold wind blowing. Death... Death was so swift and sudden. There was no time to think about anything else. The whole world consisted of only the scenery before his eyes: the setting sun, the sword light, the swooping helicopter, and all sounds were fading away.

"Obtain the patriarch's permission to fire, and rescue the young master at all costs!"

The only command on the communication channel was this: the second-in-command of the entire mission had already charged to the front, throwing knives gleaming coldly, amidst a hail of bullets, all aimed at Lu Mingfei. At this moment, the delicate balance between the family and the secret party no longer mattered; no one had considered the possibility of Genjiro losing, so there was no contingency plan, and they had no choice but to force their way in.

Sakura was actually very fortunate that Mr. Tachibana Masamune still had fatherly affection for Genjiro, and was willing to be put in a passive position in the overall battle situation for Genjiro's sake... As for her personally, as long as Genjiro was there, she would not be afraid to step into the terrifying battlefield facing the double enemies of the Oni Clan and the Secret Party.

However, Lu Mingfei held down Yuan Zhisheng and instantly disappeared from the spot.

Caesar and Chu Zihang, who were watching the battle, only heard a light whisper in their ears, "Run!"

Chapter 190 Class C Incident

Jun Yan was compressed into an extremely small area before exploding with a deafening roar, like a high-explosive grenade. The calculated distance ensured that the shockwave blasted away the Execution Bureau agents blocking their path. Caesar and Chu Zihang disregarded the Execution Department's regulations and used their Word of Power directly in the street. They were being hunted down by the Execution Department's subordinate agencies. The Japanese had gone mad; bullets and even heavy weapons like grenades were not just warning shots, but were genuinely aimed at killing.

"Norma's been blocked! The 'Kaguya-hime' developed by the Japanese branch is no good at all!" Caesar shouted amidst the gunfire. His phone, which had been connected to Norma, now had a completely black screen with blood-red English text flashing incessantly.

"Put down your weapons, release the hostages, and we can guarantee your personal safety and provide necessary legal assistance and protection."

"Think of your family; they will worry about you too. If you are willing to lay down your weapons, they will feel relieved and grateful."

"We can provide you with a safe place to surrender and ensure that you will not be harmed during the surrender process."

“Once you surrender, we will immediately provide you with medical and legal assistance to ensure your rights are protected.”

"You are now in a helpless situation, and continuing to resist will only make the situation worse."

Despite being named "Princess Kaguya," she lacks any of the calmness, wit, or melancholy of a moon princess. Instead, she's like a vengeful old hag, crawling out of a pool of blood to grab your ankle and mechanically repeating terrifying words.

The Japanese have gone mad, and their AI has gone mad too. It's conceivable that some extremely high-priority instruction has been sent to her mainframe. Now all the computing power she can access is on the trio. Perhaps the weapon module is taking up too much of the resources, so the intelligence of the surrender function can only be reduced to this level. Those lines are like awkwardly applied police rhetoric to bank kidnappers.

The Gattuso family wouldn't just be worried about Caesar; if they learned of the situation, they would definitely try to use the missile systems of the US military stationed in Japan or the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to directly bomb the stronghold of the Snake Clan.

Princess Kaguya had clearly implanted some kind of spyware in the phone; continuing to carry it would only allow the Japanese branch to track her. Fortunately, this phone was produced by the Equipment Department. Caesar pressed and held the power button, then repeatedly adjusted the volume. The Equipment Department's emblem pushed aside Princess Kaguya's repeated pronouncements, but the black screen didn't change much; only the red text turned into a countdown.

He threw his phone backward with all his might. The phone tumbled through the air, tracing an arc before exploding into a huge fireball with a deafening roar. Moments later, a scorching wind surged up from behind. The small phone's explosion was surprisingly powerful, no less than the high-risk Word Spirit King Flame of the Bronze and Fire King lineage, successfully blocking several ninjas behind him.

The streets were almost cleared out. The two had only managed to stop the enraged Snake Clan by detonating the Lamborghini at the beginning. Now they could only hide in the narrow alleyways between buildings. The number of helicopters overhead had increased to three. Once they reached open ground, they would be locked on.

If the two of them were to fight without holding back, they could easily break through the encirclement of the Snake Clan, but casualties would be inevitable. They were both talents valued by Schneider, and had carried out dangerous missions and killed people more than once, but killing criminals and Deadpools was one thing, and killing people was another.

These executive agents are only under the command of the Snake-Headed Eight Families, not the disgusting villains the two killed. Perhaps one of the people they shot has a happy family at home, and his family is waiting for him to come home at the dinner table... The principal is right, this is politics, a conflict between hybrid organizations.

Chu Zihang suddenly slowed down. He chanted the Dragon Script and turned around to release the domain of the Sovereign Flame. The flames filled the narrow alley and swept across, leaving a charred mark. The shockwave shattered the glass of the five or six-story buildings on both sides.

The pursuers at the alley entrance were temporarily forced to retreat.

"The helicopter has spotted us." Caesar stopped as well. He knew that Chu Zihang had come up with a plan, but he hadn't realized it yet.

Chu Zihang looked down at the manhole cover leading to the sewer. "Is there any movement down there?"

Caesar immediately understood. His attention was focused on the pursuers and enemies on the ground, which the Kamaitachi had locked onto, and he hadn't paid attention to his feet. At this moment, he released two or three Kamaitachi to go deep underground through the sewers. The sound of running water, dripping water at the joints of the pipes, and the hum of the water pumps... Tokyo has the world's largest drainage system. There are many movies about robbers robbing banks through the sewers. The Snake-Headed Eight Family had not thought of setting up a defense line underground.

It's understandable, really. If you put yourself in Caesar's shoes, the Gattuso family would be just as anxious as ants on a hot plate if Caesar himself were seriously wounded and captured by the enemy.

“There’s no one down there.” Caesar lifted the manhole cover.

Surprisingly, there was no stench as I had imagined.

Chu Zihang leaped into it, with Caesar following closely behind.

The structure of this sewer is very old. As far as the eye can see, there are only brick walls covered with moss. It is completely different from modern sewer systems. Its cross-section is semi-circular, with a water channel in the middle and narrow walkways on both sides for plumbers to step on when cleaning silt.

Tokyo underwent a large-scale renovation of its sewer system ten years ago, connecting the old sewer systems. Excess groundwater flows through various sewers into the newly built large drainage system, is purified, and then discharged into the sea through the main pipe. This section appears to be an old sewer system built in Shinjuku Ward a hundred years ago.

The two ran along the narrow path, and the members of the Snake Clan would soon realize their oversight in the sewer system.

……

Central control room on the second floor of the library at the main campus of Kassel College, Illinois, USA.

The 5-meter-high virtual globe projection is covered with countless red dots, each representing an event related to the interests of dragons or the secret society. Kassel College's intelligence points around the world continuously register information into Norma's system. The college secretary will use a complex process to estimate the priority and danger level of the information before sending it to the computer in the central control room.

These incidents range from the resurgence of dragons to the discovery of suspicious artifacts by tomb raiders circulating on the black market. They require on-duty personnel to analyze and process them before assigning them to the nearest specialist. For difficult cases, an advance team from the executive headquarters is dispatched.

A few hours ago, an anomalous piece of information generated by Norma in the online world was marked as a Class D event and entered the task system queue in the control room. Because it was summer vacation at Kassel College, hundreds of young, ambitious, and partially educated mixed-race elites had returned to their parents around the world, making the central control room extremely busy recently. This inconspicuous Class D event had been waiting for a long time without being dealt with.

Among a host of incidents such as "a student from a certain department of a certain college smuggled the college's alchemy equipment out of the office", "a student from a certain department of a certain college dug up a dragon tomb", and "a student from a certain department of a certain college accidentally entered a US military base, causing a diplomatic incident", "the Japanese branch's cloud computing system update and restart time is too long" does indeed sound less critical.

Since its founding, Kassel College has never experienced a branch rebellion. No one would associate such a minor technical problem with the chaos in Japan, let alone imagine that two of the three men sent by the principal were being bombarded by Japanese artillery.

Schneider suddenly saw the event again in the mission system, only this time the mission level had been upgraded from D to C.

Chapter 191 Brothers Meet (4K)

The difference between D-level and C-level is only one level, but the implications are completely different. D-level might just be a minor disturbance like a fight between ordinary people, while C-level means that it requires the deployment of people with special bloodlines to resolve or investigate the situation.

Schneider frowned as he flipped through the mission log.

Ten minutes after the incident, Norma automatically assigned it to the Equipment Department for a technical assessment. The assessment results were recorded as follows: The Japanese branch does have a lack of technical capabilities, but those hardworking idiots always like to work overtime, so a mere system update is not a problem and there is no need for assistance from the Equipment Department.

It sounds like pure denigration and contempt for one's peers, ending with a slight expression of approval in order to escape any potential assistance.

Norma updated her mission log, which stated that she had repeatedly inquired about the progress of Kaguya's update at the Japanese branch on behalf of the academy, but the Japanese branch remained silent throughout. Therefore, Norma concluded that the Japanese branch had experienced a serious communication outage.

Just as Schneider was pondering, the mission level jumped again, directly upgrading from C to B.

“Norma, what’s going on?” Schneider asked.

"Princess Kaguya is online, but she has built a tight firewall on the network. The academy is currently unable to access the Japanese network." Norma's voice rang out from the loudspeaker in the central control room. "Attempting to break through the firewall, it is expected to take a long time. Princess Kaguya controls the gateway connecting Japan and foreign countries. As soon as she detects that the access is coming from Kassel College, she will immediately cut off the connection."

"Are there any other ways to contact the Japan branch?"

“There are very few remaining options… Wait a moment, Professor Schneider, I just received the last message from the Japanese branch,” Norma said. “It’s a collective resignation letter from the Japanese branch… requesting an upgrade of the incident level to A. Please provide authorization at the professor level or above.”

“No, confirm it’s an S-level incident. Use my electronic signature to send a message to the Board of Trustees and the Principal,” Schneider said coldly. “Continue the attack attempts on the Japanese network. I need some manpower. Gather all the professors and specialists I’ll mention next…”

“We can’t get in touch with Principal Angers,” Norma suddenly said. “Six hours ago, Principal Angers departed from Chicago International Airport on a private plane and has now entered Japan according to the scheduled itinerary.”

Schneider was taken aback.

……

Atami, Japan, Kuroishi Residence.

Atami is a hot spring town located at the tip of the Izu Peninsula, famous for being a favorite of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo Shogunate. During the mid-Edo period, a certain shogun built the "Black Stone Residence" on a high cliff on the shore of Sagami Bay as his residence and command center. From the day it was built, this ancient building has been the highest point in Atami. It is almost surrounded by the sea, with high walls and knife-cut cliffs blending into one.

Today, the official residence has been transformed into a private villa, but it still maintains its status as a cultural relic. It requires regular maintenance every year, and the stone must come from the mountains of Kobe, the wood must come from the remote Hokkaido, and the carvings must be done by artisans who are proficient in traditional Japanese handicrafts.

The previous owner of the mansion sold it because he could not afford the high maintenance costs.

The sun was shining brightly in the morning.

A tremendous gust of wind descended from the sky, and a dark shadow loomed over Kimura Hiroshi, the butler of the Black Stone Mansion. A black helicopter hovered in the air, its fuselage painted with a gold cherry blossom emblem and the words MPD.

MPD, an abbreviation for "Metropolitan Police Department," refers to a helicopter belonging to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

Hiroshi Kimura only knew that a distinguished guest would be brought to the official residence by helicopter today, and he waited there after receiving orders from his master. It's not surprising that the guest invited by the master, who could spend 760 million yen to buy a mansion in fifteen minutes and then leave it vacant for nine years, was the Superintendent General of Police.

He was merely somewhat alarmed. Last night, a young man appeared at the door with a blood-stained yakuza youth. Kimura Hiroshi, the butler of the Black Stone Mansion, was meeting the long-awaited, mysterious buyer for the first time. As a top-notch butler, he was well-informed and could deduce from the ukiyo-e print under the young man's trench coat that the man was likely a high-ranking yakuza member.

The distinguished guests arriving at the official residence now are from the Metropolitan Police Department... Kimura Hiroshi sensed danger and ambition in them. The underworld and the Metropolitan Police Department are, in a sense, black and white, and those who control both black and white are, without exception, supreme power holders.

As the helicopter slowly descended, Kimura Hiroshi cleared his mind of distractions. He was the butler of the Black Stone Mansion, representing its prestige. Whatever his master wanted to do or what he was planning, his duty was simply to obey. He straightened his chest. Over the years, he had received countless celebrities and politicians. Even if it were the Superintendent General of Police, he was confident he wouldn't be impolite.

But the guest who stepped out of the helicopter was a foreigner. The elderly man with a full head of white hair was dressed in a custom-made black suit, shiny Italian leather shoes, and a bright red rose pinned to his chest. His white hair was neatly combed, and the years had left deep marks on his face, but his features were still sharp and defined. His silver-gray eyes sparkled, and he had the demeanor of a young lion.

"Kimura Hiroshi, butler of the Black Stone Mansion, welcome!" Kimura Hiroshi bowed.

"Butler, please take me to see Lu Mingfei," the old man said calmly.

The living room of the Blackstone Mansion is a grand ancient building, formerly the place where generals held meetings. Countless vermilion pillars stand as far as the eye can see, and the ebony floors gleam like mirrors from countless cleanings. Beams of light stream through the wooden lattice windows, and dust swirls in the light.

Two figures sat facing each other between the beams of light.

Lu Mingfei was still dressed in simple black. Yuan Zhisheng, on the other hand, had taken off the trench coat with ukiyo-e prints on the lining and put on a black kimono. His right hand was wrapped in thick bandages and hung around his neck with a sling. His chest was also wrapped with bandages under his clothes.

Blackstone Mansion has a private medical team, but their equipment is only used for treating drug overdoses or common acute illnesses among VIPs attending parties. When Genji arrived, his wound was deep enough to expose bone. The doctor stared blankly at the wound, which was longer than his arm, and instinctively wanted to call for emergency help. Blackstone Mansion had a cooperation agreement with nearby hospitals, and a rescue helicopter would arrive within 7 minutes, although he genuinely doubted whether the young man before him could hold out until the helicopter arrived…

But Lu Mingfei reached out and crushed his phone, then ordered him to stop the bleeding, disinfect, and bandage Yuan Zhisheng. The doctor didn't understand why he had to do these unnecessary procedures on a dying person, since he would just be a pile of ashes after cremation anyway. Fortunately, he knew the principle of doing things for money, so he obediently did as Lu Mingfei said, albeit with the mindset of wrapping a corpse in a shroud.

However, as the doctor treated the wound, he became increasingly alarmed. The young man lying on the operating table was not human at all. His bones and internal organs showed abnormal activity. Once, when he used hemostats to pinch a broken vein, the hemostats were caught between the bones on both sides. The unconscious body instinctively stopped the bleeding with two grotesque bones that would only appear in zero-point anatomical drawing assignments!

Genjiro's regenerative abilities are indeed astonishing—as a true hybrid, this is why Lu Mingfei didn't use "Little Golden Tree" or "Healing Flame" to treat him: he wanted to conduct a slightly cruel test. Like intercepting the enemy's most advanced aircraft or missile in modern warfare, Genjiro was, in a sense, Herzog's perfect weapon, and Lu Mingfei naturally wanted to test the performance of this "weapon," including its strength, speed, endurance, mental strength, and regenerative abilities.

The conclusion drawn from the entire process is that, excluding the influence of Word of Power, the combat power of Herzog's mass-produced Emperors should be at least SS-level above S-level in the Secret Party's rating system. Fingel broke through the lower limit of this rating system, while Genji broke through the upper limit.

It is indeed bad news, but it's not the worst news for Japan right now.

"Mingfei, I rushed over as soon as I received the news. I didn't miss anything, did I?" Angers strode into the house.

Behind Angers, Kimura Hiroshi, who had been leading the way, stopped at the doorway. He should have gone to arrange food and lodging while the important figures inside were talking. He took one last look at the scene inside the large house. Lu Mingfei sat calmly in his seat, while the young man with underworld connections stood up, extended his hand to the silver-haired old man, his face showing respect, hostility, and a hint of fear.

It truly has the feel of a power struggle, rife with intrigue and danger...

Hiroshi Kimura turned and left, his expression inexplicably solemn, feeling a surge of heroic spirit within him, as if serving an ancient general. The former owner of the Black Stone Mansion was a director, and its guests were mostly glamorous female stars or portly investors. Once upon a time, this ancient residence, standing tall and aloof like a sword in Atami, finally welcomed a worthy owner.

Kimura Hiroshi had no idea that his chuunibyou-induced guess was completely wrong. Of all the relationships between Angers and Genjiro, the first one was that of teacher and student.

“You were one of the people I wanted to see when I came to Japan this time, but I didn’t expect to find out that the Japanese branch had been disbanded as soon as I arrived at the airport.” Angers sat down, picked up the Kubota Manju sake on the table, and poured himself a full glass. “So, is the person sitting in front of me now the head of the Japanese branch’s executive bureau or the young master of the Snake-Headed Eight Family?”

"My name is Genjiro, a graduate of the 2003 advanced training program at Kassel College. Welcome, Principal, to Japan," Genjiro said.

Angers raised an eyebrow, glanced at Lu Mingfei, and then turned to Genjiro, “It seems I’ve missed a lot… Since you’re speaking to me as a student, then explain the situation… What opportunity did the Snake Clan find that allowed them to hide for so many years before finally showing their true colors?”

“So, Principal, you knew about the Snake Clan’s forbearance…” Genji said softly.

“Of course, I’ve known for a long time that you are descendants of the White King, but I’ve never asked you for the secrets of the White King’s bloodline. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. You outwardly submit to the Secret Party, but you don’t truly consider us your allies. Secondly, even though the secrets of the White King’s bloodline are in your hands, you won’t abuse them. Although you’re involved in the underworld, you are still guardians of order, not destroyers.” Angers took a sip of his drink and spoke slowly. “But now I know that your secrets go far beyond that. You are guarding a mysterious city that was sunk deep into the Japan Trench, where dragon technology, prophetic bronze pillars, corpse guardians… and the remains of gods are buried.”

Genji remained silent for a long time: "That is the curse inherent in the Snake-Headed Eight Families. Someone like you, if you can't resolve the threat of the curse, would think of directly eliminating the breeding ground for the curse, right?"

“That’s right,” Angers said decisively. “Someone is using the genes of the White King’s descendants to create Deadpools, and someone is hiding in the shadows trying to resurrect ‘God.’ We still don’t know what his plan is. If necessary, the Secret Society will land in Japan a second time. This time, it won’t be as simple as me teaching a few bastards a lesson.”

“The evidence he provided still needs to be verified. I have been with the old... Tachibana Masamune for twenty years, and I am still the young head of the Snake-Headed Eight Families. It would be difficult for him to hide such a terrible secret under my nose.” Genji Chisei lowered his head slightly.

“Chishin, you are indeed an excellent student.” Angers’ tone softened considerably. “But you received my Principal’s Scholarship because you achieved unprecedented perfect scores in physical education, speech magic, and practical combat…”