Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Manstein was completely stunned, his mind blank, unable to comprehend the insane scene before him. Instead of the expected gushing blood, a small amount of dark red liquid slowly seeped from the wound, soaking a small patch of his clothing.

A minute felt like an eternity.

Schneider finally moved. He reached out, grasped the exposed handle of the knife, and began to slowly pull it outwards. The blade scraped against his muscle, making a teeth-grinding, subtle sound, as if it were being tightly "bitten." Without even flinching, he pulled hard.

"laugh!"

The knife was pulled out intact. Thick, dark-colored blood clung to its blade. Even more horrifying, the piercing wound in his chest was visibly shrinking and stopping bleeding, with fresh granulation tissue wriggling and beginning to grow and cover it!

“Pollution, this is pollution! You, you’ve actually been polluted?!” Manstein finally found his voice, hoarse and terrified.

“That’s right, I was tainted by the blood of the ancient dragon a long time ago.” Schneider casually tossed the blood-stained knife back onto the porcelain plate with a crisp “clang”. “Only about one in 100,000 hybrids can withstand the erosion of the ancient dragon’s blood and undergo benign, controllable evolution after coming into contact with it. I was ‘lucky’ to become that one in 100,000.”

There was no trace of relief in his tone, only endless sarcasm. "I survived from the bottom of Greenland because the moment I inhaled the dragon's blood, it began to transform my body. But this transformation was not perfect. On one hand, it strengthened me, granting me extraordinary healing abilities and some physical strength, while on the other hand, it was constantly destroying and tormenting me from within. For the past eleven years, I have suffered excruciating pain every day. In the academy, the person most likely to degenerate into a mindless Death Servant is perhaps not Chu Zihang, but me."

He pointed to his chest, then to the oxygen equipment beside him: "It's not that I'm afraid to dive. It's that my body... can no longer withstand the extreme environment of the deep sea. The person sitting here talking to you is a 'critically ill patient' who could collapse at any moment. If it weren't for the Dragon Blood's forced life-sustaining effect, I would have died long ago."

"Does Principal Angers know about this?" Manstein's voice trembled.

“The principal knows,” Schneider said calmly. “The academy has prepared different medical plans for me, including mandatory blood transfusions every year to try to dilute and remove the mark. But the mark of dragon blood is permanent and cannot be truly washed away. How much longer I can live is unknown.”

He tapped the skin on his newly healed chest, where a tiny, unnatural bump was faintly visible. "So, here I am, near the main blood vessel close to my heart, with a bomb the size of a pacemaker implanted. Once my vital signs indicate that I'm about to lose control, or once I realize I'm about to lose control, it will 'bang'."

Schneider made a slight explosion gesture. "I will die instantly with almost no pain. I won't cause any trouble for the Academy or anyone else."

Manstein was completely speechless, feeling a chill run from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Why was he being so cruel to himself?

"Put yourself in others' shoes, my friend," Schneider said slowly, as if reading his thoughts, his voice carrying the indifference of a martyr. "Otherwise, you're just an idiot who talks big but doesn't act like one."

He lit another cigarette, took a deep drag, and let the smoke irritate his damaged respiratory tract, triggering a slight, forcibly suppressed cough.

"Many people thought that after the Greenland incident, I would leave the front lines forever, hide away to do research, and eke out a living," Schneider's voice sounded somewhat ethereal in the smoke. "Because I lost six students who were as beautiful as flowers, and I myself became this wretched state. Someone who has been pulled back from the brink of death should cherish life. But I chose to become the head of the executive department. I am the last survivor of the Greenland team. They all died, and I survived. If I, the survivor, were a cowardly and incompetent piece of trash who only knew how to cower and lick his wounds, wouldn't that be too ridiculous?"

Inside the control room, a deathly silence fell once more. Only the flickering light of a cigarette illuminated Schneider's half-human, half-ghost face, hidden in the shadows and behind his oxygen mask, and Manstein's pale, shocked face, a mixture of anger, pity, and profound helplessness.

Chapter 409 What to do if we repeat the same mistakes?

"What if, what if the Caesar Group repeats the mistakes of the Greenland Group eleven years ago?" Manstein's voice was low and heavy, carrying a sense of interrogation. "How many more students can you bear to see die in front of you?"

Schneider remained silent for a longer time, until the cigarette butt almost burned his fingers, before stubbing it out in the ashtray on the control panel. He looked up, his deep-set eyes, now unusually fierce, staring directly at Manstein:

"Manstein, this is a battlefield where humans and dragons fight to the death. That's how battlefields are. Pointless mercy and excessive pity will only kill more people. Imagine you're charging, and the first comrade at the front falls. You don't have time to panic, time to grieve, and certainly not to throw down your weapon and cower to die! You can only shout! Call to those still alive behind you, urge them to keep going! Every inch you take forward is bought with the life of the one who fell before you! If you stop now, their death will have been in vain! Then, the second person falls, and you keep shouting! The third person falls, and you can only shout again! Once the charge begins, there is no turning back! There are only two outcomes on the battlefield—either total annihilation or charging into enemy lines and fighting your way through! But for cowards, there is only one outcome: total annihilation!"

His words were like cold iron hammers, striking the oppressive air in the control room.

Manstein stared intently into Schneider's eyes, which seemed to burn with a dark flame, remaining silent for a long time. So long that Schneider thought he would not respond, Manstein finally spoke, his voice weary and filled with complex emotions:

“Schneider, you’re becoming more and more like the principal. The way you were roaring just now gave me the illusion that it wasn’t Schneider standing in front of me, but Principal Angers himself.”

Schneider frowned slightly: "Did the principal say that too?"

“No. He would never speak in such a direct and tragic way,” Manstein shook his head.

"But that's the feeling. Because of the accident at the Port of Hamburg, almost the entire first generation of the Lionheart Society was wiped out, and he was the only one who survived. What has sustained him to this day is probably the deep-seated hatred, right? On the surface, he is a debonair, occasionally flamboyant old gentleman, but inside, he is a severely wounded tiger, constantly sharpening his claws in the darkness. He wants to exterminate the dragon race, and anyone or anything that gets in his way will be ruthlessly eliminated. If the Board of Trustees becomes a stumbling block, I believe he will really find a way to wipe them out as well. He has the ability and the determination."

Manstein paused, his gaze becoming even more profound, as if piercing through Schneider's cold, hard shell: "And you, people like you and the principal, are becoming more and more like dragons. The human element within you is becoming increasingly diluted."

"What do you mean?" Schneider's voice turned cold, carrying a dangerous undertone.

"The willingness to sacrifice everything to achieve one's goals—this trait is less a virtue honed by humans in extreme environments and more an innate talent of dragons," Manstein said slowly, as if dissecting a cold specimen.

"As pure warriors, dragons are near-perfect creations. Humans, on the other hand, are born with weaknesses; they hesitate, they fear, they feel pity, and they choose to give up in despair. But you and the headmaster, you cannot tolerate these human flaws within yourselves. You force yourselves to think like dragons, to act like dragons, to be just as ruthless. If you continue like this, you will become stronger and stronger, harder and harder to defeat, but at the same time, you will become increasingly lonely. Strong and lonely, like a dragon reigning over a mountaintop."

“Humans alone cannot defeat dragons,” Schneider said, emphasizing each word.

“But even if you win in the end, so what?” Manstein met his gaze without backing down. “That might not be a victory for humanity, but a victory for the devil. You will become the very thing you want to destroy.”

Schneider fell silent, his heavy, slow breathing coming from beneath his oxygen mask.

“You’ve told me a long and painful story,” Manstein said, his tone softening slightly. “Now would you like to hear my story? Though it may be neither a secret nor particularly dramatic.”

“The Caesar team is still waiting for my instructions; time is running out.” Schneider glanced at the countdown timer on the screen.

"It won't take up too much of your time. It's about me and my ridiculously wonderful old man."

“If you hadn’t brought it up, I would have had a hard time associating you with the vice-principal,” Schneider said calmly, but the topic had piqued his interest. After all, Vice-Principal Flamel was a legendary figure at Kassel College.

“Yes, as a father and son, we have almost nothing in common.” Manstein forced a bitter smile. “Even standing together for a photo looks awkward. Look, my hair is starting to recede into the Mediterranean, while he looks like an old cowboy with a fancy scarf around his neck, as energetic as a stallion.”

He paused, lost in thought. "Actually, our relationship wasn't exactly harmonious, let alone a deep father-son bond. He abandoned me and my mother when I was young. He was like an overactive bull, always thinking, 'Hmm, conquer the cow,' wherever he went. I don't know how many women he'd been with, and my mother was definitely not his favorite. I was probably just an accidental result of a failed contraception."

“I only met him formally for the first time after I came to teach at Kassel College, if that can be considered a recognition,” Manstein said sarcastically. “When he claimed to be my father and raised his glass to celebrate our reunion, I threw the wine in my hand in his face.”

“That’s really strange,” Schneider said. The story was clearly more human than a serious dragon-slaying tale, albeit a twisted one.

“Here’s what happened,” Manstein said, pulling a gleaming old gold cross pendant from his shirt collar. “It was left to me by my mother, and I’ve always worn it close to my body. At the welcome reception for our group of newly hired professors, Flamel suddenly put his hand on my shoulder, staring intently at my cross, and said, ‘Oh? Isn’t this Martha’s pendant?’”

Manstein mimicked the vice-principal's flippant yet delighted tone, then resumed his usual indifference: "I asked him, 'Do you know my mother's name?' He said, 'Your mother is Martha? What a coincidence! You must be my son. Come, have a drink!'"

Manstein looked at Schneider: "If you were me back then, what would you have done?"

Schneider paused for two seconds, then said, "Good wine."

Chapter 410 Son and Father

"Hmm," Manstein's voice lowered, tinged with suppressed anger.

“When I was little, I moved from town to town with my mother in a beat-up secondhand station wagon, without ever having a stable home. To find work to support me, my mother had to endure harassment and teasing from men. Because of the frequent moves, I had no friends and was often bullied by local thugs. Once, they even cornered me in a dead end and urinated on me. I held back and didn't tell my mother because she was exhausted when she came home from get off work, and I just wanted her to get some sleep. Meanwhile, my father, the vice principal, was in some bed somewhere, having sex with some cow.”

He clenched his fist. "Fuok, I've been waiting for him for thirty years, hoping that one day he would appear like a real father, protect me, and stand up for me. But the first thing this bastard said to me was, 'Have a drink!' I not only threw wine at him, but I also shoved him. In the end, it was Principal Angers who had to step in to separate us. That became the biggest joke at the welcome party that year."

“I felt I couldn’t stay at Kassel College any longer. I threw wine at the vice-principal on my first day. Even if he doesn’t hold a grudge, I can’t face him every day. The next day, I was going to go to the principal to hand in my resignation.”

Manstein continued, "Then, when I opened the apartment door, I found a huge cardboard box by the door. It was stuffed full of all sorts of things: the latest game consoles, piles of game discs, remote-controlled off-road vehicles, children's-sized bicycles, and even a deluxe set of the picture book 'Skiro's Golden Childhood.' There was a letter in the box, which read: 'To make up for the regrets of my dear son's childhood, I've made up for all the birthday presents you missed from childhood to adulthood all at once. Be happy!' It was signed 'Dad.' There were also a few lines of smaller print on the back of the letter, saying that he would bring some pretty girls over to celebrate my birthday that evening."

Schneider: "..."

He really didn't know how to comment on the vice principal's bizarre move, and after a long silence, he finally managed to utter, "It's very strange."

While it's unclear why Manstein suddenly brought up these old family matters, listening to the enigmatic vice-principal's embarrassing stories is certainly easier than discussing the weighty life-or-death mission. At the Kassel College, perhaps only the principal of Angers truly knows the ins and outs of Vice-Principal Flamel.

“The principal returned my resignation and told me to think it over,” Manstein continued. “Then, someone knocked on my apartment door. When I opened it, the old man was carrying a bottle of whiskey in each hand, with one of the prettiest girls from that year’s freshman class on his arm. He patted me on the shoulder happily and shouted to the girls, ‘Hey! Girls! Look! This is my dear son! Look how much he looks like me!’”

Then, he put a yellow paper cup, which he'd gotten from who-knows-where, on my head as a birthday hat, and asked the girls to take pictures of me with him. He said he was going to give me a belated 18th birthday celebration tonight, and a coming-of-age ceremony wouldn't be complete without pretty girls; if he could have sex with one more time, it would be perfect!

Manstein repeated those offensive words expressionlessly, “I took a bottle of whiskey from him, opened the cap, and poured the whole bottle over his head.”

“…Hmm.” Schneider even skipped the evaluation this time, leaving only a simple interjection indicating he understood. This was truly embarrassing, far beyond the scope of his meager everyday vocabulary.

"But he still wouldn't give up. It's said that his attitude towards women is to run away if he can't win them over, and he's absolutely unwilling to spend any more time or patience. But with me, he seemed to have endless patience. Sometimes, I would find a double-sided fried egg inexplicably in my breakfast plate, and after asking the cook, I would find out that the vice-principal had casually fried it for me when he inspected the kitchen. He wrote emails to the board of trustees, praising the young faculty member Manstein for how outstanding he was and that he should be promoted from assistant professor to associate professor immediately."

Manstein was exasperated. "The board of trustees knew I was his son, yet they still approved it. In their eyes, it's rare for that eccentric and difficult alchemist to make a request, so promoting his son would be a good way to please him—a worthwhile deal. Also, someone anonymously paid my rent for a luxury apartment on campus. When I called the finance department to inquire, they accidentally let slip: 'The vice-principal paid it for you and told us not to tell you.'"

"Since we were told not to tell you, why did the finance department reveal it?" Schneider astutely seized on the loophole.

Manstein smirked. "I guess my weird old man's exact words were something like this: 'Tell my dear son that the vice-principal paid for it for you, and specifically told us not to tell you.'"

Schneider: "I understand." Typical vice-principal style.

“He even invited me to be his swimming examiner,” Manstein said, rubbing his temples. Recalling the incident itself was exhausting. “He really enjoyed being the swimming examiner because the girls were all wearing swimsuits. Imagine your father sitting behind you, exuding that old man's hormones, excitedly pointing at the pool and whispering, ‘Look at that! This one! Son, you should pursue girls like that! If you don't understand, Dad will teach you!’”

“I thought fathers all hoped their sons would find a hardworking and capable girl,” Schneider said dryly.

“My father’s theory was that being hardworking and capable was not as good as being pretty,” Manstein said expressionlessly. “How could his flattering methods, which were stupid, vulgar, and completely out of place, possibly make up for the suffering I endured in my childhood and adolescence?”

“I was once sent to a children’s mental hospital because of my withdrawn and strange behavior. That’s where I met Guderian. No one came to visit us, and my mother was very ill at the time. Because no one cared, the nurses treated Guderian and me very badly. Once, Guderian took a little more food than he needed, and they kicked and beat us.”

“I swore I would never forgive the man who abandoned me and my mother. If I ever have the chance to see him again, I will kick him in the groin like the fiercest Muay Thai fighter!”

Schneider listened silently, only responding with a soft "hmm".

“But one night, that freakish old man wrote me a very, very long letter,” Manstein said, his tone shifting. “In the letter, he said: ‘Son, I know that the foolish things I’ve done can’t make up for the hurt you’ve suffered. But please allow me one last explanation of why I left you and your mother back then.’”

“Because he didn’t love my mother at all,” Manstein repeated from the letter, his tone flat. “He said that his life back then was all about having affairs and messing around, and that I got pregnant by accident.”

"Is this meant to completely enrage you?" Schneider paused, realizing that this explanation was simply adding fuel to the fire.

"He went on to describe in detail in the letter how he had been a beast in the past, listing a long list of women he had seduced, the heartless and cruel things he had done to them, and even coldly watching a woman who deeply loved him jump from a high tower, falling and bleeding profusely without batting an eye," Manstein paused, "Then he said: 'But you know what? I actually always harbored a deep fear. I felt like I wasn't human.'"

The control room fell silent, with only the faint sound of Schneider's breathing beneath his mask.

Chapter 411 The Wolf Among the Sheep

"I walked through the crowd, feeling like a wolf among docile sheep," he wrote. "With my bloodline and superior abilities, I could easily conquer anyone; no worldly rules could truly bind me. This world is full of lambs, and I am the only wolf here. I can eat sheep as I please, do whatever I want. I don't love those women, because in my eyes, no matter how beautiful they are, they are just sheep I am enjoying."

“But,” Manstein’s voice trembled slightly, “he said that everything changed when he found out he had a son. He found himself caring about my joys and sorrows, observing me carefully, and even humbling himself for me. He said he finally understood that no matter how strong or unruly a father is, he would be willing to crawl on the ground and let his son ride like a horse, making 'clattering' sounds of hooves as he crawled.”

Manstein took a deep breath: "At the end of the letter, he wrote: 'For the first time in my life, I feel bound by something. Not by the law, not by morality, but by my son. I have a family, like any ordinary human being, even though this family only has a son who is beginning to go bald. The fear that has haunted me for so many years has suddenly vanished. I feel overjoyed.'"

"Overjoyed?" Schneider repeated the phrase, falling into a long period of contemplation. Only the faint light from the wall lamps remained in the control room.

"After the Greenland incident, you didn't personally serve as a student's advisor for so many years," Manstein broke the silence, steer the conversation back on track, "yet you still became Chu Zihang's mentor. Was it merely because his bloodline rating was excellent enough?"

“No, that’s not it,” Schneider answered quickly this time, but then paused to organize his thoughts, “It’s because Chu Zihang is too stubborn. That kind of stubbornness makes it impossible for me to refuse.”

"stubborn?"

Schneider's gaze pierced through time and space, returning to the rainy night in Chicago: "He was one of the very few mixed-race individuals who actively sought out the college rather than being discovered by it. I decided to interview him myself, but I still had my doubts. So, I arranged to meet him under a secluded railroad bridge. It was a quiet place, and if his behavior seemed suspicious, I could handle the trouble discreetly. I had a Beretta hidden in my coat."

He recalled, “It was raining heavily that day. I saw the boy, carrying a small duffel bag, standing under the traffic light. We stared at each other across the entire wet street. He knew exactly who I was, but he didn’t come closer. We were like two lone wolves who had met by chance in the wilderness, silently scrutinizing each other from a safe distance. The traffic light changed three times, and we didn’t exchange a single word. His eyes were stubborn, lonely, and deep inside, there was something burning. I could tell he wanted to come to me because he had been searching for a long time, and I was the person he was looking for. But unless I made any indication of invitation, he would never take that step.”

Schneider sighed softly, almost imperceptibly: "In the end, I beckoned to him first. I was cornered by a boy with just a look. The feeling at that moment was: either kill him or invite him. There was no third way."

“So,” Manstein stared intently at him, “when you invite him, are you inviting a sharp sword, or a lost boy?”

This question silenced Schneider for an even longer time. So long that Manstein thought he wouldn't answer, he finally spoke slowly in a hoarse voice:

“I’m not the kind of person who takes lives lightly. How could I really treat a living person as a lifeless weapon? Sometimes I think it would be better if he could grow up as an ordinary person. But we met on the battlefield. All I can teach him is how to hold a weapon and how to survive on the battlefield.”

“So, you’re not a completely cold-blooded person,” Manstein said, his tone becoming more certain. “You cleared out the central control room and sat here smoking alone, not to put on airs as an executive minister, but because you’re uneasy. You’re hesitant; you’re worried about the safety of the dive team. If that’s the case, why are you in such a hurry to organize this dive? Schneider, tell me the truth. You should understand that I’d rather believe you than those politicians on the board of trustees. Even if you’re a dangerous madman. At least your madness is for a goal, not for power or profit.”

Schneider fell silent again, his fingers unconsciously tracing the old cigarette pack. The countdown numbers ticked silently on the screen.

"Crown Prince," he finally uttered in a very low voice after a long silence.

"The Crown Prince?" Manstein frowned.

"After the Greenland incident, the person with the ID 'Prince' completely disappeared from the internet. No one has ever seen his true face; all that is known is that he was a highly skilled hunter," Schneider said slowly. "The Academy has always suspected that the bronze fragments and coordinates he sent us were a carefully designed lure. He released those photos to lure us to the Greenland ice sea to confront that embryo."

“Until recently, the Crown Prince became active online again,” Schneider looked up. “On some clandestine network, he released photos of some top-secret KGB documents concerning the Lenin icebreaker. The KGB believed that, on the eve of the Soviet Union's collapse, someone secretly built a research institute in northern Siberia to study unknown creatures and supernatural forces. This institute was suddenly and completely destroyed just before the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

"Before the research institute was destroyed, the Lenin happened to be carrying out a so-called scientific research mission in the nearby waters. There is a very high probability that the Lenin took something extremely important from the research institute, and then the warship fled all the way to Japan, where it eventually sank."