Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

He raised a trembling finger and pointed to the observation window on the left. "Look at this, doesn't it look like a giant squid?"

Caesar and Chu Zihang froze simultaneously. They slowly turned their heads, like two sculptures in slow motion.

Looking out the window on the left, you can see a giant eye.

This isn't a metaphor; it really was an eye—a spherical, deep blue eye, over a meter in diameter. The texture of the eyeball didn't look like biological tissue; it resembled a blue ice ball formed from deep-sea ice.

Behind the eyeballs, the outline of a huge, twisted head could be vaguely seen, along with tentacles as thick as buckets stretching out in all directions. These tentacles danced lightly in the rosy seawater, as if performing some ancient sacrificial dance. The tentacles were covered with suckers, each about half a meter in diameter, and the keratinous rings at their edges gleamed with a chilling light under the red glow.

Caesar's Adam's apple bobbed. He mouthed to Lu Mingfei, "It's not just like it, it's the giant squid."

Chu Zihang also used lip reading, his voice coming entirely from his throat, with his lips barely moving: "Its length is at least 60 meters. Maybe even more."

"How do we use lip reading?" Lu Mingfei asked, but he lowered his voice to a whisper. "The two outside don't understand Chinese."

“The giant squid can sense sound wave vibrations.” Caesar’s hand had already touched the main power switch. “They have their own biological sonar system, and can even determine the size and shape of objects by subtle changes in water flow.”

He gently flipped a switch, and the few remaining working lights inside the submersible went out. Then, he began to shut down the unnecessary valves and circulation systems one by one, minimizing the noise of the machinery.

“I give you a thumbs up for saving energy.” Lu Mingfei also mouthed, his facial muscles twitching slightly with tension, “The squid has eyes, it’s watching us.”

“They’re not watching us.” Caesar completed all the silence operations, and now only the suppressed breathing and heartbeats of the three people remained in the cockpit. “The shark and the squid are now facing off. The Trieste has no temperature, no smell, and the sound of its machinery has stopped. They don’t know what we are, so they don’t see us as their prey.”

He slowly adjusted his posture with minimal movement. "There's only one thing we need to do now: remain absolutely still. We're suspended by safety ropes, so any swaying will be amplified. If they judge us as edible, even a tentative bump..."

He didn't finish speaking, but Lu Mingfei understood. The Trieste's hull could withstand water pressure, but it might not be able to withstand the impact of a giant creature. Especially the size of those two outside, which had already exceeded the design limits of this old-fashioned deep-sea submersible.

Chapter 430 Sharks and Giant Squid (Part 2)

“There’s a saying among Siberian hunters,” Caesar continued, lip-reading as he assumed an extremely steady stance, “If you encounter a bear in the wild, don’t move. You can’t kill it with a single shot, and you can’t escape it faster. If you want to live, lie down and don’t move. Bears aren’t very interested in still things.”

"How long does a standoff usually last?" Lu Mingfei felt his bladder tightening. "I need to go to the toilet."

“They are assessing each other’s strength and determination,” Chu Zihang said, closing his eyes and breathing becoming extremely slow and even. “It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a whole day. I studied Zen meditation at a Kendo dojo in Japan. My teacher said that a high-ranking monk can sit in meditation for three to five years. A day is nothing.”

Caesar stood in a near-Pilates-like balancing posture, with his weight entirely on his core muscles: "I practiced Pilates for three years, and I can stay still for several hours without any problem."

He looked at Lu Mingfei, "And you?"

Looking at his two companions, one meditating with eyes closed, the other standing in a balancing stance, Lu Mingfei swallowed hard. "I don't know Zen, and I don't know Pilates either."

He carefully and slowly lay down on the cold floor of the cockpit, thinking, "When in doubt, just sleep it off."

The three people were frozen inside the cockpit in three different postures.

Outside the window, the two deep-sea monsters had also entered a stalemate.

The hammerhead shark stopped swimming and hovered about thirty meters to the right of the submersible. Its body was slightly tilted, with one eye always pointed towards the giant squid. Its gill covers opened and closed slowly, each breath releasing fine bubbles. Its muscles bulged slightly, a sign of readiness to pounce.

The giant squid is even more bizarre. It has no obvious body, only a huge blue eye and ten dancing tentacles. The rhythm of the tentacles' movements has changed; they are no longer drifting randomly, but moving rhythmically and slowly, like writing on the water's surface. The two longest tentacles are slightly curled up, their suckers fully extended, like two giant pythons preparing to pounce.

Time passed in silence.

Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. One minute.

Lu Mingfei lay on the floor, his eyes fixed on the pipes on the ceiling. He could hear his own heartbeat, the roar of blood rushing through his eardrums, and Caesar's extremely faint, almost nonexistent breathing. The outside world seemed to be muted, or perhaps, it was the deathly silence before a storm.

Two minutes.

The hammerhead shark's body suddenly jolted.

It wasn't a prelude to an attack, but rather a reaction of extreme alertness. Its dorsal fin stood erect, its tail fin swung dramatically, and its body retreated five meters.

The giant squid's tentacles suddenly began to move at an accelerated pace.

Then, everything erupted.

The Trieste shuddered, not from a collision, but from being violently pounded by the raging torrents of water stirred up by the battle between the two behemoths. The safety ropes creaked and groaned, and the entire ship rocked violently like bells in a gale.

Lu Mingfei was thrown up from the floor and then slammed back down, his head hitting the metal floor, and he saw stars. He barely opened his eyes and, through the observation window, saw a hellish scene.

In the depths of the sunset-colored sea, primal, bloody violence is unfolding.

The giant squid's ten tentacles, like giant snakes emerging from their holes, instantly coiled around the hammerhead shark's entire forebody. Suckers clung tightly to the shark's rough skin, keratinous rings piercing the flesh, and blood immediately gushed from hundreds of wounds. The hammerhead shark thrashed wildly, its massive hammerhead slamming into the squid's head, its sharp teeth biting into the soft tissue where the squid's head and tentacles connected.

The bluish-green blood mingled with the bright red blood, creating an eerie and beautiful hue in the rosy sea. The two types of blood, with their different densities and compositions, did not mix immediately but instead formed layers: red on top, blue at the bottom, and a transitional purple in between, like a spilled cocktail.

The giant squid winced in pain, but the entanglement didn't loosen. Two tentacles reached for the shark's gill slits, a vital spot for cartilaginous fish. The hammerhead shark sensed the danger and began to roll frantically, trying to shake off the entanglement with the force of rotation. Its size and strength were clearly superior, and each roll created a huge whirlpool, even causing the submersible to spin half a circle with the current.

“The shark won.” Lu Mingfei struggled to his feet, grabbing the armrest of his chair to steady himself. The fierce fight outside the window made him forget his fear, leaving only a pure, stunned silence, shocked by primal violence.

"The squid has a better chance of winning," Caesar said, gripping the straps on the bulkhead, his eyes fixed on the battle. "The giant squid's head injury looks serious, but squid have a unique nervous system. They have three brains, with the main nerve centers distributed throughout their bodies. The shark's bite wasn't to a vital spot."

As if to prove his point, the giant squid made a surprising move.

It loosened its grip on the shark's body, except for the two tentacles that had already penetrated the gill slits. Just as the shark thought it was about to break free, the squid used its other eight tentacles to suddenly wrap around the base of the shark's tail fin, and then contracted with all its might.

The hammerhead shark's struggle paused for a moment. Not a pause due to injury, but a sign of impending suffocation.

“Gills.” Chu Zihang also got up, his golden eyes shining brightly in the darkness. “The squid’s tentacles are stuck in its gills. Cartilaginous fish need to keep swimming to let water flow through their gills to breathe, so if the gills are blocked…”

Before the words were even finished, the giant squid delivered a fatal blow, its two tentacles protruding into the gill slits suddenly yanking outwards.

Along with it, the entire gill structure of the hammerhead shark was pulled out—bright red, coral-like gill filaments and tissues, still slightly pulsating, like red seaweed uprooted. Blood burst forth like smoke, instantly staining a large area of ​​water red.

The hammerhead shark, which had been struggling violently just moments before, now had its body stiff.

It convulsed violently for half a minute, each convulsion causing more blood to gush from the huge wound in its gills. Then, it slowly and weakly rolled over, revealing its white belly, and floated to the surface.

The outcome is already decided.

The giant squid didn't immediately let go. It remained coiled around the dying shark, the suckers on its tentacles tearing at the losing elasticity of the muscles, widening the wounds. This was a predator's caution, confirming that its prey was completely incapacitated.

Three minutes later, the squid finally broke free of its entanglement.

It swam slowly around the hammerhead shark, as if admiring its prize. Then, it spewed out a thick stream of black ink.

The ink curtain spread rapidly, obscuring the view.

As the ink dissipated slightly, the giant squid vanished. Only a huge, dying shark remained, slowly rising to the surface, its blood spreading like red ribbons across its body, staining and diffusing in the rosy seawater.

Lu Mingfei's heart, which had been hanging in suspense for so long, finally settled back into his chest. He slumped into a chair, covered in cold sweat.

In terms of weight alone, the metallic Trieste isn't much lighter than a hammerhead shark or a giant squid. But if those two behemoths had accidentally collided with the submersible during their fight, or worse, mistook it for prey and attacked, even a small crack in the hull would have been crushed to a pulp by the pressure of 7900 meters of water in an instant.

Chapter 431 The Ghost-Toothed Dragon Viper (Part 1)

"Is it over?" Lu Mingfei's voice was still trembling.

“For now,” Caesar said, turning the power back on to the bare minimum, the dashboard lights dimly illuminating. His expression was grim. “But we have to get out of this area. The smell of blood will attract more things; in the deep sea, some creatures have an incredibly keen sense of smell.”

Chu Zihang checked the status of each system. "The safety rope is intact, but the power system still cannot be started. We are stuck here and cannot move."

Lu Mingfei looked out the window. The sharks had risen to a higher position than them, and blood, like red rain, was slowly falling from above, splashing onto the glass of the observation window and leaving mottled red marks.

"LOOK! What is this thing? It's all colorful!" Lu Mingfei shouted, pressing his fingers hard against the observation window.

Caesar and Chu Zihang both looked down at the same time.

At first, they mistook it for an illusion, seeing thousands upon thousands of eerie blue lights rising from the depths of the trench. These lights, like fireflies on a summer night or stardust scattered by the wind, spiraled upwards in the sunset-colored sea, forming a huge, slowly rotating vortex with a diameter of over a hundred meters.

Points of light surrounded the dying hammerhead shark. The shark had stopped struggling, only occasionally twitching, each twitch releasing more blood mist from its gills and wounds. The points of light swirled around this blood mist, sometimes converging, sometimes dispersing, the blue and red lights intertwining in a breathtakingly beautiful display.

“It would be perfect with Joe Hisaishi’s music, so beautiful,” Lu Mingfei murmured, completely forgetting his earlier fear. “It’s like under the night sky, countless fireflies surround the samurai who just died, paying tribute to his heroic spirit.”

The distance is getting closer. On the observation window, the first point of light becomes clear.

It wasn't a firefly at all. It was a fish, a slender little fish less than half a meter long. Its entire body was covered in beautiful silver-blue scales, each scale reflecting the faint light of the submersible and the red glow of the seabed magma, presenting a cold, metallic appearance.

But what is most striking is the long, slender tentacle on its head, at the end of which is a pea-sized light emitter that continuously emits a soft, pale blue light.

"What a beautiful fish!" Lu Mingfei exclaimed, his eyes practically glued to the glass.

But the next second, the little fish turned around. Lu Mingfei's smile froze on his face.

He saw a hideous, terrifying face, more like a snake's face than a fish's. Its mouth was enormous, almost extending behind its gills. The mouth was filled with transparent, dagger-like teeth, each one like a meticulously polished crystal cone, its tip gleaming coldly.

Its teeth were partially exposed; even when its mouth was closed, the sharp tips still protruded, as if the fish were always baring its teeth. Its eyes were small, pitch black, and dull, like two bottomless holes.

The little fish happened to swim right in front of the observation window and paused. It glanced inside the cabin, though its dark eyes didn't seem capable of seeing anything at all. Then, it opened its mouth.

Lu Mingfei could clearly see that its mouth was filled with barbed, fine teeth, and its tongue had a row of even smaller spikes. The entire mouth was like a miniature meat grinder.

"Can anyone tell me what kind of fish is outside the window?"

Chu Zihang's face had turned ashen: "Salmoniformes, Viperidae, Viper." He paused, emphasizing one word, "the viper of the viper snake."

Lu Mingfei thought of the vipers he'd seen on TV—triangular heads, exposed fangs, and deadly venom. But these little fish looked like works of art.

Another viper swam by. This time it didn't stop, but pounced directly on the hammerhead shark.

Then, the feast began.

Thousands upon thousands of eerie blue lights, thousands upon thousands of vipers, as if responding to a silent command, simultaneously lunged at the massive shark. They were no longer graceful, no longer slow, but like streaks of silver-blue lightning, sprinting, turning, and tearing at an astonishing speed.

The first viper plunged its dagger-like teeth into the soft flesh of the hammerhead shark's belly. Then, it began to twist its body, rotating like a screwdriver to drive the teeth deeper. Blood immediately gushed from the wound.

Article 2, Article 3, Article 4...

The hammerhead shark, already on the verge of death, suddenly straightened up! This was a final reflex triggered by excruciating pain. This former deep-sea apex predator frantically thrashed its tail fin, trying to shake off the tiny creatures clinging to it. But it couldn't. The vipers clung on like leeches, each one spinning, burrowing, and tearing.

Lu Mingfei saw it clearly: the jaws of these vipers possessed astonishing strength. They could bite through shark skin several centimeters thick, sever tough muscle fibers, and even…

A viper burrowed into a large wound in the shark's gills. A few seconds later, it emerged from the other side, a large piece of bright red gill tissue in its mouth. It quickly swallowed it and then turned to pounce on the new wound.

“They’re eating live sharks, gourmets of the deep sea,” Lu Mingfei murmured. “The fact that sharks can survive is also amazing.”

Yes, the hammerhead shark was still alive. Though powerless to resist, its heart was still beating weakly, and its nervous system was still transmitting the excruciating pain of being devoured alive. Under Lu Mingfei's watchful gaze, the behemoth's body was disintegrating at a visible speed.

First, its abdomen was ripped out, exposing its pale ribs and spine. Then, its pectoral fins were bitten off, with only tendons connecting them. A viper swam directly into its eye socket, and when it emerged from the other side, the cloudy white eyeball was gone.

The most terrifying part is the liver, which is rich in fat and is a favorite food of vipers. They swarm around the liver like piranhas attracted by blood, tearing at it frantically. The liver quickly disappears, exposing more of the internal organs underneath.

Five minutes later, the hammerhead shark stopped convulsing.

No, the hammerhead shark is gone. Only a pale white skeleton remains, still retaining the basic shape of a shark, but every bone is clean, without a trace of meat. The skeleton slowly sinks, like a monument built of bones.

The vipers began to disperse. They regained their graceful form, the pale blue light slowly rising and coalescing into a flowing galaxy, retreating into the depths of the trench. Not a single fish remained, nor did any linger out of greed. Their arrival was like a galaxy descending, their departure like the receding tide; the entire process was quiet, orderly, and deadly.

The cockpit was deathly silent; all three of them understood.

The giant squid didn't calmly leave after killing the hammerhead shark. It fled in terror, spewing out jets of black ink at top speed to cover its retreat. The bloody scent of their struggle had alerted these creatures deep in the trench.