Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

"Let us drink and sing, for life is short!"

For example, the morning dew has a lot of suffering.

Generosity should be regarded as generosity, unforgettable worry.

What can dispel sorrow? Only wine.

She was reciting Cao Cao's "Short Song Ballad." The Chinese verses echoing in the Japanese environment created a strange sense of time travel. Kimura Hiroshi understood some Chinese, having spent three years in China in his youth, and could grasp the general meaning. He sang while drinking, lamenting the fleeting nature of life, as brief as morning dew, and how only wine could soothe his deep sorrow.

But what does that have to do with the scene before him? he wondered. The poem was about the thirst for talent and the ambition to unify the world, the grand pronouncements of a statesman at a banquet. And now, they had just destroyed thousands of non-human creatures with a fleet.

Su Enxi continued reading, her voice carrying a sense of desolation:

"Green are your robes, deep is my longing."

But for the sake of the king, I have been pondering it so far.

The deer cry out, "Yo-yo!" as they eat the wild apples.

I have guests, and we play the zither and the sheng (a type of reed pipe instrument).

The flames on the sea surface began to subside. The missile strikes had ceased, leaving only the wreckage of the platform and floating oil still burning. The mermaids were no longer visible. It was unknown whether they had all perished in the fire or had managed to escape and dive into the deep sea. Heavy rain poured down, attempting to extinguish the flames on the sea surface, but the oil fire burning on the water only caused the rain to spread the fire further.

"The moon shines brightly, but when can it be grasped?"

Sorrow arises from within and cannot be stopped.

Crossing unfamiliar paths and fields, we vainly sought each other's company.

They talked and feasted, remembering past kindnesses.

Su Enxi paused, the sea breeze ruffling her long, wet hair. Her profile was exceptionally clear in the firelight, her eyelashes long, her nose straight, and her lips pressed into a straight line.

Her voice was very low during the last few sentences, almost swallowed by the sea breeze, but Kimura Hiroshi still heard them clearly:

"The moon is bright and the stars are few; crows and magpies fly south."

I circled the tree three times, but which branch could I lean on?

Mountains are never too high, and seas are never too deep.

"The Duke of Zhou spat out his food to welcome guests, and the people's hearts turned to him."

After reading it aloud, Su Enxi remained silent for a moment. In the distance, a US Navy destroyer was turning, its bow cutting through the burning seawater, leaving a black contrail. The other warships also began adjusting their formation, preparing to return. They had completed their mission and would return to Yokosuka Port according to orders, returning to silence as if nothing had happened.

“The creatures that once sat on the throne,” Su Enxi said softly, as if talking to herself, “are now like a pack of wolves driven to the edge of a cliff. They can’t go back; they can only move forward, even if there’s a sea of ​​fire ahead.”

Hiroshi Kimura didn't quite understand the full connection between the poem and the scene before him, but he vaguely sensed that Su Enxi wasn't simply reciting poetry, but expressing something deeper: the change of the throne, the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.

“Mr. Kimura,” Su Enxi turned around and looked at him. Her eyes shone with a deep, dark gold in the night, like ancient amber.

“Having witnessed these things, you are now a member of our team.” Her voice was calm, but Kimura Hiroshi could feel the weight beneath that calmness. It wasn’t a question, but a confirmation.

"I've seen your resume. You were the former head butler at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, serving three cabinet ministers and two chaebol heads. As one of the world's best butlers, you wouldn't reveal our secrets, would you?"

Hiroshi Kimura bowed his head and bent over, his movements were impeccably standard.

“I know, I’m already prepared,” he said, his voice steady and without any tremor. “The servants who clean the mansion are all locked in their rooms, the windows are locked, and the blackout curtains are drawn. They know nothing about this.”

He paused, then added, "As for me, from the moment I accepted this job, I was prepared to see anything."

Chapter 464 Bang!

"I'll buy barbecue-flavored potato chips tomorrow," Su Enxi said with a gentle smile. The sea breeze ruffled her wet hair, and her bathrobe clung to her slender body.

“Yes, barbecue flavored potato chips,” Kimura Hiroshi replied, bowing his head.

Su Enxi nodded in satisfaction, her bare feet stepping on the cool stone surface, preparing to walk back to the villa from the white stone steps at the edge of the cliff. She longed for warm water, a dry bath towel, and a glass of whiskey, perhaps with ice.

My right foot had just stepped onto the first step when I heard crying behind me.

Claws covered in fine scales, with nails curved like steel hooks, suddenly emerged from the edge of the cliff and grabbed Su Enxi's slender ankle.

The ease on Su Enxi's face vanished, and Kimura Hiroshi saw such clear astonishment in her eyes for the first time. His reaction was faster than anyone could have imagined; he gripped the iron railing beside him tightly with his left hand, using the momentum to lean back and disengage from being dragged, while his right hand reached inside the thigh of his bathrobe, where a concealed gun holster was hidden.

"Whoosh!" A short, sharp, silver-white pistol was already in hand, the movement so fluid that only a blurry afterimage remained.

The fish that escaped the net leaped from the cliff, their massive bodies stretching out in mid-air, blocking out much of the moonlight. From a distance, they looked like magnified, deformed fish, but only upon closer inspection could one truly grasp the oppressive feeling emanating from the wilderness.

It is nearly five meters long, with a streamlined torso covered in bluish-gray, rock-armor-like skin. Its muscles ripple and bulge beneath the skin like pythons, and its shoulders and back are as thick as those of an adult tiger. Its powerful, long tail accounts for almost half of its body length.

It is not a weak mermaid, but a monster born to slaughter in the deep sea.

While Su Enxi was completely absorbed in remotely controlling the St. Louis, guiding the missile salvo, and admiring the sea transform into a hellish landscape, this cunning survivor silently broke away from its dying brethren. Using the shadows of the reefs and the deafening explosions as cover, it climbed the hundred-meter-high cliff like a seasoned assassin, following the crevices and protrusions of the steep face.

At that moment, it pounced on Su Enxi.

Its long tail coiled around her slender waist with lightning speed, tightening terrifyingly. A sickening creak of bones being crushed echoed from beneath Su Enxi's bathrobe. Its upper body rose high, its two sharp claws tearing through the air, aiming straight for her snow-white neck.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Enxi pressed the gun almost against that ferocious face and pulled the trigger.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The trigger was pulled seven times in quick succession, the muzzle flashes short and rapid in the darkness. Seven bullets were fired in two seconds, blasting into the mermaid's face. The powerful impact jolted her head back, a small flower of black, viscous blood and grayish-white brain matter exploding at the back of her skull. The claws gripping her ankle loosened slightly due to a reflex.

However, he turned his face back to Su Enxi.

Seven deep bullet holes were distributed around its massive eye sockets and cheekbones, gushing black blood. But its bulging, crimson-gold eyes remained fixed on its prey, seemingly oblivious to the slightest pain. Its head, as withered as a mummy and as pale as a dead stone, began to sway slowly from side to side, its long, disheveled, withered white hair moving with it.

The long tail that coiled around her waist slowed its tightening, but its power continued to increase steadily. Su Enxi's face turned from white to pale, her breathing became difficult, and fine beads of cold sweat appeared on her forehead.

With the help of this close proximity and the bright moonlight, Kimura Hiroshi finally saw the monster's true form clearly.

Its entire body was covered by skin tightly clinging to jagged bones, shriveled and withered. Its facial features were frighteningly large, with crimson-gold eyeballs that almost bulged out of their sockets, and a huge gaping mouth that stretched from below one ear to the other. The horrifying gaping mouth was tightly stitched together with thick thread resembling dried fish tendons.

At this moment, the stitched-up giant mouth began to wriggle.

"Bang, bang, bang," the fishbone stitches broke one after another.

As the sutures broke, its lips could no longer close, and its long, dense, razor-sharp teeth, layer upon layer, emerged from beneath its gums, exposed to the air. Finally, when all the sutures snapped, its mouth opened completely.

Beyond the realm of biological common sense, the angle between the upper and lower jawbones is astonishingly large, enough to easily swallow a half-grown lamb. A strong, pungent stench fills the air.

Only by standing before it could one truly feel the suffocating terror that originates from the top of the food chain. Kimura Hiroshi felt his blood freeze, his soul ripped from his body, leaving only boundless chill and uncontrollable trembling.

Previously, viewed from above, the mermaid horde was pulverized in the artillery fire, resembling a cruel yet distant game. But now, with these living, breathing, predators brimming with murderous intent right before his eyes, he finally understood why they could so easily smash through steel plates and strangle whales.

Now, Su Enxi is facing this nightmare alone.

Her slender body was entangled by the monster, her bathrobe soaked with seawater and blood, clinging to her skin and outlining her delicate curves. A wisp of smoke curled from the empty silver pistol in her hand. The magazine was empty; she had lost her most direct weapon. A gaping maw hovered above her head, its depths a dark void, ready to devour her at any moment.

A desperate situation.

“Mr. Kimura,” Su Enxi said, her breath trembling despite being tightened around him, as she looked at the stunned Kimura Hiroshi, “Please press 0.”

The seemingly ordinary cell phone, which was connected to all the killing orders for the night, lay nearby next to an overturned tray, its screen still glowing with a faint light, displaying a simple digital interface.

Hiroshi Kimura let out a low growl, his body reacting before his mind could process it, leaping forward like a fish.

He smashed through the shards of the wine glass, slammed his hand heavily on the ground, and grabbed his phone. With all his might, he slammed it down on the "0" key in the center of the screen.

An intense, blinding white light, rising from below, tore through the darkness beneath the high cliff without warning.

A pale beam of light converged on the spot where Su Enxi and the mermaid were. Immediately afterwards, a gunshot rang out.

"Bang!" At the same time the gunshot rang out, the mermaid's head exploded.

The entire back of the skull was as if it had been smashed from the inside by an invisible giant hammer, and then lifted open from back to front. Black blood plasma, grayish-white brain tissue, and shattered bone fragments sprayed out in a radial pattern, some even landing on Su Enxi's pale and calm face.

But dying creatures often unleash their final, and most frenzied, instinctive power. Just as a severed snake head can still bite, a mermaid with its brain shattered, its powerful muscles twitching at the nerve endings, issues its final command: to strangle.

The long tail, which had loosened slightly after its owner's death, tightened with an even more terrifying force. Su Enxi's waist was constricted as if it would break at any moment.

The gunfire below the cliff did not stop.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" Five consecutive booming sounds, with extremely short intervals, accompanied by a burst of blood mist from the mermaid's thick, long torso that was wrapped around Su Enxi's spine.

Cervical vertebrae, thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae... at intervals, a bullet with terrifying kinetic energy exceeding twice the speed of sound pierces through, shattering the hard vertebrae and tearing apart the internal nerve bundles.

Mermaid skeletons can withstand direct hits from ordinary pistol bullets, but they are as fragile as dried clay in the face of these large-caliber sniper rifle bullets specifically designed for anti-materiel purposes.

Su Enxi lowered her eyes, staring expressionlessly at the monster's corpse that was pressed tightly against her.

Her long tail came loose and hung limply. Her bluish-gray body, having lost all support, slowly slid off her, and with a heavy thud, she plummeted from the edge of the hundred-meter cliff, crashing onto the jagged black rocks below.

Chapter 465 Cleaning the Coast

People in black waterproof suits emerged from the shadows from all directions, like silhouettes stripped from the night itself. Their movements were professional, the only sound the rustling of the waterproof fabric against each other. The twelve-person team quickly sealed off the entire coastline, working in pairs, and began the cleanup operation with perfect coordination.

The tide carried away most of the corpses, leaving only a few mermaids stuck in the crevices of the reef. Adding to this was a headless mermaid, its head lying on the shallows ten meters away, its golden pupils wide open, reflecting the flickering lights of the distant city of Atami.

The tools used by the men in black were unusual: harpoons with barbs at the tip and hollow handles connected to compressed gas cylinders. They inserted the harpoons into the joints of the corpse, pressed a button, and high-pressure gas was injected into the body. The corpse inflated slightly, like an air pump, and was easily pushed out of the crevice.

The specially made thick plastic bucket was coated with a corrosion-resistant ceramic layer inside and had a double-sealed edge. After the body was thrown in, an operator wearing a gas mask pulled a hose from a metal canister at his waist and injected a pale yellow, viscous liquid.

Thick white smoke immediately billowed from the plastic bucket. A hissing, corrosive sound lasted for about forty seconds, during which two operators kept the lid on to prevent excessive internal pressure. The white smoke, by the time it escaped through a specially designed filter valve, had become a colorless and odorless gas.

The pouring process was equally meticulous; the liquid had to flow into the sea along the slope of the reef to avoid splashing. The moment the dark brown, viscous substance came into contact with the seawater, an iridescent oil film appeared on its surface, but within three seconds it was torn apart, diluted, and carried away by the ocean currents. The receding tide acted like a giant eraser, wiping away the last trace of evidence.

After cleaning, the men in black used high-pressure water guns to wash the surface of the reef, removing even the chemical residue from the bloodstains. Finally, they sprayed gene-degrading enzymes on the damp rocks to destroy any remaining DNA fragments.

Su Enxi slowly descended the three stone steps, her wooden clogs making a crisp "tap, tap" sound as they struck the stone surface. She placed the teacup she had been holding in the hand in the center of the mahogany tray.

Kimura Hiroshi was shocked to discover that, even when faced with a creature as deadly as Su Enxi, she didn't let go of even fragile items like teacups.

In the seventy-two hours before arriving at the Blackstone Mansion, Su Enxi had completed all the preparations. She even had a plan to deal with events like the mermaids attacking the high cliffs and launching close-quarters assaults.

So she remained fearless throughout. The moment the mermaid's slippery claws gripped her ankle, her first reaction was not panic, but rather to lean forward slightly with the force of the grip, while simultaneously drawing her gun and pulling the trigger.

Kimura Hiroshi was right about her. She was a seasoned power player. Once she had laid her plans, her opponents were simply trapped on the chessboard and at her mercy. Facing an opponent like her, the mermaid swarm had truly run into the Grim Reaper's scythe.

"Clean up the scene now, don't leave anything easily identifiable like eyeballs or tails so people can find it," Su Enxi dialed the satellite phone without waiting for confirmation.

The tsunami has ended.

White waves receded back into the sea, each wave weaker than the last. The crevices of the black reef were filled with fine white foam, microbubbles produced by the rapid mixing of seawater with air as it receded, which would all burst and disappear before sunrise.

The Buddhist temple on the mountaintop rang its bell again, this time a full 108 times—a number meant to ward off misfortune. The sound of the bell echoed in the night sky, and the chanting of the monks could be faintly heard. It was fortunate that Hot Sea had survived this calamity.

In fact, the scale and destructive power of this tsunami were not particularly large, and it was protected by three layers of breakwaters. The impact on Atami City was probably less than that of the typhoon last autumn. There should be no casualties, and the property damage should be kept within the scope of the municipal budget.

Tourists who sought refuge in the city are probably still sipping warm sake, excitedly discussing their harrowing experience, and uploading blurry videos to social media with hashtags like "#MiracleSurvival" and "#AtamiAdventure".

They would never know that just ten kilometers away on the sea, the gates of hell had truly cracked open. They would never know that thousands of demons, who should only exist in myths, were once just a step away from the hotels where they soaked in hot springs, the shopping streets, and the seaside promenade where they strolled with their children.