Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

The rain is getting heavier.

“I heard that on that piece of land,” Angers said softly, as if talking to himself, “it’s all old houses.”

Watanabe perked up and leaned forward slightly from his chair: "Yes, yes! They're all old buildings from before World War II, vacant for many years. In that kind of location, Bunkyo Ward, behind the University of Tokyo, a prime academic area where every inch of land is precious, and an entire street is deserted. Tsk tsk, it's such a waste."

As he spoke, he pulled out a color-printed area analysis chart from the folder, his fingertip tracing over the color blocks marked with low utilization rates.

“If you acquire this land, it will be a massive development project. Those dilapidated houses can simply be demolished. The property rights are as clear as a textbook example, and there won't be any obstacles from the city hall. They approve land use for these kinds of projects that revitalize idle land much faster.” He paused, lowered his voice, and spoke frankly, “To be honest, undeveloped plots of land in downtown areas like this are almost extinct in all of Tokyo. If it weren't for your tip, we wouldn't have been able to find it even after searching through all the files. It's hidden very well.”

Angers turned his gaze away from the window.

He looked at Watanabe not as an account manager giving a business report, but as if he were looking at a spot in the rain. His eyes appeared extremely pale in the warm indoor light, like diluted brandy.

“Every city,” he said slowly, “has some places where secrets are buried.”

He paused. Another flash of lightning outside the window illuminated his snow-white hair.

"It's like a tomb. It's best not to demolish it lightly."

Watanabe paused for a moment. He wasn't sure if the words were a sigh, a test, or a decision he couldn't understand. Before he could think about it, Angers had already taken a thick brown paper envelope from the bag at his feet and gently placed it on the table.

The remaining balance of 200 million yen.

“Now,” Angers said, “can I take a look at the land deed?”

Watanabe quickly counted the banknotes and neatly bundled the cash into his briefcase. He took out another brown paper envelope from the inner pocket, handed it over to the edge of the table with both hands, his movements carrying a professional respect.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting." He spoke a little faster, the relaxation after the transaction making him more talkative. "This land deed is in the vault of Mitsubishi Bank, at the highest level of security. To be honest, Mitsui Properties also used quite a few connections to obtain access. This level of asset..."

Seeing that Angers had pulled out a thin piece of paper, he wisely kept quiet.

The thick paper, made from mulberry bark, is yellowed and brittle at the edges, with dark brown creases. The ink has seeped into the texture of the paper; it was Showa 14, seventy years ago. The land boundaries are marked with landmarks from that time: north to [redacted] street, south to the torii gate of Kuroten Shrine. The owner's name is written in old-style Chinese characters, with thin, firm strokes.

Angers' gaze lingered on the name for a long time.

Watanabe quickly unfolded a brand-new map of Tokyo and circled it with a red marker.

“Most of the landmarks from back then have been demolished now. I checked the site this afternoon. You see, this piece of land is here, behind the University of Tokyo, a long, narrow street from one end to the other. There used to be a shrine on this street called the Black Heaven Shrine, which has now been converted into a church.” He pointed to the map with his pen cap. “It was very small and dilapidated, a community service-type building, with hardly any people. Religious buildings of this size are generally not an obstacle to acquisition.”

Angers folded up the land deed, gently placed it back in the envelope, and pushed it across the threshold.

"It's safer to put something worth $12 billion back in the safe deposit box at Mitsubishi Bank."

Watanabe's pen hung in mid-air.

"You...you have no intention of acquiring this land?"

He thought his earlier remarks about the demolition of the old house and the description of the development prospects had sufficiently piqued the client's interest. But Angers returned the land title deed as if he had just finished reading an outdated newspaper.

“As I just said,” Angers said, picking up the half-warm brandy, its amber surface calm and still. “Every city has places where secrets are buried.”

He drank the last drop of wine in his glass.

“I have no interest in acquiring graves. I just want to know where the graves are.”

He gently placed the empty cup back on the table, and the bottom of the cup touched the mahogany without making a sound.

"The tomb owner, or rather, the landowner, was an old friend of mine. I should go and see if he's dead."

Watanabe opened his mouth.

What should he say? The old gentleman had drunk most of a glass of brandy, and outside there was a magnitude 7 earthquake. He said he was going to visit a land title holder from seventy years ago, in the dead of night during a storm.

“Sir, sir,” Watanabe stood up, the chair legs thumping on the carpet. “It is best not to go out during an earthquake, especially since you have been drinking.”

The building shook again, this time for even longer. Outside the window, Tokyo Tower swayed in the rain, like a candle bent askew by the wind. In the distance, the faint sound of police sirens drifted in, muffled by the rain.

Angers stood up, picked up his bag, and walked towards the door.

He paused by the door, turned his head, and said as if to Watanabe, or perhaps to the storm outside the window, "On a night like this, probably no one will be checking for drunk driving."

He pushed open the door.

A cold wind blew in from the corridor, carrying the scent of rain. A few strands of his white hair were blown up, but he didn't turn around.

"Moreover, my time is running out."

The door closed gently in front of Watanabe.

Rainwater streamed down the windowpane like countless tiny snakes. Watanabe stood there, still clutching the land deed. The empty wine glass on the table silently reflected the white flash of lightning.

He suddenly realized that he had forgotten to ask the man's name.

Chapter 677 The Broken Torii Gate

The torii gate was smashed to pieces on the ground.

The vermilion torii gate, as tall as two people and carved from a single thousand-year-old cherry blossom tree, crumbled like a pile of building blocks kicked over by a child. Wood chips scattered in all directions, appearing like hundreds of crimson butterflies fluttering in the candlelight and firelight.

Blood flowed on the sloping ground.

A thin, boundless red tide, following the slight slope of the floor and the gaps in the tiles, silently and stubbornly seeped into every low-lying corner.

Caesar's shoes stomped over the ground, making a sticky, slapping sound. Chu Zihang knelt on one knee, his trousers soaked in dark red blood. Yuan Zhisheng lay on the edge of a pool of blood, his blood mingling with the already cooled blood, indistinguishable from the others.

The overturned candlestick ignited the hanging brocade curtains.

The flames climbed the fabric like living things, with astonishing speed. The Vajras and Buddha statues sitting cross-legged in the shrine all collapsed. Only when they crashed through the layers of light gauze in front of them and were exposed to the firelight in their fallen state did their true forms truly appear.

It is not a Buddha statue.

A huge body, a coiled posture, and a surface covered with fine scales—a snake.

They have human-like faces, with lowered eyes and even a faint, almost compassionate smile frozen at the corners of their mouths. But their torsos are undoubtedly those of ancient snakes, ancient reptiles from the deep sea, with their vertebrae rising like mountain ranges and their long tails coiled into knots at the bottom of the niche.

These are the mermaids captured by the Snake-Headed Eight Families from the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan over the past thousand years. The remains of those creatures who, in ancient legends, lured sailors to their deaths with their beautiful songs, those hybrid beings whom fishermen revered as "messengers of the sea god."

They were never mummified.

They are specimens.

The burning curtain fell, and flames greedily licked the body of the first mermaid. In an instant, the corpse, sealed for hundreds of years, emitted a blinding light—a bright, bluish-white flame, like solidified moonlight.

Mermaid fat is the best material for making candles and lamp oil.

The mermaid oil lamps in ancient imperial tombs are said to burn for a thousand years without ceasing, illuminating the path of the deceased to the underworld. At this moment, these sleeping ancient mermaids used their own bodies to ignite this funeral.

Flames spread rapidly along the grease flowing across the ground, engulfing every corner of the mural hall in flames. Hot air rose upwards, swirling up ashes and sparks.

However, no one had the time to put out the fire.

Just as Spider Slicer's cold blade was about to pierce Chu Zihang's chest, in a fraction of a second, the third and strongest shockwave to date struck without warning.

Genji Heavy Industries swayed violently.

The entire building emitted a painful, near-limit-reaching groan. Cracks spread wildly across the reinforced concrete walls like living things, first as thin as a hair, then as thick as a finger, and finally large enough to fit an entire arm inside. The steel bars were torn apart by immense force, emitting a continuous, piercing scream like a bowstring snapping.

The high-pressure water pipe burst, and water mist carrying the smell of rust shot into the sky. It met the burning oil flames of the corpse guardian and hissed, but it was unable to extinguish the ancient flame of life.

The three-person battle completely lost all pretense of skill and technique at this moment.

What meaning did the cavalry slash with a short hand, the thirteen-flash combo with a broken sword, or the reverse-rolling blade style have? They all lost their meaning amidst the overturned floor, the collapsed Buddhist shrine, the sparks flying everywhere, and the sticky blood at their feet.

They clung to each other, rolling, tearing, and colliding.

Caesar gripped Genji's right wrist, which was holding the knife, tightly, and with all his might, pried the blade tip inch by inch from Chu Zihang's chest. Chu Zihang seized the opportunity to strike Genji's ribs with his elbow, one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body, and he heard a faint groan from the bones.

Genjiro grunted, but instead of backing down, he slammed his forehead into Caesar's face.

Headbutt.

The most primitive, barbaric, and also the most effective attack method.

Caesar's skin cracked at the corner of his eye, and blood immediately blurred his left eye. He couldn't see anything, and he didn't even have time to wipe it away, because Genji's knee was aimed at his lower abdomen. He could only instinctively twist his waist to dodge, while his nails dug deep into the flesh on the side of Genji's throat. If he had used just a little more force, he could have torn through that thin layer of skin.

Chu Zihang broke free and immediately began kicking Yuan Zhisheng's ribs relentlessly. One kick, two kicks, three kicks, each kick carrying the terrifying power amplified by his bloodlust, like a heavy hammer repeatedly forging the same piece of iron.

They are the elite of the elite, the top students in the undergraduate program and the ace of the executive department of Kassel College, and the emperors of the Snake Clan, a once-in-a-millennium talent.

But now, he can't even throw a nice, textbook-perfect hook.

All they can rely on is the ruthlessness ingrained in their genes and their extraordinary capacity to endure pain.

This is the most primitive form of fighting.

It was no different from the tearing apart of two wounded male lions in the jungle. Teeth, nails, knees, foreheads—every part of the human body that could be a weapon was now transformed into a deadly weapon. No one minded using even their teeth.

Anger, like fuel, seeped into his blood, intensifying his already boiling fighting spirit to a fever pitch.

None of them had any weapons. Spider Cutter had been thrown from their hands during the first impact and was now stuck in a crack in some wall; Chu Zihang's longsword had rolled several meters away and was pinned down by the overturned shrine; Dick Tudor lay quietly on the edge of a pool of blood, the firelight on his blade casting a distorted image.

But the ferocity in their hearts was even greater than when they wielded any divine weapon.

The illusion of walking side by side on rainy nights, the moments of sharing a hot coffee on the streets of Tokyo, those tender things that were almost like friendship—all of these have now been exposed in the midst of the glint of swords and the flames of war, revealing their true nature.

That was an illusion.

From the moment they met, they stood firmly on their respective sides, clearly defined and insurmountable. No matter how long they walked side by side in the rain under an umbrella, no matter how peaceful the silence was, enemies will eventually draw their swords.

The oil from the mermaid specimen melted in the high temperature, flowing down the sloping floor in bright streams, which stained Caesar's coat hem and instantly ignited it.

But he didn't even look down.

He pounced on Genjiro's back, his hands and feet locking his body like iron hoops. This is an extremely rare and dangerous move in American wrestling, called the Human Shackles.

Use the whole body as shackles, use bones to fight bones, and use will to crush will.

Get out of the way!

Caesar's roar drowned out the howling flames and the groans of the buildings.

Chu Zihang didn't hesitate at all. He released his grip on Yuan Zhisheng's throat, rolled backward on the spot, ignoring the pain as his back slammed into a burning mermaid specimen. He trusted Caesar.

Caesar used his core strength to lean back sharply, like a bow suddenly released, carrying Genjiro, who was tightly locked on his back, towards the nearest wall—accelerating and crashing!

Genjiro had no experience with American wrestling.

He had never even heard of this fighting technique, which originated from North American professional wrestling leagues and was more for show than for actual combat. He had no way of predicting Caesar's movements, let alone knowing how to dissipate the enormous momentum of his charge towards the wall while he was chained up.

boom!

His back slammed solidly into the concrete wall.

The entire wall trembled, and fine dust fell in a flurry. For someone like Genjiro, with his dragon-like bones and muscles capable of smashing bronze doors with his bare hands, the dizziness would only be momentary. But for Caesar, a moment was enough.

He took advantage of the situation to flip over, pressing his knee firmly against Yuan Zhisheng's chest, and locking his throat with his hands like iron clamps.