Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

The private room quieted down, with only the softly flowing jazz music remaining.

Lu Mingfei sat on the sofa, stunned for a long time.

"Are we really going to assassinate Tachibana Masamune? I have a feeling it won't be that easy. There's something about that guy that I feel is off."

“Yes, kill him to facilitate the subsequent operations.” Frilian recalled her battle with Genjiro. “You suppress Genjiro. I have fought Genjiro before. He is very strong, but he needs time to release the Word Power: Royal Authority, which is countered by your Time Zero. I will assassinate Tachibana Masamune.”

Chapter 722 "Speaking the Truth"

"Father, now that things have come to this, can you tell me the truth?" Genjiro stared directly at Tachibana Masamune, his golden pupils burning brightly under the eternal lamp. "Is it you who wants to resurrect the gods?"

Tachibana Masamune knelt on the white cloth, his back ramrod straight.

"You've seen the family's genetic lab, so you think I'm the one behind the scenes plotting to resurrect God. But think about it, if I really wanted God to be resurrected, why would I plant a nuclear bomb on the Trieste and blow up Takamagahara?"

Yuan Zhisheng was taken aback.

The Trieste was carrying a small nuclear bomb. He had always thought it was the work of someone in his family, but now Tachibana Masamune was telling him that he was the one who planted it.

"So, your goal is to kill God with a nuclear bomb?" Genji asked.

“Yes. My true purpose is to kill the god, not to destroy Takamagahara. The so-called path of evolution requires the resurrection of the god first. This is Herzog's theory, and the core of his life's research. Only by resurrecting the god can we extract the perfect gene from it and complete the final step of evolution. But I cannot allow it. It's not that I don't crave power, it's not that I don't yearn for the throne, but because—”

“I have seen offerings made to the gods.”

“I’ve seen that thing awaken from liquid nitrogen, seen how it erodes human consciousness, how it turns people into slaves, how it turns people into food. Even the sacrifices are so powerful. Anyone who thinks they can control a god is wrong. No one can control it, no one can use it. It will only devour and destroy everything. So I must kill it before it fully awakens, by any means, including nuclear bombs.”

Tachibana Masamune raised his head and looked at Genjiro.

"Unfortunately, I acted too late; the god had already left Takamagahara."

Genjiro was silent for a moment, but Tachibana Masamune's eyes didn't seem to be lying.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

Tachibana Masamune sat down and bowed deeply.

"I came here today prepared to die, and I'm also prepared to tell you everything. The story begins after my meeting with Herzog."

“I wanted to seize all of Herzog’s research findings—embryos, data, equipment, knowledge, nothing at all. But I didn’t have enough power. Herzog wasn’t alone; he had an entire team, loyal guards, and a network of connections throughout the Soviet Union. I, alone with a gun and a fake check, couldn’t possibly take anything from him. That’s when I thought of using the power of the Snake Clan.”

"Many years ago, the Snake-Headed Eight Family had already achieved some results in their collaborative research with the Germans. If I give all the research data and the two super hybrids, π and ω, which were bred in vitro, to the Snake-Headed Eight Family as a gift, they will definitely support my research. After all, there are few people in this world who are not tempted by power. Moreover, Japan is a good place to avoid being tracked—an island nation, isolated from the world, where the KGB cannot reach, nor can Herzog's friends."

"So I suggested moving the research center, taking the important data and embryos to Japan, rebuilding the laboratory there, and continuing the research. But Herzog wanted to blow up the entire Black Swan Harbor."

"Destroy the evidence?" Genji asked.

“Yes,” Tachibana Masamune nodded. “The researchers know the secrets of the dragons. How much do they know? Herzog’s research, the origin of the embryos, where the Dragon King’s remains are, how to extract genes from dragon blood. Keeping them alive is like keeping competitors alive. One day, they will sell this knowledge to others—to Americans, Koreans, some chaebol, some family. Someone will always be able to afford it. So, the best way is to shut them up forever.”

"How many people did you kill?" Genji asked, his veins bulging.

"I killed many people," Tachibana Masamune said without hesitation. "Greed controlled me. I could kill tens of thousands of people, let alone hundreds."

“But I went even further than Herzog, I even killed him. After blowing up Black Swan Harbor, I shot him in the heart. I couldn’t let him live. He was a threat. He was knowledgeable, ambitious, and resourceful. One day he would find me, take back the embryo, and carry out his plan. So I killed him, wiped him out completely.”

He took a deep breath.

"I finally took you brothers and the ancient dragon embryo as a sacrifice, boarded the Lenin icebreaker, and sailed to Japan."

"Unexpected events occurred during the voyage."

Tachibana Masamune looked terrified.

"In the dead of night, the crew heard a roar coming from the lower deck. The sound was unlike anything any living being could make; it was deep and resonant, like the tremors of the earth, like the undercurrents of the deep sea. It pierced through the steel bulkheads, the concrete deck, and the eardrums, drilling straight into the brain. When we went to check, we found the ancient dragon embryo quietly floating in liquid nitrogen, motionless, without any signs of life."

"But the roar continued. This meant that the ancient dragon embryo had developed self-awareness. It was still asleep, frozen, but its consciousness had awakened. Its cries were eroding the crew's consciousness, like an invisible virus, spreading upwards from the lower decks, infecting everyone layer by layer."

"We were extra careful, using even more liquid nitrogen to lower the temperature further. We locked the lower deck, preventing anyone from going down, fearing someone might be controlled by the voice and release the embryos. But the closer we got to Japan, the more obvious the anomaly became. We were tormented by nightmares day and night, everyone having the same dream: being in the lower deck, standing in front of the embryos, dreaming that they opened their eyes and spoke to us. In the dead of night, we were awakened by whispers, voices murmuring in our ears, ordering us to open the lower deck door. It's hard for someone with a weak will to refuse such an order."

"Soon, the first victim appeared. The chief engineer disappeared; no one saw him leave, no one heard him open the door. He simply vanished, disappeared from his berth, and disappeared into thin air. But we knew he hadn't vanished; someone saw the chief engineer walk into the bridge in the middle of the night and take the key to the lower deck."

Tachibana Masamune trembled.

"When we went back to check the lower deck, we were stunned. The lower deck was filled with blood vessels and fleshy tissue with fascia. These things grew like mold along the ground, spreading from the center of the lower deck outwards, climbing up the walls, climbing up the ceiling, covering every inch of the surface. The flesh was bright red, like flesh just dug out of a body, and was still pulsating slightly. The liquid nitrogen pipeline had been cut, and liquid nitrogen was spilled all over the floor, evaporating in the high temperature, emitting white mist. And the embryo was gone."

"The chief engineer died. He went into the lower deck on the Embryo's orders, cut the liquid nitrogen pipe, and released it from the liquid nitrogen. Then the Embryo devoured him, grew from his flesh and blood, and became those fleshy things."

Tachibana Masamune closed his eyes.

"The embryo was supposed to develop into an ancient dragon, so why did it turn into a strange lump of flesh?" Genji asked.

Chapter 723 Tachibana Erii?

Tachibana Masamune slowly shook his head, his gaze fixed on the ground, as if staring at a nightmare from which he could never escape.

“Even today, I still can’t say for sure what it was. We sealed off the lower deck, welded the hatches shut, layer upon layer, using up three welding rods in total. But it was all for naught. A few days later, dark blue veins began to emerge from the bulkhead, spreading outwards from the lower deck. Those veins penetrated the steel and grew into the bulkhead; you couldn’t tell which was metal and which was flesh. The blood of the ancient dragon flowed throughout the entire ship, as if the ship itself had become a giant body, and we were all trapped inside, being digested bit by bit.”

"One by one, the crew members were contaminated by dragon blood. The toxicity of that stuff was too strong; no one could withstand it. First, they had nightmares, then they sleepwalked, and finally, their entire bodies changed—their pupils turned gold, scales grew on their skin, and they spoke in a language no one could understand. I kept eliminating those who had been completely turned into Deadpools and ordered the remaining crew to speed up. Only the family could help us deal with the embryos; we had to do everything we could to get into Tokyo port before we died."

"With only a hundred kilometers left, I knew it was too late. The embryo had developed considerable intelligence, and it wouldn't allow us to go ashore. It was going to kill us all at sea, leaving no one alive. That's when I made a decision—I took you, the young girl, and Erii onto the lifeboat. Before leaving, I activated the scull procedure, opening all the valves at the bottom of the ship, letting seawater flood the cabins, and the ship began to sink. Then I scuttled all the other lifeboats, leaving none behind. Not because I was cruel, but because I couldn't let anything escape from the Lenin—all the crew members were contaminated, and the lifeboats were covered in dragon blood. If they drifted to Tokyo Bay, washed ashore, and were picked up by someone, the consequences would be unimaginable."

“They killed even more people,” Genjiro said.

"Hmm," Tachibana Masamune sighed deeply. "That's how people are. Once they make the first mistake, they'll make more, using new mistakes to cover up the old ones. One mistake after another, until it becomes an unsolvable knot. It wasn't until then that I understood that dragon blood is something humans can't control. It's the most ferocious and violent creature in the world, and it must never be released from its cage. Anyone who tries to tame that thing for their own use will surely be punished."

He looked up at the ancient images of gods and demons on the dome of the mural hall.

"I wish my sins would end here, that everything would sink into the deep sea, sink forever, and never be retrieved. But I never imagined that people on the lifeboat would also be contaminated."

"Is it a young girl?" Genji asked in surprise.

“No,” Tachibana Masamune shook his head. “It’s Erii. It’s my daughter, Erii.”

Yuan Zhisheng was stunned. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it fiercely in his palm, the crumbs and tobacco falling through his fingers.

For a long time, he didn't know Erii's true identity. He only remembered the first time Tachibana Masamune brought Erii to see him—it was at a shrine, where a strong wind blew cherry blossoms down, the petals fluttering like pink snowflakes. Erii lay on the hospital bed, wearing a ventilator, her face devoid of color, like a fragile piece of porcelain.

Standing by the hospital bed, Tachibana Masamune said, "This is the only Uesugi family descendant we've found. Her bloodline has been recognized by the family heads, but she's not in good health and needs medical staff by her side at all times. Today just happens to be a day when she's not feeling well, so this is the only way we can meet."

Yuan Zhisheng walked to the bedside and looked down at the girl.

She appeared healthy and well-developed, of average height and with a slender figure, but her eyes held no light, like two bottomless pits. A bandage was wrapped around her neck, supposedly from when she had injured herself during her struggles. Yuan Zhisheng couldn't help but feel pity for her, and also a liking for her. He took out his newly bought NDS game console from his pocket and handed it to her as a gift for their first meeting.

Speaking of which, Erii started enjoying video games around that time. Genji couldn't even imagine how Erii managed during those years without game consoles. She was forever in the intensive care unit, forever smelling disinfectant, forever listening to the monotonous beeping of the heart monitor. Nurses came and went, doctors came and went, everyone would ask her, "Are you feeling any better today?", but no one truly treated her like an ordinary girl.

She was like a monster isolated from the world, trapped in a white cage, day after day, year after year.

From that moment on, Genji knew his feelings for Erii. It was the love of an older brother for his younger sister, the love of a protector, the love of wanting to give her the best of everything in the world. He had already lost a younger brother, and that empty place needed to be filled by a younger sister.

"Yes, Erii is my daughter," Tachibana Masamune said softly, revealing a secret he had kept hidden for so long. "I'm sorry for keeping it from you for so long."

"Her name should have been Tachibana Erii. But to conceal our blood relationship, I gave her the surname Uesugi. My bloodline ability is only average, so in theory, my daughter shouldn't possess a super bloodline. But you might think Erii's bloodline is even stronger than yours because she was infected by the blood of a dragon. But she's different from the crew members; her body can actually accept dragon blood, thus evolving and gaining the ultimate power word 'Judgment'."

"But her evolution is not perfect. To this day, the dragon blood continues to erode her body, relentlessly, like countless tiny worms crawling in her veins. She doesn't have much time left. This is the most painful mistake I've ever made; I've violated a taboo that humans cannot touch, and for it, I will lose my daughter."

A long silence.

Yuan Zhisheng almost wanted to end the conversation, find a secluded place to sit down, take a few breaths of fresh air, and slowly, bit by bit, force himself to accept this cruel reality. But he knew in his heart that once you know something, there's no going back.

Before tonight, he might have been able to abandon everything, escape to France, open a convenience store in some unknown small town, and live a leisurely life like an ordinary person. But after tonight, he will be enveloped by a heavy destiny, with no way to escape, only to face reality.

He took a deep breath and held it firmly in his lungs.

"What happened next?" He looked up at Tachibana Masamune. "Since we've come this far, let's finish the story in one go."

The sound was very soft and steady.

"Finish what you've said."

Chapter 724 "The Truth" - Tachibana Masamune's Oral Account (Part 1)

“I can’t let Erii die. She’s my last blood relative in the world. I know she could lose control at any moment and become a death servant, so I have to find a way to slow down the dragon blood’s corruption.”

"So I started studying the materials Herzog left behind. I had plastic surgery, changed my identity, infiltrated the Snake Clan, and joined the Execution Bureau. I captured those demons who had been injected with evolution drugs and tried to prolong their lives with various chemical agents. Herzog was a madman, but also a genius, and what he left behind was a great help. After countless experiments, I finally figured out some ways to suppress dragon blood. All the research materials are in your office drawer."

"You built that gene lab just for this?" Yuan Zhisheng asked.

“Yes,” Masamune Tachibana nodded. “That laboratory is a replica of Herzog’s old laboratory, except that its goal is not to promote evolution, but to stop it. I can extract a serum that inhibits evolution from the Deadpool fetus’s body, and only this serum can keep Erii alive.”

"Since you have this technology, why don't you use it on the girl?" Genji became agitated, his years of suppressed emotions finally bursting forth. "He's a demon, and Erii is a demon. Shouldn't methods that work on Erii also work on the girl? Now that we have the serum, why are we still killing people? Why has the girl become like this? Why are we chasing him until he has nowhere left to run?"

Tachibana Masamune remained silent for a long time. His face was expressionless, but the light in his eyes was gradually fading.

“There’s one last story,” he said softly. “After you hear it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t save the little girl.”

He took a deep breath.

"After joining the Execution Bureau, I realized that gaining the protection of the Snake Clan was not easy. This family had declined and was now under the jurisdiction of Kassel College, with each head of the family acting independently, a disorganized mess. I was unable to take care of you two brothers and Erii at the same time, so I had to send you to be fostered in the Kobe Mountains while I devoted all my energy to Herzog's research. I had received systematic drug training in the KGB, which gave me many advantages. My position in the Execution Bureau rose higher and higher, and the conditions for researching demons improved as well."

Yuan Zhisheng suddenly remembered something.

"Dad, you wouldn't be developing evolution drugs and distributing them to ghosts on purpose just for experiments, would you?"

“No,” Tachibana Masamune answered quickly and decisively, having been waiting for this question. “But someone is doing it.”

He straightened his body, and his gaze sharpened.

“When I first joined the Enforcement Bureau, there were only thirteen people in the bureau. We only hunted down the corrupted Dead Servants, and only monitored the ghosts that hadn't completely lost control. As for the ghosts that joined the Fierce Ghost Clan, we had to give up. Back then, we only needed to deal with a dozen or so Dead Servants a year. But gradually, we ran out of manpower, and the number of Dead Servants skyrocketed, first to a few dozen, and then it exceeded a hundred, and the degree of dragonification was also getting more and more serious. I realized that something was wrong. This couldn't be a natural increase; someone must be manipulating it behind the scenes. I dissected several Dead Servant corpses and finally analyzed a gene drug used to purify bloodlines.”

"Wasn't the Molotov cocktail invented by Ryuzo Koyama?" Genji still remembered that perverted doctor.

"The Molotov cocktail is just one of many variations. Of all these variations, the Molotov cocktail is far from the strongest. The strongest one is called 'Swan Blood'."

Tachibana Masamune lowered his voice, "And the formula for this drug is exactly the same as the information Herzog left behind. In other words, someone has the exact same information as me. I use this information to research inhibitors, while that person is using this information to create evolution drugs, and they are also extracted from the serum of Deadpool fetuses."

"I wasn't the only survivor of the massive explosion at Nameless Harbor. There was another person who also escaped."

Tachibana Masamune's voice grew softer and softer, almost as if he were talking to himself.

“I heard that a new leader has emerged in the Oni Clan, and that all the evolution drugs are made by the Oni Clan. I realized that another survivor might be hiding in the Oni Clan. I decided to risk assassinating him, so I infiltrated the Oni Clan’s Osaka headquarters.”

"Did you find that person?" Genji asked. "Who is he?"

“I don’t know,” Tachibana Masamune shook his head. “He was wearing a Noh mask and sitting quietly at the other end of the hall. I decided to strike first and threw my homemade incendiary bomb at him. It was filled with white phosphorus and napalm, which could generate temperatures of several thousand degrees, enough to melt even steel.”

"But that person walked out of the sea of ​​fire!"

"His entire body, even his Noh mask, was burned away, revealing his true form. Black bone spurs pierced his tough skin, most of his body was covered in scales, and his mouth was as huge as a snake's, with a forked tongue protruding from between his thorny teeth. He was a monster, a monster as powerful as a pure-blooded dragon. He was more terrifying than any Deadpool you've ever dealt with, and he still retained his sanity."

“Dragon blood erosion.” Yuan Zhisheng suddenly felt a little breathless.

"That's right, that outcast is a semi-evolved being corrupted by dragon blood. Like Erii, he's trapped in the cracks of evolution. He hasn't fallen into becoming a Deadpool yet, but that's only a matter of time. That explains why he's frantically creating evolution potions; only a perfect evolution potion can save him. He has nowhere else to go; the only way to live as a complete being is to evolve into a dragon."