Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

He turned around, took a chilled glass from the refrigerator, and with his slender fingers took the opened bottle of Yamazaki whisky from Fingel. He tilted the bottle to let the amber liquid slowly pour into the glass, then added an equal amount of water and stirred it twice with a bar spoon. The ice cubes clinked against each other in the glass, making a crisp, clear sound.

He placed this textbook-perfectly made water-cut whiskey next to Fingel's ramen bowl.

"Strong liquor hurts your stomach. Diluting it with some water will make you feel much better."

He then slowly sat down on the empty bar stool next to Caesar, toying with the silver cocktail spoon between his fingers, the light falling on the edge of his white shirt collar.

Lu Mingfei was so startled he almost jumped off the bar stool. This corner was tucked away in a dark area near the dance floor, with only a few emerald green LED lights shining obliquely from the ceiling as ambient lighting. The waiter had been sitting in the dim light since earlier, his features were exquisite, and his delicate eyebrows were tinged with a very light dark green by the light.

That face was clearly Genjiro's face. Genjiro himself, the head of the Snake Clan who controlled the entire Japanese underworld, was sitting in the corner of the bar in Takamagahara, idly twirling a cocktail spoon.

Caesar grabbed Lu Mingfei's shoulder and slowly pushed him back into his seat.

"It's alright. The more dashing one is the older brother, and the more effeminate one is the younger brother. Should I introduce them to each other? Or will you do it yourself?" he said to the waiter.

"Ruri Kazama. Real name: Genjiro. The 'Dragon King' of the Oni Clan, number two." The waiter gently placed the bar spoon on the bar, looked up, and revealed a face that looked exactly like Genjiro's under the emerald green light.

But his eyes were different from Genji's. Genji's eyes were calm and sharp, like an ancient sword sheathed in its sheath; Kazama Ruri's eyes were softer and colder, like a bottomless lake.

“Genjiro is my twin brother. Just call me Kazama Ruri. When I appear as a male escort, I’ll call myself Kazama Ruri.”

Chapter 839 The King Challenges Tachibana Masamune (Part 1)

The atmosphere at the bar instantly froze.

None of the three spoke. On the back of Chu Zihang's hand, the veins were faintly visible. It was an instinct honed through countless close-quarters combats. When the brain judged that there was a deadly threat around, blood would rush to the hand holding the knife at the first moment.

Caesar's hand slightly opened, sliding less than an inch towards his lower back, where a Desert Eagle with a full magazine was hidden.

The cocktail spoon spun silently between Kazama Ruri's slender fingers, transforming into a shimmering, ever-changing silver light that spun faster and faster until even the edges of the silver light began to blur.

The interests of the Demon Clan, the Academy, and Kazama Ruri himself have never overlapped. Even if every word he said at the Kabuki-za was true, there is still a rift between them that is devoid of any trust.

As Genjiro's twin brother, Kazama Ruri's bloodline is certainly no less than that of the emperor. The silver spoon twirling between his fingers could be a bartending tool, or a weapon faster and more deadly than the Desert Eagle. It could slice across Caesar's throat before he could draw his gun, then turn towards Chu Zihang's carotid artery, finally stopping directly in front of Lu Mingfei's pupils.

The silver key spun faster and faster, and Caesar and Chu Zihang's heartbeats pounded faster and faster in response.

Just as the silver light was about to shoot out from between Kazama Ruri's fingers, he suddenly flipped his wrist, his five fingers snapping shut, firmly gripping the spinning silver key in his palm.

The crisp sound of metal striking finger bones echoed in the quiet corner of the bar, before he gently placed the silver spoon on the table and pushed it back to its rightful place.

"Can I...can I continue eating?" Fingel asked, holding a bowl of miso soup with a strand of ramen still clinging to his lips. He looked at Caesar and then at Kazama Ruri, his voice trembling, but he never let go of his chopsticks from his left hand.

Caesar was stunned for several seconds, then became so angry that he wanted to overturn the table.

While both are teams, the Japanese teams, whether it's the Snake Clan or the Demon Clan, are all high-end, sophisticated, and classy.

The Snake Clan has an Execution Bureau and the Ganryu Research Institute, while the Demon Clan has the Dragon King and the King General. Both groups are ruthless characters who appear with their own background music and dark filters.

When it came to their side, they finally managed to get reinforcements, but it turned out to be that pig Fingel.

"Of course, would you like some soy sauce?" Kazama Ruri smiled and pushed the white porcelain soy sauce bottle in front of Fingel, her tone as friendly as a restaurant owner serving the last regular customer.

"Then... do you have garlic crisps?" Fingel carefully pushed aside the empty plate with only a few bits of shrimp tail batter on it along the edge of the table.

Caesar rested his head on his hand and remained silent, while Chu Zihang silently reached out and pushed the glass jar of garlic crisps, which was placed on the other side of the bar, toward Fingel.

A moment later, the sounds of someone slurping noodles and drinking soup echoed around again. Sure enough, fried garlic and soy sauce are the perfect pairing for tonkotsu ramen. As soon as these two things arrived, Finger's appetite was completely revived. He slurped down the noodles with gusto, making it seem as if the ramen was incredibly sweet and delicious to the bone.

Lu Mingfei involuntarily reached out towards a fried shrimp tempura, only to be slapped away by Caesar.

"Show some professionalism and listen carefully!" Caesar said in a low voice.

“It’s alright, let Mr. Heracles continue eating. We can get down to business now,” Kazama Ruri laughed, raising her hand to indicate to Caesar that he didn’t need to worry.

Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged a glance, and the veins that had been bulging on the backs of their hands subsided slightly.

In just a few minutes, Fingel accomplished two impossible feats: he devoured an entire bowl of ramen, soup and all, and with his starving appetite, he transformed a tense negotiating table into a late-night diner counter.

As the atmosphere relaxed, reason regained its advantage. Caesar withdrew his hand from his lower back, and Chu Zihang also loosened his clenched fist.

"The king of male escorts is working as a waiter in this shop? How many days has he been here?" Caesar stared into Kazama Ruri's eyes.

“I’ve been working in the kitchen for three days now. I’m a great actress; with just a simple change of hairstyle and makeup, I can transform myself into someone else. My acting skills have fooled everyone in this shop,” Kazama Ruri said. “Mr. Whale and the other staff didn’t recognize me at all. They probably never imagined that the Kabuki genius who was chased by cultural reporters all over Tokyo to write reviews would end up washing dishes in the kitchen of a host club in Shinjuku.”

"Spying on us?" Caesar asked.

"No, it's for easier communication with you. My brother knows I'm back, and he's looking everywhere for me, ready to send me back to hell. If I openly go out in the Shinjuku area with the face of a patriarch, wouldn't gang members bow to me? Those people both respect and fear this face. If they see me buying rice balls at a convenience store, the next day there will probably be reports of 'the patriarch of the family traveling incognito' all over the Tokyo underworld. Wouldn't that just cause him trouble?"

Kazama Ruri raised her chin at her reflection in the mirror on the wall, a smile that was somewhere between mockery and self-deprecation appearing on her face, which was exactly the same as Genji's.

"The fact that you were able to find Fingel means that the Ghost Clan had already noticed that the Principal had been infiltrating people into Japan, right?" Chu Zihang said.

“That’s right. We know that Principal Angers has sent several infiltrators to Japan over the past few years. The vast majority of them have no official records, do not enter the country as executive department specialists, but disguise themselves as tourists, exchange students, visiting scholars, and some even use false identities to squeeze into low-level clerical positions in the Japanese branch. But we still can’t determine exactly how many people he sent in. Only the principal himself knows the list of these people, and even Norma’s database does not keep a backup. The entire intelligence system of the Snake Clan has only recently captured the activities of a small number of them. Mr. Fingel is the least cautious of all of them.”

Kazama Ruri glanced at Fingel, who was soaking the third shrimp tempura in miso soup, his mind completely elsewhere from the conversation.

"I invited him to the shop tonight, partly to give him a good meal, and partly to take this opportunity to explain something to you all. Your school principal's vigilance towards the Snake-Headed Eight Families began much earlier than you anticipated. He has already sensed that something extremely unstable is brewing within the Snake-Headed Eight Families. It's not ordinary power struggles, but a deeper secret directly related to the White King's remains."

"Tachibana Masamune?" Caesar asked.

“We’ll soon uncover the truth.” Kazama Ruri glanced down at the extremely thin watch on her wrist. The dial had no brand logo, only a ring of very thin Roman numerals. “Two hours ago, the King left his hiding place. The venomous snake that has been hiding in the darkness for decades is finally about to emerge. Our chance to join forces, perhaps our only chance, has arrived.”

"The King has arranged a meeting with Tachibana Masamune?" Caesar broke the brief silence first. "They are clearly at loggerheads. One of them holds all the experimental subjects for the Oni Clan's evolution drugs, and the other is the former patriarch of the Snake Clan. Both of them have the blood on their hands. It would be more logical for them to meet in some abandoned factory and fight each other with knives."

"It's unbelievable. But it's definitely the result of eavesdropping on Wang Jiang's call. He was using an unencrypted civilian line, as if he was deliberately trying to leak the message. I intercepted all the content within seconds of him hanging up."

Ruri Kazama reached into the inner pocket of her gray vest, took out a black voice recorder, and pressed play. After a brief period of electromagnetic noise, a deep and aged voice slowly emerged. It was Wang Jiang. His voice was exactly the same as the smile on his noble mask—polite, yet carrying a chilling coldness.

He said, "Masamune-kun, we each hold several keys. These keys are useless individually; only together can they unlock the seal of God. Rather than waiting for God to wake up and devour us both, let's sit down and talk now. An inheritance, after all, can be divided."

A few seconds later, Tachibana Masamune's voice rang out, aged yet crisp: Time, place. The king chuckled softly: Tomorrow night, midnight, in a place devoid of sky and earth. See you there.

The recording ends here.

Fingel put down his chopsticks, and let out a loud burp, provoked by the tone that could give anyone goosebumps even through electromagnetic waves.

"Do you have Herzog's information?" Chu Zihang's reaction was different from everyone else present.

"The chief scientist of Black Swan Harbor, a madman who has studied dragon genes more deeply than anyone else in history. Originally from the Third Reich Academy of Sciences, he was captured by the Soviet Red Army when Berlin fell and directly stuffed into that nameless research base in the Arctic Circle of Siberia, where he was dedicated to studying ancient dragons and hybrids. He is one of only two survivors of Black Swan Harbor," said Kazama Ruri. "I just deciphered it from Wang Jiang's secret communications over the past few days. Wang Jiang himself is Herzog."

He paused, his slender fingers tracing a line across the bar, as if retracing back along an unseen timeline.

"This makes many things clear. Bondarev took Herzog's original research data, but the genetic technology was also perfectly preserved in Herzog's own brain. That's why the Oni Clan was able to independently create the evolution drug. It wasn't stolen from Bondarev, but developed from scratch. Herzog didn't need to steal anything; he derived those formulas himself."

"He's been corrupted by the blood of the ancient dragon. Chu Zihang and I saw it with our own eyes last night. He grabbed the rear bumper of the Lamborghini with his bare hands, charging forward despite the torque of the V12 engine reversing. He took a whole and a half magazines of blunt metal armor-piercing rounds from Lu Mingfei, and he still managed to get up and keep chasing the car. He's an unkillable monster. His regenerative abilities far surpass any known hybrid. He might even be approaching the threshold of dragon cocoon resurrection," Caesar said.

“Even the emperor might not be able to kill him,” Chu Zihang added.

Chapter 840 The King Challenges Tachibana Masamune (Part 2)

“I crammed the entire magazine into his body, every single bullet hitting his heart and neck. I can guarantee with my shooting grades at the academy that not a single shot missed. But he didn’t even fall. Later, I rammed him into a wall with the back of my Lamborghini, burying him in bricks. When he emerged from the rubble, he was still smiling, wearing that white shirt with a huge hole in it, his whole body shrouded in white smoke that the rain couldn’t pierce.”

Lu Mingfei recalled the scene he glimpsed in the rearview mirror that night: a face smiling at him in the pouring rain, its crimson lips curving into a dignified arc, just like a master of ceremonies seeing off an old friend.

"Tachibana Masamune has absolutely no chance against him. A king is indestructible, and when Tachibana Masamune was carried into the meeting hall last night, even his fingers were all cut off," Caesar said.

“But Tachibana Masamune still agreed. The king sent Tachibana Masamune the exact time and place of the meeting via text message, and Tachibana Masamune only replied with four words.” Kazama Ruri turned the phone screen towards the three of them.

"See you there." A line of text message that had been sent appeared on the screen.

"The king said that they each hold some keys, and only by collecting all the keys can the god be resurrected. What exactly are the keys?" Chu Zihang asked.

"This is the first time I've heard this. Within the Ghost Clan, the King has always only talked about 'the resurrection of God,' never mentioning 'the key' in front of anyone. His control over information is extremely precise; each level of officer is only allowed to know just enough for him to carry out his mission. I am the number two, but he has never mentioned the word 'key' to me."

Kazama Ruri said, "However, as long as we can fully eavesdrop on the entire process of the King's meeting with Tachibana Masamune, we can pry everything out of them. No matter what the key is, whether it is a person or an object, a genetic sequence or a coordinate code, the moment the two of them sit face to face at the same table, all the locks will be turned."

"Where did they agree to meet?" Caesar asked.

"One is the former head of the Snake Clan, who holds the legitimate resources of the entire Japanese underworld; the other is the supreme leader of the Demon Clan, who possesses an evolution drug that can turn an entire army into a legion of Dead Servants within a few days. Neither of them will risk stepping into the other's territory, so they must agree to meet at an absolutely neutral location that neither of them can control and that makes it impossible for either of them to have troops planted in advance."

Kazama Ruri placed the well-worn Tokyo guidebook on the bar, her fingers quickly flipping through a few pages before settling on a particular one: "A place without heaven or earth, the meeting place the king throws out is this riddle."

"A place without heaven or earth? That sounds like a riddle. Isn't that something you only see in detective novels?" Caesar frowned.

"It's a riddle, but the answer isn't hard to guess. Wang always likes to use riddles to filter out people he thinks are worthy of talking to him. He used to talk to me in the same way, never giving me the answer directly, but only throwing me clues and letting me figure it out myself. If you can't find it, then in his eyes you are not qualified and do not deserve to hear his next sentence."

Ruri Kazama stood up, walked around a few empty tables, and went to the closed French window on the side of the bar. She then pushed open the door.

The wind and rain, carrying the chill of the night, suddenly rushed in, causing the empty ramen bowls on the bar to tremble slightly. Fingel sneezed.

Beneath the dark, heavy clouds in the distance, a golden, conical spire soars straight towards the sky. A row of orange navigation lights on its surface flickers slowly in the downpour, illuminating its way from base to top before disappearing into the depths of the clouds.

The entire city of Tokyo was shrouded in the deep darkness of night, except for that iron tower that stubbornly shone, like a lone tree in a wasteland that was struck by lightning but was still burning silently.

“Tokyo Tower?” Caesar recognized the iron tower. He had looked at it the night before he arrived in Tokyo.

"Yes, Tokyo Tower. It was once the tallest building in Tokyo until it was overtaken by the newly built Tokyo Skytree a few months ago. The tower is 333 meters tall, with a special observation deck at 250 meters, a full 100 meters higher than the main observation deck accessible to ordinary tourists. The entire floor where the special observation deck is located is only accessible by one high-speed elevator, and there are no spare cables in the elevator shaft, nor any fire escape stairs for walking. As long as the power to that elevator is cut off, or the emergency stop switch is pressed directly in the control room, the special observation deck will be completely isolated from the outside world in an instant. It neither touches the ground nor the sky. It just hangs there all alone in the wind and rain at a height of 250 meters. If you speak there, no matter what you say, people on the ground cannot hear you, and neither can the gods in the sky."

Ruri Kazama stood at the doorway, half of his body leaning out into the rain. His long, usually loose hair fluttered wildly in the wind. His voice, cold and calm, carried through the wind and rain, “The King probably chose this place a long, long time ago as the stage for his reunion with his old friends. Tomorrow at midnight.”

"So Tokyo Tower isn't just a prime location for heartbroken couples to jump to their deaths, it's also a meeting room where two old men reminisce about the past and discuss the division of their inheritance," Fingel said, lifting his head from his bowl of noodles, letting out a burp that smelled strongly of garlic, and wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“I’m absolutely certain. People like Wang Jiang are born to stand on high places, looking down on the world like an emperor. He took me to a special observation deck. He had me listen to the sound of cables in a closed elevator, and then when the door opened, the whole of Tokyo was spread out at my feet. He smiled and said to me, ‘Child, look at this city. It’s like an old man lying on a deathbed, whimpering and waiting to die, covered with glowing tubes and neon needles. Those lights and shadows can’t hide its decaying, yellowed face at all.’ He said that this kind of city should be burned to the ground, and then we can build a brand new, magnificent, eternal capital from the ruins.”

As Kazama Ruri spoke, she turned around and gave him a smile.

The expression that appeared on that face, which was indistinguishable from Yuan Zhisheng's, sent shivers down Lu Mingfei's spine.

“He’s a madman rotten to the bone,” Caesar said.

"That's the kind of person Wang Jiang is. He says that the old will eventually be replaced by the new, and that's the only law in the world that has never changed. The Roman Emperor Nero did something similar. He got tired of the decaying city of Rome, so he set it on fire and then built a magnificent golden palace for himself on the charred ruins. Nero was nailed to the annals of history by the Senate for a thousand years, but his palace did indeed stand. So Wang Jiang doesn't think of himself as crazy; he believes he is an architect who has surpassed the aesthetic limits of all ordinary people in this era."

Ruri Kazama said, "So he would definitely choose Tokyo Tower as the meeting place. I am probably the only person in this broken world who has truly figured out his aesthetic creed. Of course, Tachibana Masamune answered 'See you there' in just two seconds on the phone, which shows that he also understands Wangsho very well, more thoroughly than any of us present expected."

"What do you want us to do? Go to the scene and eavesdrop on their reminiscing?" Chu Zihang asked.

“Of course it’s not just eavesdropping.” Kazama Ruri turned around and braced her hands on the edge of the bar.

The smile on his face now was not the gentle, waiter's smile he had given Fingel when he poured soy sauce, but a smile that was filled with irrepressible sweetness, as if he had finally glimpsed light at the end of a long period of darkness.

“I don’t care who wants to resurrect God, nor do I care how many people God will trample after his resurrection. From beginning to end, I have only one purpose in doing all this: I want to kill the King General. Tomorrow at midnight, at the top of that iron tower, I will personally rip his head, which is always wearing a smiling mask, off his body.”

There was an extremely strange mismatch between his tone of voice and the content of his words.

Lu Mingfei involuntarily shivered slightly. Few people could speak of their greatest obsession in this life with such contentment, as if they were looking forward to a weekend outing.

Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged a glance. Perhaps on this Japanese archipelago, which he called the "stage," everyone had their own role, and every role was that of a madman.

Ironically, the four of them were the most naive. They were outsiders who had stumbled into this drama by accident, but they had to make life-or-death decisions without even reading all the lines.

"The Academy will not intervene in the political struggles within the Japanese branch," Caesar said slowly. "Unless you can produce irrefutable evidence that Wang Jiang's actions have crossed the Academy's bottom line."

"What if I can produce it?" Kazama Ruri looked directly into Caesar's eyes. "If I can prove to you that Herzog is only one step away from resurrecting the God of War, and that appointment is tomorrow midnight, what will you do as the Academy's only legitimate representative in Tokyo?"