manynovel Chapter 25: The Descent of Myth
Chapter 25: The Descent of Myth
In the forward cabin of the Moniach, the sounds of wind and rain were blocked out by the thick steel plates, leaving only a depressing, deathly silence inside.
On the monitoring screen, the indicator light representing the diving team's connection status remained stubbornly dim. From the moment Chen Motong and Lu Mingfei stepped into that bronze hall, all signals vanished without a trace. Not only was communication cut off, but even Norma was unable to penetrate the invisible shield and establish any contact with the two.
Professor Mans stared intently at the unresponsive screen, each breath heavy and labored. Beside him, Cesare Gattuso's lips were pressed into a cold, straight line, his jawline so sharp it looked as if it had been carved with a knife.
"Nono! Lu Mingfei! Please respond if you hear me!" Mans kept shouting into the microphone, his voice sounding hollow and futile in the silent cabin.
No response.
"Damn it!" Mance slammed his fist on the control panel, his growl filled with suppressed anxiety.
"We must send someone down immediately." Caesar's voice was as cold as ice. "I can go alone, or I can draw from the reserve team. Their oxygen can last for at least an hour and a half. As long as the oxygen hasn't run out, they still have a chance to live. I've made all the necessary preparations for the dive."
Before he finished speaking, Chu Zihang, who was standing next to him, turned around without hesitation and strode toward the exit.
"Come back here!" Mance whirled around, shouting sharply. "The underwater situation is completely unknown. No one is allowed to act without authorization!"
"They need support!" Caesar stepped forward, a storm brewing in his azure eyes.
"Then load your weapons and provide them with cover fire, instead of sending you down to your deaths!" Mance met his gaze without flinching. "I know what your Word of Power is, 'Kamaitachi.' Water is a good conductor of sound, tell me, what did you hear?"
Caesar closed his eyes for a moment, checked again, then opened them, his face even more grim: "Noise... horrible, chaotic noise. I can't discern any useful information."
"The school's judgment may be wrong; the Dragon King might not be asleep at all." Mance's voice carried a heavy weight. "Diving in blindly now is suicidal! Everyone must stay at their posts! Our ultimate goal here is to kill the Dragon King, not to be buried with him!" He stared at Caesar. "You should understand the consequences of letting a dragon into the human world. Sealing everything about the dragon race in darkness is our mission!"
Caesar's fists clenched so tightly they cracked, and he stared intently at Mans until Chu Zihang's hand landed on his shoulder.
"Caesar, don't let anger control you."
"If it were Susie underwater right now," Caesar said through gritted teeth, "I don't think you'd be any calmer than I am."
Mans fell silent. He understood this feeling all too well. But the painful lesson from years ago, spent in the icy sea, haunted him like a ghost—he couldn't let more lives be lost for the sake of two people with slim chances of survival. He glanced at his watch, his voice hoarse as he made a concession: "If they're still alive, the oxygen will last for an hour and a half. After an hour, I'll allow you to go down and rescue them."
An hour is enough for many things to settle down, for better or for worse.
However, the moment he finished speaking—
Boom!!!
The ship began to rock violently without warning, as if being violently tossed about by a giant hand from the deep sea. On the control panel, Norma's urgent warning blared: "Severe underwater fluctuations detected, abnormal energy level, suspected high-intensity impact or localized earthquake!"
"What's happening down there?!" Mans grabbed the edge of the control panel as it shook.
Caesar had unleashed the full power of his Word of Power: Kamaitachi, and countless invisible "wind demons" burrowed underwater. But the only response was a deafening, boiling roar, completely drowning out any subtle sounds.
"I think... you should look outside." Ling's cool voice came from the porthole. She had been standing there, gazing at the river outside the window.
Everyone followed her gaze, and then they all seemed to freeze in place, their faces filled with disbelief and shock.
"My hair...!" At the same time, Fingel's almost hysterical shout rang out in the mission channel. This gossip king, far away at the academy, had obviously also somehow hacked into the live feed.
It wasn't just him.
Inside the principal's office, Angers stopped turning the folding knife between his fingers and stared at the screen with a solemn expression, along with the night watchman beside him.
Rome, Italy.
Riverside.
The McDonald's employee put down his Coke. The Zhou family's Nuwa Master opened her eyes. Bai Shanglu picked up the Dragon-Slaying Platform and slammed it down in front of him.
On the surface of the Three Gorges, a myth descends.
The vast river and the wind and rain seemed to be cleaved in two by an invisible, colossal sword that pierced the heavens and the earth! Under the influence of some incomprehensible force, the surging waves parted and solidified to the sides, forming two towering cliffs made entirely of water, revealing the damp riverbed and... the ruins of the now shattered Bronze City in between.
In the center of this grand passageway formed by "dividing the sea", a figure stands silently suspended.
His face was obscured, but he held a long sword in his hand, the blade radiating a pure and intense golden light, as if he were holding a sliver of condensed sunlight.
Higher up in the sky behind him, two blurry figures were slowly rising—the unconscious Chen Motong and Lu Mingfei, who was desperately "doggy-paddling" to try to get closer to her.
"Leave here."
A calm voice, seemingly ringing directly in everyone's mind, clearly descended upon the consciousness of every person on the Moniach.
The next moment, without the sword-wielding figure making any move, Chen Motong and Lu Mingfei in the air were as if carried by an invisible hand, flying back and landing steadily on the deck of the Moniah.
"He's not the enemy," Chu Zihang was the first to recover from the shock, his voice firm. "He shares the same goal as us."
"Your Excellency!" Mans rushed to the side of the ship and shouted at the figure standing on the edge of the sea, "Are you going to face the Dragon King alone? We have prepared special alchemical weapons to assist you!" As long as the goal is to slay the dragon, we are comrades-in-arms.
"That's useless." The voice resonated directly in my heart again, carrying an undeniable indifference. "Leave, the farther the better."
"Useless?" Mans felt a surge of frustration at being slighted. "You have no idea what we've prepared! It's the culmination of human wisdom and alchemy, enough to deliver a fatal blow to the Dragon King!"
no respond.
"Prepare to fire the alchemical weapon!" Mans decisively ordered.
At that very moment, Principal Angers' signature voice, steady yet with a metallic quality, urgently switched into the mission channel:
"Mans, immediately terminate the mission and evacuate all personnel! Repeat, evacuate the Bronze City waters immediately!"
"headmaster?!"
"We were wrong. We severely underestimated the Dragon King's power." Angers' voice was unusually tense. "That's not something you can handle. Leave immediately! That's an order!"
Professor Mans looked at the inhuman spectacle of the "Parting Sea" before him, then at the two students on the deck who had just been rescued and whose fates were unknown, and finally at the bottomless crevice in the river, at the ruins of the broken bronze city, where a terrifying pressure that sent shivers down one's spine could be faintly felt.
He took a deep breath, suppressing all his resentment and doubt, and roared hoarsely at the entire ship:
"Turn! Full speed ahead, evacuate! Get out of here!"
The engines of the Moniach roared deafeningly, leaving a frantic yet resolute white trail on the river surface where miracles and calamities intertwined, as it desperately headed towards a relatively safer stretch of water in the distance.
"Hmph, you ants!"
As if enraged by Mans' earlier declaration of "alchemy weapons," a cold snort rolled through everyone's hearts like muffled thunder, carrying pure disdain and kingly majesty.
Norton slowly rose from his throne.
As he moved, the already dilapidated ruins of the bronze city below suddenly "came to life"! Countless huge bronze components, fragments, and even entire walls and pillars seemed to be attracted by an invisible magnetic force, frantically merging, deforming, and recombining amidst deafening metallic roars and friction sounds!
In the blink of an eye, a colossal, suffocating dragon, entirely constructed of ancient bronze, lay prostrate on the riverbed, raising its heavy head and letting out a silent roar at the parted sky. The mottled rust and scars on its body seemed to tell of a thousand years of slumber and the fury that had awakened at this moment.
Norton's figure stood atop the bronze dragon's forehead, as if riding this moving metal mountain. Seven swords of different shapes, like loyal guards, hovered behind him, their blades pointing towards the Moniach.
He slowly raised his right hand, aimed it at the tiny ship that was fleeing, and suddenly clenched his five fingers in mid-air.
In an instant, the wind and rain above the Moniach seemed to be wiped away by a giant hand, and an eerie silence descended. In its place, a scorching torrent, almost visible to the naked eye, gathered wildly in the air—pure, extreme fire elements were surrendering, cheering, and coalescing!
Temperatures soared at an alarming rate, the deck began to scorch, and the metal railings became scalding hot.
"It is... Junyan!" Chu Zihang's golden eyes ignited instinctively, and his throat unconsciously followed the invisible, grand rhythm, reciting the ancient dragon script: "Come from the high places east of Babylon, burn into the sun..."
The next moment, everyone witnessed a sight they would never forget, a sight that would shatter their understanding of the world—
An unimaginably enormous crimson-gold fireball, like a real sun falling to earth, slowly took shape and expanded directly above the Moniach! Its size was even larger than the entire Moniach!
The sky was set ablaze.
The darkness was completely dispelled, and a blinding white and golden-red light dominated the field of vision. The river surface boiled violently under this terrifying light and heat, billowing steam rising into the sky, as if the entire world was about to be evaporated.
Caesar was no stranger to the Sovereign's Flame. Chu Zihang's "Sovereign's Flame" was already synonymous with destructive power. But the "sun" hanging overhead at this moment made Chu Zihang's flames seem as insignificant as a child's match. This was an absolute and unparalleled control over the element of fire, the ultimate manifestation of power and strength.
"Am I going to die...?"
Faced with this devastating power, any thought of resistance seemed laughable. Despair, like icy river water, seeped into everyone's very bones. Some collapsed, some closed their eyes, and some simply stared blankly at the descending "sun."
Chen Motong slowly awoke at this moment. The instant her consciousness returned, she was greeted by this apocalyptic scene.
"What a... magnificent farewell." She forced a smile, but didn't have the strength to do so.
His gaze unconsciously searched the chaotic deck, sweeping over faces that were either filled with fear or determination.
"What about the Book of Changes?" she asked, her voice a little hoarse. In these final moments, there were some things she suddenly wanted to say.
Susie, who was holding her, pursed her lips and whispered, "He's in the lower deck."
"What are you doing in the hold at a time like this?"
"Going to...the restroom." Susie's voice carried a hint of uncertainty and helplessness.
"Ha..." Chen Motong was genuinely amused, but the movement aggravated his wound, causing him to cough involuntarily. "I was almost skewered like a candied hawthorn underwater, and he was contemplating life in the bathroom?"
"He might... really not know what's happening outside. The earpiece is with me," Susie explained, still holding the earpiece Zhou Yi had given her.
"Never mind." Chen Motong closed his eyes and snuggled closer to Su Xi. "We're all going to die anyway. Honey, hold on tight. I don't want to walk the road to the underworld alone, it's too cold."
"Senior sister..." Lu Mingfei approached with a bruised and swollen face, his expression a complex mix of relief and despair.
"Shut up." Chen Motong didn't even lift his eyelids. "I don't want to hear a word from you right now."
Just then, Chu Zihang and Mans spoke up almost simultaneously:
Something's not right.
"The temperature is wrong."
Chu Zihang stared at the enormous fireball overhead that seemed capable of incinerating everything, his golden eyes burning intensely as he tried to analyze the energy flow within it: "Logically speaking, a fire elemental condensation of this size should radiate enough high temperatures to vaporize us, along with the entire ship, in an instant."
Mans also sensed something was wrong. He touched the railing, which was hot but far from melting: "We can all feel the heat, the water is boiling, but this temperature... isn't much beyond the limits of our physical endurance. This doesn't make sense."
Caesar frowned, his "Kamaitachi" flailing wildly around him, trying to detect the chaotic energy fluctuations: "It's not an illusion. The heat radiation is real, and the energy reaction is real. But it's like... something is filtering or 'diluting' most of the deadly heat."
"It must be that big shot! It's that big shot who parted the river with his sword protecting us!" Lu Mingfei jumped up suddenly, pointing to the figure standing in the distance, sword in hand, his silhouette still clearly visible even in the "sunlight," and shouted excitedly, "He didn't leave! He's been holding us off the whole time!"
This conjecture shook the atmosphere of despair on the deck.
All eyes turned to the figure standing on the dividing sea. Indeed, while the "sun" suspended in the air was terrifying, most of its destructive energy seemed to be confined within an invisible range, not actually pouring onto the Moniach. It was as if an invisible, absolute barrier was keeping destruction at bay.
Norton, standing atop the bronze dragon's head, clearly sensed the anomaly. A chilling rage flashed in his burning golden eyes, and the Seven Deadly Sins hovering behind him began to emit varying hums, like ferocious beasts eager to drink blood.
Above the Moniach, the destroyed "sun" hung high, and terrifying heat waves distorted the air.
Just as everyone was wavering between despair and hope, another unexpected event occurred—
Two blazing golden beams, as if falling from the heavens, trailed mysterious trajectories as they descended straight down from the higher sky!
It was not natural light, but two incredibly complex, enormous runes, seemingly cast from flowing gold. The runes were ancient and majestic, containing a power system that was different from, yet equally vast, from dragon runes.
One talisman radiated a bluish-green light, stirring the invisible currents between heaven and earth; the other rippled with a deep blue glow, echoing the vast river below.
These are the Central Divine Power Talismans: [Dragon Summoning Wind] and [Dragon Controlling Water].
The invisible barrier that had previously kept out the deadly heat capable of vaporizing steel was none other than [Dragon Summoning Wind]! It did not withstand the attack head-on, but rather used profound principles to guide, disperse, and resolve the violent fire element impact.
"roar--!!!"
"hold head high--!!!"
One after the other, two completely different yet equally soul-stirring dragon roars suddenly erupted! One was clear and stirring, piercing through the clouds; the other was deep and majestic, shaking the water veins.
In the stunned gaze of the entire crew of the Moniach, the myth came to life:
High in the sky, amidst rolling thick clouds, a dragon's head, covered in white jade-like scales and bearing a majestic long beard, burst forth from the clouds. Its eyes were like the sun and moon, and its body was surrounded by flowing blue winds and auspicious clouds.
In the vast river, the parted walls of water surged violently, and a giant dragon, its body entirely blue and its scales shimmering with the light of the water, raised its head. The waves under its jaws transformed into flowing necklaces, and the river waves were an extension of its power.
This is an Eastern dragon! It is completely different from the bronze, Western dragon-shaped creation beneath Norton. They are more ancient and mysterious, carrying the spiritual energy and majesty of ancient Chinese legends.
Two giant dragons, one white and one blue, with bodies as large as mountains, appeared and immediately coiled around it without hesitation, their target the suspended "sun"!
The white dragon rode the wind, drawing upon the pure energy of the heavens, transforming it into countless azure wind ribbons and cloud bands; the blue dragon rode the water, commanding the vast river below, causing towering water vapor and a chilling blue tide to rise. The interplay of wind and water was not a brute-force collision, but rather a process of mutual generation and restraint, layer by layer enveloping, permeating, and cooling the terrifying sphere composed purely of violent fire elements.
laugh--! ! !
A massive white mist shot into the sky, the product of the collision and annihilation of ultimate water and ultimate fire. The blazing white light dimmed and subsided at a visible speed, and the terrifying temperature dropped sharply.
In just a few breaths, the "sun," which was originally powerful enough to destroy everything, was firmly imprisoned, isolated, and neutralized by two suddenly appearing Eastern dragons in a mysterious way!
With the high temperatures completely blocked, the Moniach was surrounded only by warm, misty vapor, and there was no longer any danger of it being burned.
"Holy crap..." Lu Mingfei's mouth dropped open, and it took him a long time to utter two words before he was completely speechless. The scene before him had exceeded his meager imagination—first a Western dragon king and bronze Transformers, and now an Eastern dragon and golden talismans... Wasn't this worldview a bit too far-fetched?
On the deck, the survivors, having narrowly escaped death, stared at the feng shui twin dragons entwined around the "sun," lost in a bewildered awe. The joy of their rescue had barely begun to rise before it was replaced by a deeper sense of confusion and reverence.
Chen Motong leaned against Su Xi's chest, gazing up at the mythical standoff. The surrounding mist and the lingering golden light from the sky intertwined, reflecting a shimmering halo in her eyes. On her wrist, the dark red bracelet seemed to be slightly warm, its surface shimmering with a gentle, restrained luster under the glow of the mist and the afterglow of the talismans, as if subtly resonating with some distant power.
Meanwhile, on the riverbank, far from the center of the river.
Ronald McDonald withdrew his gaze from the center of the battlefield and fell silent for a rare moment. His usual nonchalant expression vanished, replaced by a deep seriousness, and he even began to have second thoughts.
He wasn't shocked by that power; after all, for dragons and hybrids, moving mountains and filling seas was no small feat, but it wasn't unimaginable either.
What shocked him was the grand scene of parting the seas and controlling the dragons to fight against the "sun." What truly terrified him was the mysterious swordsman's control over elemental power.
That was by no means the brutal drive of ordinary hybrids relying on their bloodline advantage, nor was it merely the power of the rules of words. It was a kind of "authority" that was closer to the essence, more harmonious and free, as if the elements of heaven and earth themselves moved in response to its will. This was a characteristic that could only be possessed by beings who had stepped into the Dragon King's domain and had mastered a certain set of rules to an extremely profound degree.
The question is, who is he?
Putting aside the unprecedented golden talismans...
Possessing such refined control over the elements, able to manipulate feng shui into an Eastern dragon, and unleash... going back five thousand years, the number of dragons and hybrids with this ability could be counted on two hands. And he knew perfectly well the fate of the one most recent and well-known to this era—
It had long since perished, willingly becoming a "living spirit" of some alchemical weapon.
Even more coincidentally, that alchemical weapon...
Ronald McDonald tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing through the rain and night like a hawk's, landing on the top of a skyscraper in the distance. His extraordinary eyesight, comparable to that of a dragon king, allowed him to see the scene there clearly.
Two figures stood silently at the edge of the rooftop.
One was a girl with a human body and a snake tail, her face as exquisite as ancient jade carvings, the scales on her snake tail gleaming under the neon lights of the city. She was gazing in the direction of the Three Gorges, her eyes empty and distant.
Beside her stood a tall, imposing man. He rested his hands on a simple, heavy, unsheathed sword with an ancient design. Even in its sheath, the sword exuded a somber aura that seemed to suppress mountains and rivers.
If I remember correctly, that's what the Duanlongtai (Dragon-Slaying Platform) is called.
Ronald McDonald's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, then relaxed, returning to his enigmatic expression.
Kassel College, Principal's Office.
The crystal chandelier casts a warm light, but it cannot dispel the chill emanating from the cold light of the screen.
Angers' folding knife stopped its unconscious spinning, the blade reflecting the corners of his tightly pursed lips. The Night Watchman held a half-empty glass of whiskey, but forgot to drink it, staring intently at the live feed—the "sun" entangled and suppressed by the twin dragons of Feng Shui, the figure wielding a sword to part the sea.
Silence spread between the two, broken only by the faint hum of the instruments.
After a long while, the Night's Watchman tilted his head back and took a large gulp of wine, exhaling a breath heavily reeking of alcohol, and muttered, "...This is going to be really funny."
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