“Hybrid? Both my parents are human, have you seen too many Chinese traditional stories? Thinking we Chinese are all children of the dragons?” Lu Mingfei argued.
“No, they are all human, but they are both dragon hybrids, so your blood contains a very high percentage of the dragon lineage.” Professor Guderian and Yasushi Tomiyama looked at each other. “Anyway, you will know sooner or later that most people in this college are hybrids of dragons. Do you know how we determine the level? Level means the percentage of lineage! You are an ‘S’ because of your high purity of dragon blood!”
Lu Mingfei was foolish. At the moment Professor Guderian became an old dragon in his eye suddenly, who can spit deadly flame on his face at any time.
What is this place? A college of dragon hybrids? What’s the difference between this and the dragon’s nest? And a… A little rabbit in the dragon nest! High purity of dragon blood? Why has he suddenly considered a reptile while he should be a good mammal growing under the red flag? 1)
“But you don’t have more than 50 percent. Students more than 50 percent will won’t be accepted. Although they will be much stronger than mortal, their blood will change them to followers of dragon gradually.” Said Professor Guderian.
“You and dragons… are enemies?”
“The whole human race are enemies of dragons, not us,” Professor Guderian said with twinkling eyes. “this will be explained in detail in your ‘Dragon Lineage’ class. Now that you know about dragons, want to know more? Great! Each course will contain the knowledge of dragons. So why don’t we make the course table right now?”
“I don’t want to know more! Can I quit?” Lu Mingfei raised his hand.
Professor Guderian was obviously disappointed. “Well… Yes, but the agreement you just signed includes a memory purge. If you drop out, the memory has to be erased. You have peeped into the real world, don’t you think it’s a pity to quit?”
“Pity for what?” Said Lu Mingfei.
“Who doesn’t want to know the real world? The world is so vast that you can hardly imagine it. Compared with it, the world you knew before is as small as a grain of rice on a moor.” Yasushi Tomiyama said.
Lu Mingfei dazed. “No, I don’t. I never mind being a fat white rice bug.”
“It’s not just amnesia,” Professor Guderian said, patting Lu on the shoulder. “Think, your parents are both dragon hybrids, your aunt’s family doesn’t like you. You have nothing to do back to China, and you still need to attend the final exam next year… Can you imagine your life?”
The old guy hit the weakness of Lu Mingfei accurately. Compared with the great real world, for him, the pressure of re-reading and the big exam is real and scary.
He said with a depressed tone, “Well, I’ll try it in a couple of days… “
“Great!” Professor Guderian’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I was prepared for your plan! In the first semester, I suggest that you choose “Introduction to Dragon Family Pedigree”, “Magic Mechanical Design Level 1” and “Alchemy Chemistry Level 1” as your professional courses. Take “Ancient Norse” as your foreign language course and “Tai Ji” as your physical course. In this way, you will get 13 credits and no one can compare with you among freshmen. I want you to be the exact second ‘S’ student in forty years at Cassel!”
“Those many courses? Why do I have parents who don’t understand their son? Do they think they born a genius?” Lu Mingfei felt completely weak. “Well, don’t beat around either. What happens if I fail?”
“It’s just a retake. Cassel doesn’t quit students, as long as they don’t break the rules seriously.” Professor Guderian had a soothing voice. “Do you remember Fingel? He was in fourth grade for four years… Nobody told him to quit school.”
That’s not comfort. That’s a threat. Fingel, once A high-spirited “A” student, was tortured into a wretched tramp, while the “S” senior killed himself, maybe the logic here is high-level students will die quicker! Lu Mingfei thought.
“Well, I agree, I’ll sign it. One last question, why do you all speak Chinese?” Said Lu Mingfei.
“Very good question,” said Professor Guderian, nodding his head, “according to the conclusion of the Research Department, several high-level dragons’ resting place is in China, and they are about to wake up. Cassel College has made Chinese a required course since ten years ago because each of you will be responsible for killing them!”
“No wonder jobs are assigned after graduation… No one will accept your recruitment!” Said Lu Mingfei.
“But we are well paid! We even paid for your medical insurance!” Said Professor Guderian.
“Come on! You’re dragon slayers. How do you live without health insurance? This dangerous job? How much is the maximum paid? Fifty million dollars?”
“It’s free to fly your dead body back to China… “
“What?” Lu Mingfei stared and imagined a body covered with a white sheet being carried off the plane with a label on its head: “Lu Mingfei”.
Lu Mingfei was supported by Professor Guderian and Yasushi Tomiyama and stepped out of the office. On his left and right sides, people were patting on his shoulder forcefully, but his head was drooping like a limp chicken. A group of repairmen in costume carried toolboxes to past them, looks like they are going to repair the window with a large hole shot by the PPK.
Outside the medieval building are green lawns, crimson cobblestones and castle-like buildings, with pigeons rising and falling from the church in the distance. Standing in the sun, Lu Mingfei somehow recovered some vitality, at least it seems that he is still alive in the world.
“My parents…” Asked Lu Mingfei.
He felt he had to ask, what role does his parents played in this event, and what kind of parents will push their only child into the fire? Is he an adopted kid? He never thought about it years before.
The shrill sirens went across the campus suddenly like rushing ghosts. Lu Mingfei frozen. Professor Guderian and Yasushi Tomiyama’s serious face clearly showed the situation is bad.
“Ah? Was it an air raid?” Lu Ming looked left and right. “Are dragons attacking? Will dragons use airstrikes? Ah yes, they can fly!”
He then realized that he had accepted the Cassel College’s concept of “there are indeed dragons in the world”, and found a strange thing at the same time. The huge campus was empty, only him, Professor Guderian and Yasushi Tomiyama stood by the lawn. It doesn’t make sense even though the summer vacation isn’t finished.
“God I forget what day is today… Find cover! Damn they’re about to start!” Yasushi Tomiyama yelled, sweating.
“Go back to the office and hide!” Professor Guderian looked grave.
It was late. On the stairs of the small building behind them, a crowd of M4A1 gunmen in black uniforms appeared. The maintenance workers emerged from the office as if to stop them, but in a second, the woodworkers strong like Navy Seals were shot as they rushed out of the office.
Lu Mingfei thought that his medical insurance to send his body back to China would be available immediately.
Before the men pointed their guns at him, Yasushi Tomiyama dragged him and Professor Guderian to a narrow corridor. Ignoring all three targets, the black-clad intruders sped past through the narrow passageway as crimson men rushed out of the church. The extreme quiet campus suddenly became a battlefield. People rushed out of every building. They were divided by cloth’s colour, and each of them shot the opposite team fiercely. With the deafening sound of gunfire, Lu Mingfei almost thought he was in the North Africa battlefield in WW2.
He was completely speechless, staring at Professor Guderian.
“What does the president of the School Union want to do? What is his name again? He doesn’t want to lose credit, right!?!” Professor Guderian covered his ears and growled at Yasushi Tomiyama.
“Did he care? His GPA is not high!” Yasushi Tomiyama said, squatting nimbly. The whistling of the bullet passed over his head. Lu Mingfei thought it was a real bullet, and Yasushi Tomiyama would fall like the maintenance workers if he hesitated for another second. The rebellion of the Student Union? Is the Student Union here committed to fighting?
“His name is Caesar Gattuso!” Yasushi Tomiyama stood up and exclaimed angrily, “That playboy driven Buggati Veyron!”
He pulled the canon version of the PPK out of his arms and replaced it with another magazine clip like a dare-to-die soldier on the battlefield.
“I shall remember him! If he takes my class, I’ll teach him a lesson!” Shouted Professor Guderian.
As he said that, his life was over, and the bullet entered his body with tremendous kinetic energy, leaving a smoking hole in his scruffy suit and spilling blood. Professor Guderian took a hard look at the bullet hole in his body and pulled Lu Mingfei, “Your course table… Remember to fill it out!”
Professor Guderian fell down. Yasushi Tomiyama, who was shot in the back as he tried to jump to the rescue, seems pushed from behind. He rushed forward a few steps and never got up again.
“This…… Surely it is not joking?” Lu Mingfei said in his heart. In front of him, someone was really dead.
With his back against the wall, he felt myriad trajectories of bullets crisscrossing the outside. Those killing bullets glanced past him. The campus is now a slaughterhouse, and he’s still a freshman who hasn’t been assigned a dormitory yet. He doesn’t even know which side is the dragon and which side is the human. Lu Mingfei shuddered, feeling that his head was full of paste now. If he had been shot by a gun, it must not be his brains that come out.
“Positioning! Positioning! The other side still has 43 people left!”
“They have 27 men left! One sniper has failed to locate! He had already killed thirteen of us! Get rid of him!”
Both sides roared into the walkie-talkie and kept shooting. But the strange thing is that no one tried to rush into the narrow road where Lu Mingfei stood with only stray bullets constantly. Lu Mingfei stood rigidly beside the corpses of Professor Guderian and Yasushi Tomiyama, imagining himself as a wooden stick standing aloof from the world.
The carnage outside continued for an indefinite period, with smoke billowing from the campus and bodies strewn across the lawns and hallways. Both sides have used a variety of weapons, including grenades launchers and shoulder-fired rockets. Lu Mingfei has read many weapons magazines and knows these expensive guys. Flying bullets shattered a row of glass not far from him, shattering Lu’s illusion that it was just a drill.
Those weapons are all real!
His heart was racing at 180 beats a minute, and he was sweating with something called adrenaline. He may die every minute, but he’s fine… all the time… He was so tired that he squatted down on the ground and looked out with his chin under arms. The group of people dressed in black uniforms and the other red uniform group are the antithesis of each other obviously, they are trying to storm toward the headquarters of their opponent. The black team’s headquarter is just that building, while the red team’s headquarters is the church across the lawn. In the middle of the parking lot is the fire focus, because both sides have to go through the parking lot. There is no enough hidden object, and the whole area is completely exposed to the barrage, over 40 people had died there.
“That will only make sense if it’s a Zerg, they’re fast and mindless; but as humans shouldn’t you have covered the ground with tanks first? Or you could send a ghost to drop the nuclear bomb.” Lu Mingfei thought randomly.
Seemed the commander had understood the intention of StarCraft player Lu Mingfei. A red guy carrying a suitcase tried to rush through the parking lot. After dodged a few pieces of the barrage, a sniper rifle bullet knocked him to the ground from high up. Lu Mingfei saw it’s clearly a nuclear yellow mark on the suitcase.
Lu Mingfei’s face twitched. “I’m just kidding… Seriously? Not bad… I don’t think it would hurt to be killed by a nuclear bomb this close.”
This’s no way for him to understand this crazy battlefield.
The guns were becoming thin and the smoke was dispersing a little. A powerful voice came from all directions through some speakers, saying, “Caesar, how many men are still alive? Do you still want to continue?”
“Chu Zihang, nice job,” the answer of another side came out from the same speakers with a cold smile, “There’s only a girl left on my side. Wanna to use a girl to charge?”
“Chu Zihang?” Lu Mingfei stunned for a second, thinking this name is somehow familiar.
“I have only one girl left, either. But unfortunately, she is the sniper who makes your headache. If she locks up the parking lot, you can’t get in, but she can’t charge.”
“It’s not going to be a dead-end this year, is it? Isn’t that a pity?”
“Indeed, I still want to win your Bugatti Veyron.”
“Now I only have a hunting knife left. What about you?”
“Of course it’s the Murasame. It’s my command sword.”
“See you in the parking lot.”
“Great.”
The sound of the electric current from loudspeakers stopped abruptly, both sides cut off communication. The campus was as quiet as a dead city, filled with smoke like the morning fog. Lu Mingfei hid in the narrow road to look around, he felt that something bad is about to happen. He considered for a while and lying between the corpse of Yasushi Tomiyama and Professor Guardian. He looked at the old man’s face and felt a little sad that he had been kind to himself and had been killed for no reason.
“It’s all your fault, working in this strange college.” With a sigh, he lifted Professor Guderian’s arm over his back, making it appear that Professor Guderian was trying to cover him when they were shot down together.
The door of the church and the building opened at the same time, and the heavy combat boots took their first step almost at the same time.
The men in crimson uniforms carried a hunting knife about half a meter long with gold stripes; the man in black uniform carried a slender Japanese blade, its body reflecting sunlight and dazzling. Two people walked toward the parking lot, while tardy footsteps made the atmosphere tighter and tighter.
“What’s wrong with you? Melee?” Thought Lu Mingfei. “So you are charging with miniaturized nukes and interested in melee?”
The man in the crimson suit stood on one side of the parking lot and took off his mask. His golden hair streaming down to set off a sculptured Greek face with a pair of rare icy blue eyes. He tossed the hunting knife in the air and looked across at the man in the black suit. The other also took off his mask, revealing an untamed head of black hair, pointing in different directions as sharp as swords.
“You came up to me means you are stronger than I thought.” Said the young man with golden hair.
“It is an honour to have Caesar said so.” The dark-haired young man responded coldly.
“But that’s it.” In the instant that he uttered these words, Caesar shot out like a sharp arrow. Lu Mingfei felt an invisible air pressure in the distance following Caesar’s attack, making his heart tremble and he stopped breathing. At the moment of the attack, Caesar’s figure blurred, because of the incredible speed. He’s like an eagle blows over from the sky! The hunting knife and the arm holding it were not recognizable, that was because the faster speed made his knife almost invisible!
It was a knife to kill a man, strong and solemn, with the majesty of an emperor. In this way, even a piece of iron will be cut open in front of him.
But Chu Zihang opposite is not iron, the long blade in his hand is a piece of iron. The sword of Caesar was about to be struck, in an instant Chu Zihang’s sword was gone. With a flick of his wrist, the long sword struck with a sharp blow, striking with little force upon Caesar’s point of the knife. This is beyond speed and skills. The knife is a lever, the tip of the force will transfer the greatest strength to the knife holder’s wrist, and Chu Zihang chose the time before Caesar’s real move. It was Caesar’s weakest hour, and he made the interception!
Lu Mingfei could not see these details clearly but saw that Caesar rushed to Chu Zihang. Chu Zihang did not move but just flashed for a moment, while Caesar bumped against an air wall. He staggered slightly, leaned back, and then retreated a few steps.
The air pressure like the emperor of Caesar was blocked by Chu Zihang, Lu Mingfei suddenly felt that his breath was unobstructed.
Metal beeping, that was Chu Zihang’s blade shaking. There’s only one moment it touched Caesar’s hunting knife, but the force of it made the long tamahagane 2) blade vibrating like a brass spring. The force of Caesar’s knife is too great. Chu Zihang’s sword is shaking away the great force it has received.
Chu Zihang stepped back and took a look at his blade. “Compare to ‘Dictator’, ‘Murasame’ is still not enough tough for fighting.”
Silence came again for a moment and then the two pounced.
- Red flag, which’s simply Chinese’s national flag.
- Tamahagane, Japanese tradition material to make katana (Japanese Blade).
Dragon's Raja 