Lu Mingfei, become the King of Elden!

Chapter 73 Great Rune

Lu Mingfei jolted awake, suddenly sitting up from the ground like a wind-up toy.

He looked around blankly, his eyes moving sluggishly, as if he had not yet recovered from his "wandering soul" state.

The courtyard, or rather, the place that was once a courtyard, now appeared unusually empty and deathly silent. Shirou Emiya's sturdy and reliable figure, and Subaru Natsuki's carefree shouts, had all vanished without a trace.

In the center, Grek's massive, bloated corpse had withered into an unrecognizable mass of rotting flesh. Only his grotesque head lay alone on the ground, its empty eye sockets facing upwards, its neck seemingly still twitching, causing the entire head to writhe and throb unwillingly like a maggot.

The divinity of the Golden Tree endowed them with a near-immortal nature, but when their power was stripped away, they could no longer maintain a complete body, soul, and will, and could only barely remain in an empty, "immortal" state.

"call……"

Lu Mingfei let out a long breath, as if to expel all the blood, fear and exhaustion that had accumulated in his chest during this period.

He subconsciously raised his hand to scratch the back of his head, but his fingers touched a mixture of blood and flesh that had somehow become stained with the substance.

Lu Mingfei shook his hand dismissively.

"A demigod cannot be killed, but his power is taken away...?"

"I understand the principle..."

He paused, tilted his head, and looked at the stubbornly writhing head with an absurd expression.

"But isn't this scene just too damn awful?"

A whiff of dust, burnt smells, and a strong stench of blood filled his nostrils, making him furrow his brow.

Everywhere you looked, there were only rubble, rotting bits of flesh from Grik's body, and pits melted by dragonfire.

The adrenaline secreted during the previous fierce battle completely subsided, replaced by exhaustion welling up from the depths of one's soul.

He wanted to find a clean place to lean against and catch his breath, but the only place that could be considered "clean" was probably the small area next to Grek's head, but that wriggling "neighbor" was really not interesting.

"Hold……"

Lu Mingfei muttered a curse under his breath.

He sighed resignedly, then forced himself to stand up and walked to Grik's enormous golden axe, which symbolized the authority to "extend limbs".

The axe handle was cold and heavy to the touch, its exquisite carvings stained with black and red blood. He struggled to drag this heavy trophy over, and after several attempts, he barely managed to store it in his makeshift "space." His ability seemed to become sluggish and difficult to use as his mind grew weary.

I'm so tired, so very tired. Not just physically, but mentally too.

To be honest, Lu Mingfei's mind was a complete mess. He had no idea what kind of strange state he had been in during that period.

At the beginning of the "special training", he was able to barely maintain his mental clarity.

But as he was repeatedly struck in the neck, his skull split open, and his heart pierced by those two simple, unadorned knight's swords; as he was repeatedly resurrected from the dizzying, descent into darkness of "death"...

The repeated extreme experiences were like the hammer in the Spring Festival Gala skit, constantly pounding on his fragile mental barrier with "eighty", "eighty".

Anyone would be driven to the brink of collapse in that situation!

In the end, he was almost entirely relying on his physical body to mechanically memorize the experiences gained from each battle. His humanity—the weaknesses, hesitations, and fears that belonged to "Lu Mingfei"—was forcibly suppressed to the deepest recesses of his soul. His personality also disintegrated and drifted away, like tattered pieces of paper carried by the wind.

This feeling was very similar to the "violent bloodlust" that Chu Zihang had once explained to him—the human side was forcibly suppressed, while the dragon side, filled with violence, bloodshed, and ruthlessness, was gradually released.

Theoretically speaking, this is undoubtedly "bloodlust".

However, Lu Mingfei did not feel the dragon spirit eroding his will. More precisely, it was as if another... completely different, blank "personality" had been briefly released, but that area was empty, with no trace of this person?
Lacking experience and on the verge of personal collapse, Lu Mingfei was almost completely chaotic and disorganized. Fortunately, his meager consciousness seemed to still be barely holding on. "Never mind..." he thought wearily, his eyelids so heavy they felt like they were glued together, "I'll ask my senior brother next time I see him..."

Now comes the exciting moment—collecting his spoils, his first large rune.

He could clearly feel that deep in his chest cavity, the fragment of the ring belonging to "Limb Extension" Grek was slowly rotating.

But it's more like a red-hot branding iron, forcibly embedded next to the heart, bringing no increase in strength, but instead a faint burning pain and a sense of rejection.

"what happened?"

Lu Mingfei frowned and tried to mobilize his primal power to stimulate the large rune.

This nascent power was not yet tamed, like a caged beast forcibly stuffed into a cage, fiercely clashing and tearing at the already restless dragon blood within him and the storm power he had not yet fully comprehended!
"vomit……"

A strong feeling of nausea rushed up my throat without warning.

Lu Mingfei suddenly bent over and gagged a few times, but nothing came out; only cold sweat seeped from his forehead.

wrong.

wrong.

There's something missing. Like the key to unlock a treasure trove, or the authority to wield power...

"Is it possible that only members of the Golden Family can drive this thing?"

Lu Mingfei muttered to himself:
"That doesn't make sense... How did Shirou and the others use it?"

Undeterred, he tried several more methods to communicate with and guide that power, but all of them failed. The worst time, the chaotic and disordered energy surge directly backfired, violently rejecting his will and nearly tearing him apart from the inside out.

"We can't exactly use... Dragon Feast, can we?"

This absurd, darkly humorous idea popped into my head uncontrollably.

He glanced instinctively at the still-wriggling head of Grik beside him.

If... if the bodies and powers of demigods could be "fed" and digested like dragons... wouldn't that allow us to bypass this damn "permission" problem?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Exhaustion and a deep sense of frustration almost overwhelmed him completely.

Open.

Just when he had completely given up, preparing to sit there slumped over until the end of time, waiting to message his good buddies again later—

An indescribable sense of tranquility quietly descended.

Lu Mingfei jolted awake, his lingering drowsiness instantly dispelled. He abruptly raised his head, looking in the direction from which the aura was coming from.

Not far behind him, golden specks of light fell from the open ground. They weren't dazzling; they had a warm quality and gently dispelled the surrounding filth.

The light condensed and took shape.

Melina's figure seemed to have stepped out of a painting, standing there quietly.

Her hood hung low, obscuring most of her face, but Lu Mingfei could clearly sense that she was gazing intently at him with a complex expression.

(End of this chapter)