Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

Chapter 109 The Final Charge and the Return (Seeking Monthly Tickets!)

"What the hell is that?!" A new recruit, whose face still bore the innocence of a teenager, couldn't help but exclaim in surprise even while inside Lu Mingfei's domain.

His pupils dilated with extreme horror as he stared intently at the two steel behemoths spewing black smoke.

"Don't panic!" Lu Mingfei shouted sternly, while expanding his own domain, causing the adrenaline of the surrounding soldiers to surge again.

"Machine guns! Concentrate fire on its observation ports and tracks! Otto! Take men to the flank and look for opportunities to use grenades!"

The order was issued quickly, but its execution was fraught with difficulties.

The British infantry clearly organized their attacks around tanks, following closely behind or to the flanks of the tanks and using these steel behemoths as mobile cover as they steadily advanced.

The machine guns on the tanks also began to spew fire, bullets hitting the edge of the trenches, splashing up streams of mud and gravel, pressing down on the defenders so that they could barely lift their heads.

There were two tanks in front, and they were two different models, one female and one male. The female tank was equipped with six heavy machine guns, while the male tank was equipped with two 57mm cannons and four heavy machine guns.

The two tanks were incredibly powerful, and with the British troops following behind, virtually no one could get close to them.

Lu Mingfei's Wraith Gun roared incessantly, the .460 caliber bullets striking the tank's tilted armor with clanging sounds, but only leaving shallow white marks, unable to penetrate at all.

His domain was fully activated, adrenaline surged through the soldiers' veins, forcibly dispelling their fear of facing the unknown monster, but it only allowed them to barely fight back under the suppression of firepower, slowing down the tanks' advance.

The dogfight in the sky had reached a fever pitch. Caesar's red Fokker, like a hunting eagle, locked onto a BE2 fighter, and after several close calls with tail-biting shots, finally broke off one of its wings.

The plane spiraled down, billowing black smoke, but almost simultaneously, another British fighter plane swooped down from the clouds, heading straight for Caesar.

Caesar jerked the control stick, and the Fokker fighter swerved sharply upwards at a near-stall angle, avoiding the deadly sneak attack. With a daring half-roll, it caught up with the attacker's tail and shot it down.

With a heavy breath, Caesar glanced at the ground and saw two tanks embedded like wedges in the Prussian defenses, making Lu Mingfei's position extremely precarious.

"Damn it—" Caesar gritted his teeth. He knew the ground troops needed support. He slammed the control stick, and the fighter jet swooped down toward the two tanks, its two machine guns firing furiously at the infantry ranks behind them.

Bullets plowed through the ground like the Grim Reaper's scythe, sweeping down a string of British soldiers and temporarily disrupting their rhythm.

But this was undoubtedly an extremely dangerous move. The ground firepower around the tank was exceptionally dense, and a burst of anti-aircraft machine gun bullets grazed Caesar's wing, leaving several horrifying bullet holes.

Lu Mingfei saw the red fighter jet swooping down and his heart clenched. He understood that Caesar was risking his life to buy them a chance.

However, none of their weapons could penetrate the tank's armor. If they were to use cluster grenades at close range, it would undoubtedly be a matter of throwing lives away.

"Lieutenant Hans! The battalion has given orders! Under no circumstances should the British be allowed to break through here!" At that moment, a messenger rode up to Lu Mingfei and his men and shouted.

Looking at the horse, Lu Mingfei came up with a plan, but before putting it into action, he shouted to Otto on the other side, "Otto! From now on, you are the acting company commander! Command the upcoming battle!"

Lu Mingfei's shout startled Otto. Acting company commander? This meant—

Before Otto could react, Lu Mingfei had already shot towards the messenger who had just delivered the order and was about to turn around and leave.

"Get down!" Lu Mingfei roared, almost using brute force to pull the astonished messenger off the saddle, then climbed back on himself, taking the rifle with its bayonet fixed from the messenger's body.

"Company Commander! What are you doing?!" Karl saw through Lu Mingfei's intentions and said in a panic.

"Otto! Karl! I believe in you! Just as you believe in me! I believe you can lead the others to survive!" Lu Mingfei shouted, throwing the watch that Hermann had passed down to him towards Otto. This sturdy watch was like a spiritual legacy.

He then spurred the horse's belly and slammed the butt of his rifle hard against its rump.

The warhorse, in pain, let out a neigh and charged forward at the two rampaging steel behemoths, braving a hail of bullets in a near-suicidal attack!

"Cover the company commander!!!" Otto instantly understood what Lu Ming was trying to do, his eyes reddening as he roared hoarsely.

He picked up a light machine gun and fired wildly at the tanks and the British infantry behind them, trying to draw fire for Lu Mingfei, even if only slightly.

Karl and the other soldiers were also enraged, disregarding their own safety and firing desperately to suppress the enemy on both sides.

Lu Mingfei crouched low, pressed close to the horse's neck, and pushed his speed to the limit. Bullets whizzed past him, hitting the mud and kicking up dust, while others struck the horse, leaving trails of blood. The warhorse neighed in pain, but continued to gallop wildly.

At this moment, Lu Mingfei had withdrawn all of his domain and poured it into the warhorse beneath him. The warhorse's adrenaline surged to its limit, and its speed was unbelievably fast.

Caesar, watching from the sky, nearly stopped in his tracks when he witnessed this.

"Lu Mingfei! You're fucking insane!!" he roared in the cockpit, but he was powerless. He was being entangled by two newly arrived British fighter planes and could hardly protect himself.

Lu Mingfei's target was the Xiong Tank equipped with a 57mm cannon, which had stronger firepower and posed a greater threat.

The golden pupils in his eyes burned to their fullest extent, as dazzling as the midday sun!

The Word of Power, Ghostly Victory, erupted without reservation, instantly filling every part of his body with immense power. His muscle fibers swelled with groans, his bones made subtle popping sounds, and his blood vessels bulged under his skin like writhing dragons.

All pain was completely blocked, all distracting thoughts were burned away, leaving only the purest, most primal will to destroy and one crystal-clear thought in the mind—that was—

Pierce it!!!

The warhorse's muscles bulged under the extreme exertion, each breath like a bellows, blood foam spurting from its mouth and nose, but its speed increased to an unbelievable level. It charged almost straight at the male tank, heading straight into the machine gun barrage sprayed by the female tank.

This was beyond the expectations of all the British soldiers. They had seen people who were not afraid of death, but they had never seen anyone so resolute as to seem to be embracing death willingly.

The female tank's machine gunner fired frantically, bullets whizzing past Lu Mingfei's ears, piercing his uniform and leaving hot, bloody marks.

Blood gushed from the warhorse's neck and side, but it continued its charge, using its last strength to deliver Lu Mingfei to the front of the tank.

Holding the bayoneted rifle, Lu Mingfei was like a modern-day Don Quixote, or a warrior charging at a dragon, concentrating all his strength on the tip of the gun.

Time seemed to slow down at that moment.

He could see the rough rivets on the armor plating of the tank, the trajectory of the rotating muzzle of a machine gun on the side, and the sound of bullets whistling through the air as they came after him.

He poured all his spirit, all his will, all his complex emotions toward this battlefield, his weariness and resistance to this endless war into this desperate strike!

With the support of Gui Sheng and the warhorse beneath him, Lu Mingfei's thrust had surpassed the limits of human power!

The bayonet was not aimed at the thick frontal armor, but rather precisely at a relatively weak spot with an observation gap, and stabbed in hard.

Inside the observation window, the British tank driver, his face covered in oil, was nervously operating the rudder when a bloody hole suddenly appeared between his eyebrows before he could even fully show his astonishment.

At the same time, the tank suddenly shuddered, and a strange, loud noise, as if internal gears were jammed or connecting rods were broken, erupted from inside the tank. The turret's rotation instantly became stuck, and the gun muzzle, which was about to turn towards Lu Mingfei, stopped crookedly in mid-air. One of the tracks also seemed to lose power and began to spin and slip irregularly. The vehicle body began to rotate and tilt uncontrollably in place, like a drunken steel giant.

It immediately lost most of its mobility and attack capabilities. This early tank had a complex structure, poor precision, and was very prone to malfunctions.

Almost simultaneously with delivering this earth-shattering blow, Lu Mingfei's body crashed heavily next to the tank, splashing up a cloud of mud.

The machine gun bullets from the female tank swept through the spot where he had just been, tearing the dying warhorse to shreds.

Lu Mingfei lay in the cold mud, panting heavily, but it wasn't over yet. He suddenly rolled over and stood up again. The effects of the Ghostly Victory were still going on, making him fearless of any pain.

He drew his entrenching tool from his waist and wielded it like a god or demon. In just a few breaths, no British soldiers could stand around the tank.

With his entrenching tool, stained with fresh blood and brain matter, pointing diagonally at the ground, Lu Mingfei slowly turned around. His gaze pierced through the gradually spreading battlefield dust and locked firmly on the female tank that was still unleashing its firepower not far away.

Without pausing or even adjusting his breathing, he slightly bent his knees, and his mud- and blood-stained military boots stomped hard on the ground, creating a shallow pit in the mud beneath his feet.

He was like a ferocious beast that had broken free of its last shackles. Dragging his wounded but murderous body, he held the blood-dripping entrenching tool and launched a second death charge towards the second steel behemoth!

"Caesar Gattuso—I never expected the heir of the Gattuso family to appear on this battlefield." Henkel muttered to himself, looking through his binoculars at the red Fokker fighters that were shooting down British planes.

He recognized Caesar when he read the newspaper before, after all, he was the heir of the Gattuso family, and he didn't remember any war hero flying red planes over the Somme River. It was only possible that he was a time traveler like him.

He originally intended to go back to rest after presiding over a meeting of North American mixed-race families, but in the blink of an eye, he found himself on the battlefield of World War I.

He was different from the other hybrids who came to World War I. He was a genuine old monster who had lived from this era all the way to the 21st century. He had seen all kinds of storms and even knew a lot of the world's most secret things, but he had never seen a scene like this before.

He instantly realized the greatness of this power, which had long surpassed the known power of the dragon race, and even surpassed those forbidden alchemy techniques buried in the dust of history.

This is true divine power.

But he didn't know whether this was real history or a parallel world that could be arbitrarily altered.

Henkel initially tried every possible method he could think of to contact the mixed-race families he knew in this era, and even tried to find himself in this era, but all his efforts were in vain.

Moreover, he was bound to the battlefield and had no way to go anywhere else.

However, he did not come away empty-handed. In a small skirmish, he killed a Japanese-Japanese mixed-race man from the future. As the man breathed his last, Han Gao clearly felt a surge of life force flowing into his aging body.

At the same time, fragmented images and scattered pieces of memory forced their way into his mind, and he learned some secrets about the mixed-race organization, the Snake Clan, far away in Japan.

plunder!

The word instantly entered Hango's consciousness. Killing other hybrids thrown into this battlefield would not only plunder their life force but also directly obtain their memories and secrets.

The wonderful feeling of his body regaining vitality after being infused with life force, and the informational value brought by the fragments of memory, made his long-dormant heart, belonging to the predator, beat powerfully once again.

Aging is a fate that even top-tier hybrids cannot completely resist; their power slowly declines with the passage of time. But here, it seems there is another path—

"The Gattuso family heir is a good target—this kid must have a lot of secrets that the Gattuso family has been desperately trying to cover up over the years—those unknown experiments—"

In the original world, even he would have to be wary of the Gattuso family, this lion that dominated Europe, and would never dare to easily make a move against its heir.

But the rules are different here. There are no family ties, no endless pursuit afterward, only the most primal law of the jungle and the coveted spoils.

"It's a pity he flew too high—I'll deal with him next time—" Han Gao clicked his tongue in regret.

Finally, his self-image was fixed on the figure of a god of war who, like a madman, leaped up from beside the paralyzed male tank, covered in blood, holding a blood-dripping entrenching tool, and charged fiercely towards the second female tank.

"Since there's no way to kill him now, I'll just have to kill you—what secrets are you hiding in your head now—" Han Gao raised a rifle with a scope and began aiming at Lu Mingfei, who was running towards the female tank.

At the same time, his golden eyes lit up.

The Word of Power: Holy Judgment does not enhance the power or speed of the bullet, but rather greatly increases the inevitability of the hit, like a judgment from heaven, difficult to avoid and difficult to escape.

On the distant battlefield, Lu Mingfei was covered in blood, his eyes burning with the last golden flames. Gui Sheng's power was like firewood about to burn out, but it still gave him a crazy fighting spirit and superhuman strength, ignoring the excruciating pain.

But his body was on the verge of collapse, and every time he swung his entrenching tool to kill the British soldiers blocking his way, he was rapidly depleting his remaining life force.

The female tank seemed to sense the threat posed by this man who looked like he had crawled out of hell. The vehicle spun clumsily, and a deathly net of fire from its six machine guns swept toward Lu Mingfei like blooming steel flowers!

Lu Mingfei could even see the trajectory of the dense bullets, but he did not dodge. He just roared and pushed Ghost Victory to its limit, lowering his body and charging into the barrage in the most savage and direct way.

Bullets grazed his scalp, shoulders, and ribs, tearing his uniform and taking away flesh, but he miraculously made his way through the densest first wave of fire, getting closer and closer to the female tank! Thirty meters! Twenty meters!

Inside the trench, Otto and his men watched with frantic intensity, using all their firepower to try and suppress the British infantry near the tanks, creating a final space for Lu Mingfei to advance.

Caesar, who had just escaped his pursuers, felt his heart leap out of his throat upon seeing this scene.

"Lu Mingfei!!" He slammed the control stick, desperately trying to dive down, even if it would only be enough to disrupt that damned tank with his machine gun.

Lu Mingfei had already rushed to the female tank. He didn't use any tools; he simply crashed into the female tank like a human cannonball. The huge impact made the 27-ton steel monster sway.

Using the recoil, Lu Mingfei landed and then jumped onto the female tank, unleashing his last bit of strength to pry open the top hatch of the tank like opening a can.

The scene inside the tank was exposed to Lu Mingfei's burning golden eyes. In the narrow, stuffy, and oil-smelling cockpit, there were eight British crew members: the commander, the machine gunner, and the driver. They were looking in horror at the Prussian officer who had suddenly appeared above them like a demon, covered in blood and with golden eyes.

"My God!" The train conductor instinctively reached for his pistol at his waist.

But Lu Mingfei was faster; he began to swing his entrenching tool in the cramped space.

Right now, Henkel pulled the trigger. Under the absolute lock of the Holy Judgment, the bullet traveled hundreds of meters, ignoring the smoke and air currents on the battlefield, as well as Lu Mingfei's instinctive dodge.

The bullet, as if guided by an invisible hand, struck Lu Mingfei precisely in the back of the heart.

Just before the bullet struck his body, Lu Mingfei's golden eyes suddenly contracted to their limit. His beastly instincts, honed from years of struggling on the edge of life and death, made him realize the fatal blow.

But he was powerless to evade it effectively. The superhuman reflexes granted by Gui Sheng allowed him to forcefully twist his waist at the last moment, trying to avoid the fatal blow from an unknown direction.

The bullet didn't hit him directly in the back of the heart, but instead pierced deep below his right scapula, instantly creating a horrific bloody hole. The immense kinetic energy propelled him forward, causing him to stagger and fall, blood gushing out like a fountain.

Lu Mingfei groaned, and darkness instantly enveloped most of his vision. The effects of the Ghostly Victory began to fade, and he felt his strength rapidly receding like the tide. He fell backward, landing among the poppy petals.

"No!!!" Otto and Karl roared in despair.

Caesar's red Fokker, like a burning meteor, plunged down recklessly, but it was all too late.

Lu Mingfei could feel the warm blood rapidly seeping into the soil beneath him, taking away his body heat. The excruciating pain in his right shoulder and the feeling of weakness throughout his body overwhelmed him like a tide. The sounds of gunfire and shouts around him became blurred and distant.

Many images flashed before his eyes: Otto's kind smile, Karl's trembling hand as he lit his cigarette, Caesar's red eagle soaring in the sky, Hermann handing him the watch, the flag fluttering atop Doumont Castle, the continuous artillery fire on Dead Man's Hill, the vibrant poppies along the Somme River—

In the end—I still couldn't—take you home—

A vague thought slipped through my mind.

Just then, he heard a mechanical voice in his ear.

[Mission complete, returning to normal]

Lu Mingfei had just swung his entrenching tool and cracked the tank commander's skull open; the tool was embedded in his skull, and he died a second earlier than Lu Mingfei.

With the last vestiges of his consciousness, Lu Mingfei managed to lift his head and look up at the sky, towards the direction of the red fighter jet that was recklessly swooping down—

His body, on that scorched earth covered with blood, engine oil, mud, and broken petals, suddenly became transparent, like a dewdrop under the blazing sun, evaporating in an instant and disappearing without a trace.

Only where he finally fell was a pool of dark red blood that was quickly absorbed by the soil, and a few blood-stained poppy petals that were swept up by the shockwave and slowly drifted down.

Otto stared blankly at the empty space, the watch that Lu Mingfei had thrown to him still ticking away.

Karl's legs went weak, and he knelt on the ground, his mouth open but unable to make a sound.

The other soldiers were like puppets whose souls had been instantly ripped out, frozen in place, staring blankly in the direction where their company commander had disappeared.

Only in the sky, Caesar's fighter jet roared past at low altitude, and he saw the last scene of Lu Mingfei's disappearance, as well as the empty space where only bloodstains remained.

No body! Nothing! He just vanished—gone!

He didn't know if Lu Mingfei was dead or had returned to his original world. What was the point of him staying here? To avenge Lu Mingfei? Against whom? The mysterious sniper? The war itself?

Countless thoughts clashed wildly in Caesar's mind.

"Lieutenant Caesar! Enemy aircraft! Three o'clock!" The wingman's panicked cry pulled Caesar back to reality through the weasel.

He jerked the control stick, and the fighter jet narrowly avoided a hail of machine gun fire. Through the porthole, he took one last look down.

Otto and his men stood frozen like statues. The defensive line suffered a fatal shake and a gap due to the sudden disappearance of their backbone. The British infantry, urged by their officers, were regrouping and attempting to launch a new offensive to capture the position.

Now that Lu Mingfei has left, it's time for him to leave too. But before he goes, let him protect Otto and the others one last time.

Like a vengeful eagle, the red Fokker fighter swooped down again, unleashing its remaining ammunition on the British infantry who were trying to seize the position while the defenders were distracted.

The hail of bullets plowed through the ground, instantly felling a large number of soldiers and temporarily halting the British advance.

Dive, strafing, pull up, and look for another opportunity—Caesar piloted his battered fighter plane, repeatedly weaving through the low sky, doing everything he could to buy precious respite and time for regrouping for his brothers on the ground, who were plunged into immense grief and chaos.

A burst of bullets was deliberately fired at the open ground in front of Otto's trench, the splashing dirt hitting the sandbags with a thud.

The sudden warning jolted Otto awake from his dazed state, as if his soul had left his body. He looked up and, through the billowing smoke, saw the red fighter jet stubbornly circling and strafing the enemy in the sky.

As the fighter jet swept low overhead once more, he vaguely saw the pilot's blurry yet incredibly resolute profile in the cockpit, and those icy blue eyes that seemed to be watching him through the distance and goggles.

It's Lieutenant Caesar—he's still fighting—he's buying us time—

The company commander is gone, but the orders he left behind remain; he trusts they can stay with him.

"Karl! It's not over yet! Keep fighting!" Otto roared hoarsely.

Karl shuddered, looked up at Otto, and saw the deep sorrow in the latter's eyes, and above that sorrow, a raging fire. He nodded vigorously and grabbed the rifle beside him.

The other soldiers, under the veterans' reprimands and the cover of fighter jets overhead, quickly struggled out of the massive attack. Grief couldn't feed them, much less stop bullets. If they wanted to stay and not let down their company commander's sacrifice, they had to keep fighting.

The defensive line began to operate again, machine guns roared once more, and rifle fire became dense again. Although they had lost Lu Mingfei's reassuring leadership, the instincts honed by two experienced veterans in blood and fire, along with the contributions of Otto, Karl, and other veteran backbone members, ensured that the defensive line could not be breached.

As Caesar watched from the sky as Otto and his men reorganized their defenses and began to launch a counterattack, the last vestige of worry in his heart seemed to ease slightly. He had done all he could.

After he unleashed his last bullet on the British soldiers, he did not choose to pull back.

He looked towards the spot where Lu Mingfei had disappeared.

"Lu Mingfei, if you go back—wait for me."

"Then, he heard the same emotionless, synthesized mechanical voice that Lu Mingfei had spoken before he disappeared."

[Mission complete, initiating return process]

Caesar leaned back in his chair, slowly closed his eyes, and a relieved smile appeared on his lips.

The next second, inside the cockpit, the figure of the blond pilot, like a sketch being erased by an eraser, faded rapidly from the edges and eventually disappeared completely.

Only the unmanned, red Fokker E.1I fighter jet, its engines gradually stopping, remained. Relying on its last momentum, it traced an arc in the air before slowly gliding and crashing into the uninhabited area far from the battlefield.

On the ground, Otto, who was changing his magazine, seemed to sense something and suddenly looked up at the sky. He saw the familiar red fighter jet gliding into the distance with an unnatural posture, eventually disappearing behind the horizon where twilight and smoke intertwined.

He lowered his head, looking at the wristband that was still ticking in his hand, then at the gunshots that had resumed and the smoke-filled battlefield around him, and finally at the empty space where Lu Mingfei had disappeared, now turned into scorched earth.

He took a deep breath of the air thick with the smell of gunpowder and blood, gripped his gun tightly, turned, and pulled the trigger at the British troops who were trying to surge forward again.

The battle is not over yet.

The road ahead must continue; he cannot let down Lu Mingfei and Caesar who fought for them, and he does not believe that the two of them will die like this.

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