Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

Lu Mingfei was trembling all over. He hadn't spent much time with these survivors, but through the hardships they had gone through together, he thought he had at least built some degree of friendship and trust with Perez, Roy, and Canessa.

Was it all just his naive wishful thinking? In the face of survival and fear, is so-called friendship so fragile?

"Lu...you two...why did you two come back?!" Perez hugged him tightly from behind, roaring hoarsely, his face contorted with pain and a near-desperate rage, tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes.

"Why didn't they just die out there! Or simply leave! Why did they even come back?!"

"Why, Perez! Aren't we friends?!" Lu Mingfei struggled and questioned, feeling the immense strength in Perez's arms, which held him firmly like an iron clamp.

Perez is a strong rugby player who has recently replenished a lot of protein and energy with those special foods, and his physical strength has recovered a lot. Lu Mingfei, on the other hand, has been starving for nearly ten days and is already weak. At this moment, he is completely at a disadvantage in a pure strength contest.

"Let me tell you why!" Fake Marcelo, or rather Isak, answered the question for Perez by forcefully suppressing Nono and letting out a sharp, malicious laugh.

"Because you are the outcasts here! You are far too clean! You don't eat meat, but they do! If you actually manage to get out alive and bring rescue, how will the outside world view them?!"

His voice, like the hiss of a venomous snake, burrowed into the hearts of every survivor.

"People outside won't understand the cruelty of the snow-capped mountains! They'll only see a bunch of monsters who've eaten human flesh! They'll scrutinize them with the most venomous eyes! They'll despise them! And you, you two saints who haven't touched that flesh, will become living evidence to torment their consciences! When someone questions why you two can persevere while they can't, how will they answer?!"

Isaac suddenly increased the pressure on his hand, almost bending Nono's gun-wielding arm, while raising his voice and speaking inflammatoryly.

"Your very existence denies their identity as human beings! As long as you remain pure, everything they did on this snowy mountain will never be forgiven or understood! They will forever be monsters that devour humanity!!"

Before he could finish speaking, he seized the opportunity when Nuonuo was distracted by looking at Lu Mingfei and delivered a vicious side kick to Nuonuo's abdomen.

"Ugh!" Nono groaned, the intense pain instantly draining her strength. She was kicked backward and flew through the air, rolling several times on the ground before finally coming to a stop. The gun in her hand almost slipped from her grasp.

She endured the cramping pain in her abdomen, quickly knelt up, and once again aimed her gun at Isaac.

But Isaac seemed completely unfazed. He even spread his arms and gave Nono a provocative, twisted smile.

"Come on! Shoot! You beautiful enforcement officer! Let's see if your bullet is faster, or if he can snap your boyfriend's neck faster!"

His gaze swept over Lu Mingfei, who was being held firmly in place by Perez.

"Nono! Don't worry about me! Shoot! Kill him!!" Lu Mingfei didn't expect that he would become a burden to Nono, and he shouted loudly while struggling.

"Lu! Stop struggling!" Perez tightened his grip, his voice trembling with sobs and a desperate plea.

"We don't want to hurt you! Really! Like you said, we're friends! As long as... as long as you eat that meat too, just like us! We'll let you go immediately! And we'll do everything we can to help you get out of here! Please, Lu!"

Just then, Roy and Canessa walked in from outside the cabin, carrying an aluminum platter covered with thin slices of dark red meat.

"Lu, eat this... As long as you eat it, we'll still be friends! When we get back to Uruguay, we'll treat you with the utmost hospitality! We'll treat you and your girlfriend as our most honored guests!"

Carrying a plate, Canesa walked up to Lu Mingfei, who was being restrained, and said in a trembling voice, her eyes filled with complex emotions and expectation.

"Eat it!"

"Eat it!"

"Eat it!"

The other survivors around them, as if brainwashed, shouted in unison, their voices echoing in the narrow cabin, creating a suffocating collective pressure.

"I won't eat! I'm not a monster that eats people!!" Lu Mingfei gritted his teeth and roared with all his might.

The moment those words were spoken, the cabin fell into a deathly silence. All shouts ceased, and the expressions on everyone's faces froze.

"So... in your heart... we really are just monsters who eat people?!" Canesa's hand holding the plate trembled violently, her voice filled with anger.

"I didn't think you were like that before! You were forced into this situation!" Lu Mingfei raised his head, his gaze sweeping over Perez, Canessa, Roy, and every familiar yet unfamiliar face around him. His eyes were filled with unprecedented sorrow, and then he spoke firmly.

"But now, forcing others to become like you... if you're not monsters, who are!"

"Good! Good! Good!" Canesa said three times in a row, his facial muscles contorted with extreme anger. He grabbed a handful of cold slices of meat from the plate and roared hysterically.

"Then you absolutely must become one of us!!"

As he spoke, he tried to force the piece of meat into Lu Mingfei's mouth, which was forced open.

"Damn it!" Nono's pupils shrank when she saw this. She could no longer hesitate and immediately turned her gun around.

Two sharp gunshots suddenly rang out!

Canesa and Perez both cried out in pain. The pieces of meat in Canesa's hand scattered all over the ground. He clutched his left shoulder, which was gushing blood, and staggered backward.

Perez also felt a piercing pain in his right shoulder, and his arm around Lu Mingfei involuntarily loosened.

But Isaac seized the opportunity when Nono turned her gun around. He pounced on her like a ghost and delivered a precise kick to Nono's wrist, which was holding the gun.

The revolver immediately flew out of his hand and landed on the ground a few meters away.

Immediately afterwards, the knife in Isaac's hand turned into a cold light and pierced straight into Nono's heart!

Nono reacted quickly, grabbing the broken chair covered with a map next to her and desperately blocking the attack.

"Clang! Clang!"

The sound of metal clashing rang out continuously. Nono managed to keep up with the others by relying on her agility and fighting skills, but Isaac's strength and speed far exceeded those of ordinary people, and he also had extremely rich combat experience.

Soon, Nono was at a disadvantage. Her arms and shoulders were cut by the sharp knife, and blood stained her new coat.

"Haha! These are the elites of the Kassel Executive Bureau? They're nowhere near as good as that knife-wielding kid from last time!" Isaac taunted as he launched his relentless attack.

He had been wary of Nono's potential hidden strength, especially given her identity as an executive bureau officer. But now, after their fight, although the girl was skilled, she was clearly not the same level of opponent as the knife-wielding boy who had put so much pressure on him in the alley.

The battle is now completely under his control, and it will be over soon.

"Lu Mingfei, run! Run!" Nuonuo shouted as she struggled to block the attack.

Just then, Isaac found a perfect opening and, with a tricky angle, plunged the knife into Nono's abdomen!

"Pfft!"

Nono's body stiffened abruptly, she spat out a mouthful of blood, her face turned deathly pale, and she staggered backward.

"Nono!!!"

Seeing Nuonuo severely injured and lying on the ground, seeing the glaring blood that stained her clothes, an unprecedentedly violent rage erupted in Lu Mingfei's chest like a volcano!

That anger burned away his fear, burned away his hesitation!

Like an enraged beast, he let out a low growl that was not human, lunged forward, and grabbed the revolver that Nono had just dropped.

Almost without thinking, driven purely by instinct, he raised his arm, the muzzle of his gun locked on the back of the figure walking towards Nuonuo, preparing to deliver the final blow.

The trigger is pulled!

"Bang!!!"

Deafening gunfire echoed through the cabin!

The sneer and smugness on Isaac's face froze instantly, and a shocking bloody hole appeared on his forehead.

He stared in disbelief, his body swayed, and then he fell straight forward, crashing heavily to the ground.

The moment he fell, a torrent of unfamiliar memories, like a flood bursting its banks, surged into Lu Mingfei's mind.

Those were fragments of Isaac Lawson's memories. Lu Mingfei saw a figure wandering the land of Japan, visiting various ancient sword-fighting dojos, eagerly learning the sword techniques of all schools: Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, Hokushin Itto-ryu, Shinto Munen-ryu...

Countless memories of sword moves, footwork, and power techniques were forcibly etched into the depths of Lu Mingfei's consciousness like branding.

Lu Mingfei felt as if his brain was about to explode, and at the same time, he strangely felt that those exquisite and fierce sword techniques had become muscle memory that he had practiced hard for many years.

But reality didn't give him any time to process these bizarre memories.

"road!!"

When Perez, Roy, Canesa and the others saw the fake Marcelo killed, they were first shocked, and then their eyes burst with even more frenzied killing intent. They rushed forward again and pressed Lu Mingfei, who was still in a daze after firing the shot, to the ground!

"Lu! Eat all this meat! Eat it all! Otherwise... otherwise we'll have no choice but to... kill you all too!"

Perez pressed down hard on the back of Lu Mingfei's neck with his uninjured hand, his voice trembling violently with fear, despair, and a kind of desperate madness, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Why...why are you forcing us like this...we...we just don't want to become monsters that eat people..." Lu Mingfei's face was pressed tightly against the cold floor, his voice muffled and filled with pain and confusion.

"Because we want to live! To really live!!" Perez cried out.

"Human society... will not tolerate those who are different! Here, those of you who do not eat meat are the different ones! But if we go out... those of us who have eaten meat will be the real different ones in normal society! Monsters!!"

"Then the media will fawn over you, hailing you as heroes who upheld humanity! And what about us? We'll become rats in the street, hated by everyone! Cannibals hiding beneath civilized society! Our families will be disgraced because of us! They'll never be able to hold their heads high in Uruguay again! And how are we supposed to... how are we supposed to face the families of the teammates we've eaten?!"

Just as Perez was crying out in despair, the other survivors, with cold eyes, carried the plate of meat slices and walked step by step toward Nono, who was lying on the ground, blood constantly seeping from her abdomen.

They would use the same method to drag her completely into this inescapable hell on earth.

"I won't allow you to touch her!" As Lu Mingfei saw those people approaching Nuonuo, a powerful force erupted from his body, allowing him to break free from Perez's restraints.

He didn't even get up, remaining in a half-kneeling position, raising the revolver in his hand that had just shot Isaac dead, and three shots rang out, almost without any interval.

The three survivors who walked towards Nuonuo had their heads explode like ripe watermelons, splattering red and white matter. Their bodies stiffened for a moment, then collapsed limply to the ground, the aluminum plates in their hands clattering to the ground, scattering pieces of meat mixed with blood all over the place.

This ruthless scene, which instantly claimed three lives, ignited the last vestiges of madness in the hearts of the remaining survivors. The hesitation and struggle in their eyes vanished, replaced by a bestial instinct driven to the brink of despair, a willingness to perish together with their victims.

A dozen or so people, including the injured Perez, Roy, and Canesa, all had bloodshot eyes and roared like wild beasts, rushing towards Lu Mingfei from all directions, wanting to tear him apart.

At this moment, Lu Mingfei's gun had run out of bullets, but he was already in a bloodthirsty frenzy and had no fear whatsoever.

Someone reacted quickly, picked up the bloodstained knife that Isaac had dropped, and stabbed it at Lu Mingfei's heart while howling.

"Watch out!" Nono lay on the ground, using her last bit of strength to weakly warn him.

Just as the sharp blade was about to touch Lu Mingfei's chest, his right hand reached out and precisely grabbed the other man's wrist holding the knife. Then, he twisted his wrist, and the man felt a sharp pain in his wrist, and his five fingers involuntarily loosened.

The knife fell.

But just before it hit the ground, Lu Mingfei firmly gripped the hilt of the knife in his hand.

Yagyu Shinkage-ryu - No-Totem

The moment Lu Mingfei gripped the knife, his entire demeanor changed abruptly. He lowered his center of gravity, using his waist as an axis, and drew a sharp and perfectly round semi-circle with the arm holding the knife.

The people who rushed in the closest to the attack suffered deep, bone-revealing cuts to their chests, arms, and thighs, screaming as they retreated.

Hokushin Itto-ryu: Zangetsu Slash

But Lu Mingfei's attack didn't end there. He quickly stepped forward, his knife flashing as he thrust, slashed, and parried. Each strike landed on the person in front of him.

Hokushin Itto-ryu: Kazegiri Shigenaga

The sword techniques that had just surfaced in Lu Mingfei's mind were now all being displayed in his hands. With each swing, he precisely slit one person's throat or pierced another person's heart. His movements were ruthless, efficient, and full of the aesthetics of slaughter.

Warm blood gushed out like a runaway fountain, splashing wildly across every corner of the cabin, covering Lu Mingfei's entire body and face.

His hair was soaked with thick blood, clinging to his forehead in clumps, and his face, neck, and clothes were all covered in mottled dark red stains.

Especially his eyes, which had turned a cold, pale gold at some point, with vertical pupils, like a ferocious beast ready to devour its prey. Combined with his blood-soaked, carnage-filled figure, he looked exactly like a demon that had just crawled out of a blood-soaked hell.

Finally, his gaze settled on Perez, who was clutching his wounded shoulder and trying to back away.

Lu Mingfei stepped forward, and the knife in his hand plunged into Perez's chest.

"Uh..." Perez's body stiffened abruptly. He subconsciously reached out and grabbed Lu Mingfei's blood-stained shoulder to steady his swaying body.

He raised his head, looked at Lu Mingfei's face, which resembled that of a demon or a demon, and at those inhuman pale golden pupils. A twisted and complex smile appeared on his face as he spoke haltingly.

"Ha...you now...are more like...a monster than we are..."

After saying that, his hand slipped limply to the ground, and his body fell heavily backward, crashing into a pool of blood. Only a sarcastic smile remained on his lips.

When Perez fell and there were no more enemies standing in the cabin, Lu Mingfei froze.

The chilling sense of killing intent that had gripped his body receded like a receding tide.

He stood there blankly, looking around.

Before me lay a true battlefield of carnage.

Nineteen corpses lay in pools of blood, contorted in various ways, their faces frozen with the terror, pain, and disbelief of their deaths.

Blood gushed from countless wounds, pooling on the ground and almost covering the entire bottom of the cabin.

Clang.

The knife, stained with blood and bits of flesh, slipped from Lu Mingfei's hand and fell into a pool of blood.

His legs gave way, and he collapsed to his knees in the sticky pool of blood.

"These... I did all of this..." Lu Mingfei raised his blood-covered hand and muttered to himself, his eyes filled with confusion.