Dragon Raja: Reboot

18: 45.

Tang Wei paused Plants vs. Zombies and picked up the phone: "Front desk? Is anyone here to pick up a package?"

"No, Mr. Tang, it's raining heavily, so I guess he won't be coming today," the receptionist said charmingly.

Tang Wei frowned and looked out the window. He saw that the sky was covered with dark clouds, heavy as lead, and lightning flashed across the sky from time to time. This was a sign of an impending rainstorm.

"It was sunny just a moment ago, and now it's raining all of a sudden? Didn't the weather forecast say it would be sunny all day?"

A sudden feeling of unease welled up inside him, as if something was about to happen.

Tang Wei glanced at the time; it was almost 19:00 PM, and the courier would be arriving soon to pick up the package.

This will be his last deal. After that, he plans to cancel his account on Hunter.net and never get involved in these supernatural matters again, and go abroad to do some legitimate business.

Thinking of this, he sat back down in front of the computer, wanting to take one last look at the Hunter website, after all, it was this website that had turned him from penniless to incredibly wealthy.

Tang Wei entered his ID and password, pressed Enter, and the page refreshed from top to bottom. The pitch-black background, dark green lines, and deep red text were like a door to another world opening before him.

He listlessly switched between different sections, wondering whether he should say goodbye to everyone.

"You have an unread email." A notification flashes in the upper right corner.

Tang Wei was taken aback, then casually opened it.

The email contained only one word: "Byebye".

He suddenly shivered.

Who is saying goodbye to themselves?

He didn't tell anyone about his decision to leave the hunter community!

He slowly shifted his gaze toward the sender's location.

Blank.

No sender.

Tang Wei's hand sprang from the keyboard as if he had been electrocuted!

At the same instant, a deafening clap of thunder shook the glass windows, turning them a ghastly white. A bolt of lightning struck vertically, illuminating the darkness. The tens of thousands of volts of static electricity caused all the lit windows in the Runde Building to flicker.

The rain poured down.

The indoor lights flickered on and off, the screen remained completely black, and when they came back on, the browser was on the first level of Hunter x Hunter, a disguised anime website, with the words "Please Log In" displayed in the upper right corner.

Tang Wei's body stiffened, and he stared blankly at the screen.

He was redirected to a website.

His hands trembled as he entered the password again.

"User 【I'm not saying anything, it will be deleted】 has been deleted."

He collapsed onto the sofa, his eyes glazed over.

For a hunter, losing their ID is like losing their identity, which can never be replaced.

Every hunter whose ID was previously deleted has disappeared from this world.

Tang Wei's hands trembled as he touched his entire body. He could still feel his heartbeat and body temperature, which meant he was still alive.

A hunter who is still alive, an ID that has been deleted, and the last piece of cargo that was never delivered.

It was as if a bolt of lightning struck his mind, and he suddenly sat up from the sofa!

The client also said "byebye" to him before leaving!

……

……

The car cruised smoothly along the forest road, with vibrant greenery and wildflowers flashing past the window.

The person in the passenger seat put down the phone and said into the microphone in an extremely respectful voice, "The ID has been cancelled, all information has been erased, and he no longer exists in this world."

The back and front seats were blocked by black soundproof panels, so the people in the front seats could not see anything in the back seats at all.

"Only the dead truly cease to exist. For the birth of a new world, insignificant people must be erased from all traces!" A deep voice echoed from the loudspeaker. "Will that kid from Kassel College definitely kill him?"

"Please rest assured, when the dragon's blood burns, the child with golden eyes possesses a killing intent that surpasses that of a hungry lion."

"I hope he truly has the heart of a lion, as you say. Only the most outstanding children can become His Majesty's chosen ones."

……

……

Chu Zihang stood in the rain, holding an umbrella and carrying a long box with a note on the outside that read "Flower Delivery".

The rain poured down, and people on the street ran in all directions, covering their heads with all sorts of things.

The streets became empty, and he silently watched as large raindrops pounded on the ground and shattered into transparent flowers.

A van with the word "FedEx" painted on its side sped through the rain, screeching as it braked and splashing water as high as a person before stopping in front of Chu Zihang.

The car door opened, and the elite guards in plainclothes assigned to him by the academy jumped out, their movements as if they were cast from the same mold, showing their well-trained discipline.

"Although I already guessed that there would be surprises every time you appeared, this time your casual clothes are really refreshing," Chu Zihang said casually, glancing at them.

The burly men from the Kassel College administration stood side by side, as if awaiting inspection.

Some were wearing "Adiwang" pullovers, some were wearing Korean-style wide-leg pants, and some were wearing oversized "Double Star" brand sneakers. The team leader was wearing a green Beijing Guoan team uniform, looking every bit the die-hard fan.

"Isn't it inappropriate?" The team leader looked at himself from head to toe. "I see that's how most Chinese people dress."

"But our pectoral muscles won't look like they're about to burst out of our shirts." Chu Zihang patted the team leader's collar.

A group of men dressed in various colors, seemingly passionate about sports and hip-hop, could easily blend into the crowd, if it weren't for their short, close-to-the-scalp hair, their height of around 1.9 meters, and their "spectacular" muscular physiques rolling beneath their cheap smocks.

"We can't just hide our muscles in our pockets," the team leader said, scratching his head.

"It's not a big deal. We were planning a full-scale assault anyway, so concealing our identities isn't strictly necessary. It'll just mean you'll be on the front page of the local newspaper tomorrow, with a headline like 'Adiwang American Men's Gang Openly Robs Office Building' or something like that," Chu Zihang said. "Remember, the reason we've deployed so many people is because we don't want any casualties. With any opponent, we only need to subdue them, not harm them. Understand?"

"clear!"

Chu Zihang, carrying the box of flowers delivered by courier, walked towards Runde Building and smiled at the security guard:

"Hello, this is the courier company, flower delivery service."

……

At 18:50, Chu Zihang was in the high-speed elevator that led directly to the top floor, and the floor numbers jumped rapidly.

At 18:55, Manstein's voice came through the headphones, "Begin!"

Chu Zihang pressed the button on his watch, and the hands of the mechanical chronograph began to move, starting a five-minute countdown.

A burly man in an "Adiwang" jersey walked through the rain and headed straight for the gate. His "localized" clothing couldn't hide his exaggeratedly muscular physique. The professional guards from Millennium Labor Service Company stepped back and pressed their batons against their waists.

……

at the same time.

A van slowly made its way toward the main entrance of the building, braving the rain.

The windshield wipers were off, and the rain running down the windshield obscured the driver's face.

……

"Adiwang" spread his arms and used his hard arm bones to block the batons of the two guards. He grabbed the two men by the collar and lifted them into the air.

Two guards hit their heads on the roof beam of the front door and nearly passed out. Their shouts alerted all the guards in the hall, alarms blared, and guards poured out from different exits, running frantically down the escalator.

"Adiwang" has already gotten into a tug-of-war with more than a dozen guards.

He was sprinting along the open passageway of the first-floor shopping mall. The not-so-low counters seemed to pose no obstacle to him at all; he burst into speed and leaped over them like a hurdler.

Customers stranded in the ground floor shopping mall due to the torrential rain covered their heads in fear.

The guards couldn't take the shortcut he did, so they had to weave their way through the crowd.

Every time "Adiwang" realized he had left the guards too far behind, he would stop, reveal a silly grin, and look back.

Most of the shop assistants ran to the door to watch the burly man who was teasing the guards as they ran around.

The guy seemed a bit silly; his goal wasn't to rob anyone, but rather to play some kind of hide-and-seek game with the guards, which the customers and staff found quite entertaining.

But they soon realized something was wrong.

Security guards poured out from different exits and rushed down the escalator.

Meanwhile, a burly man wearing "Double Star" sneakers and a pullover went against the flow of traffic, crashing into the security guards like a cannonball and pinning them firmly in the middle of the escalator.

The guy wearing the green jersey of the Beijing Guoan team went up to the second floor through the emergency exit, violently kicked open the door of the monitoring room, smashed the panel of the monitoring equipment with a punch, pulled out two of the wires and connected them to a live wire, and the excessive current instantly burned out the equipment.

These thugs from the school's administrative department are even more professional than professional robbery gangs.

The ground floor was in complete chaos, and all the security guards were gathering there.

The elites of the school's public relations department had a great time. It was an easy task; all they had to do was distract the security guards and disable the surveillance system. The rest was naturally left to the most outstanding among them.

But they didn't notice.

The two vans parked in the rain quietly started up and slowly circled the building. The rain blurred the windshields, making it impossible to see the drivers in the driver's seat.

……

Rooftop terrace.

Chu Zihang stood in the torrential rain.

The entire Runde Building has 46 floors and is 210 meters tall. Standing on the edge of the rooftop and looking down, everything seems so small, making you feel as if you are far away from the world.

Loneliness, vastness.

Chu Zihang let his body tilt and plummet straight down!

In a state of complete weightlessness, he reached into the cardboard box of the "flower delivery" and pulled out a knife. Murasame cut through the air with a sharp whistling sound!

"Hey! Someone's jumping off a building!" a security guard suddenly exclaimed, pointing out the window.

Most people noticed the figure flash down, and outside the window came the sharp sound of steel cables being pulled tight, as well as the creaking of gears turning. The deliveryman wearing sunglasses stood in the rain, holding a long knife.

He unbuckled the rappelling harness around his waist and tossed the empty flower stem into the wind and rain.

This is his descent route. The school's sanctuary staff have already started cleaning the suspension bridge over the glass curtain wall, and Chu Zihang has safely reached base.

This was the plan that Professor Schneider and Norma had devised, a well-connected and simple plan that represented the optimal route of invasion.

There are four minutes and forty seconds left.

The security guards on the 21st floor were astonished to find that the deliveryman took out a device that looked like a stun gun and pressed it against the surface of the tempered glass. The current flickered, the entire tempered glass vibrated at a high frequency, and then it shattered.

Before they could even think, the two security guards in the lead rushed up with stun batons in hand!

Before the stun baton could strike, Chu Zihang suddenly burst into speed, pressing his chest against the two men.

He pressed his hands against the chests of the other two guards, paused briefly, and then exerted force suddenly, causing the two men to be thrown backward and crash into the wall.

Just then, the backup guards arrived.

A whole squad of guards emerged from both sides of the passage.

At the same time, Chu Zihang heard a deep sound piercing the air, like the chanting of ancient monks.

The understanding unfolds silently.

Word of Power—The King's Servant!

As the academy headquarters had anticipated, this hunter organization, disguised as a labor service company, harbored individuals with bloodlines.

For hybrids, their own kind is the most terrifying enemy. With the same bloodline and similar abilities, the final competition comes down to the purity of their bloodline.

The power of the Word of Power began to manifest; the skin of all the guards turned a blood-red hue, and their hearts pounded violently, pumping copious amounts of blood throughout their bodies. Their bodily functions were instantly amplified several times over. They had no time to savor the surprise of this sudden surge of power; they simply lunged at Chu Zihang with all their might.

Word of Power - King's Servant, Serial Number 28, enhances the physical abilities of living beings within its domain.

This Word of Power sequence isn't high, but it's an enhanced Word of Power, and the entire floor is filled with their people.

Chu Zihang stood quietly in place, looking at his watch.

The guards on both sides rushed forward, and Chu Zihang crouched down again, resuming his crouching start.

Within the realm of "King's Attendants," the guards' physical abilities rival those of athletes, and their cautious and fearful emotions are overwhelmed by the instantaneous doubling of adrenaline in their blood vessels.

In ancient times, the dragon race used this incantation to inspire and strengthen the humans and even beasts who were loyal to them, turning them into an army.

The guards on both sides leaped into the air, their batons, carrying high-voltage static electricity, crisscrossing the air. The static electricity broke through the air, and thin, purple static electricity strands stuck between the batons.

In an instant, perhaps only 0.5 seconds.

In 0.5 seconds, Chu Zihang will be covered by this huge electric grid.

Chu Zihang rubbed his fingers together; they were unusually damp. He had been so focused that he had overlooked something strange: the air was already supersaturated with moisture.

The air in the corridor was tinged with a faint white, like a thick fog.

Even in heavy rain, the concentration of water vapor in the air should not be so high, as excessive water vapor density would make the air a conductor.

Chu Zihang leaped backward, dodging the guards' combined attack.

He voluntarily jumped out of the glass window into the torrential rain and found his final foothold—the suspension bridge.

He had to come up with a good way to deal with the group in the next few seconds, without killing them.

The teacher repeatedly emphasized to him that he shouldn't go too far, and since this was his hometown, he didn't want to make things difficult to handle.

On the suspension bridge, Chu Zihang recalled the saturated moisture in the air just now, looked up at the dark sky, and saw the cold rain pouring down and lightning flashing in the clouds.

He suddenly realized that the guards had not given chase, but had instead stopped and formed a human wall, silently blocking his way.

For a moment, their faces seemed exactly the same.

Chu Zihang felt a jolt in his heart as he caught a familiar scent.

It smelled of a cold storm, mixed with lots of moisture, chilling me from my trachea all the way to my heart.

He had only smelled this scent once...

On that endless elevated highway!

The sound of a car horn came from below, and Chu Zihang looked down.

On the deserted east side street, which was isolated by the school's sanitation department, a Maybach with its headlights on slowly drove toward Building A of Runde Building.

That... familiar Maybach!

Chu Zihang's heart seemed to explode at that moment!

The Maybach's engine roared as it crashed into the load-bearing pillar on the side of the Runde Building. The heavy body, combined with the speed of over 100 mph, tore the front of the Maybach in two upon impact.

The entire building shook. The suspension bridge lurched, and the cable detached from the gears, became stuck in the bearings, and snapped. Chu Zihang lost his balance, and the entire suspension bridge plummeted downwards!

Chu Zihang finally understood why the guards hadn't continued the pursuit.

They wanted to drive him to his doom, and now they've succeeded!

……

The van suddenly turned on its headlights, crashed through the glass curtain wall, and slammed into a supporting column, sending shards of glass flying everywhere.

Sparks flew from the engine, the radiator ruptured, and white steam billowed everywhere.

The entire building trembled, but this was nothing compared to the shock felt by the elites of the school's administrative department.

The windshield was shattered, and the driver's cabin... was completely empty!

This is the car they drove here. The key is still in one of their pockets. They didn't leave anyone in the car, but this car began its silent hunt like a wild beast while they were making a mess of the lower levels!

The fog was getting thicker and thicker, as if it were seeping from the marble floor.

The mist slowly rose, and the water vapor concentration was surprisingly high, covering everything that could be touched with a layer of water film.

Everyone looked at each other blankly, even forgetting to cover up their thoughts; in this situation, people's thinking was blocked.

A "ding" sounded.

The school janitor turned his head to look in the direction from which the sound came.

That was the sound of the elevator.

The VIP elevator that leads directly to the top floor has its key held by the only merchant on the top floor. It's a mechanical key that even Norma can't operate, which is why Professor Schneider devised the plan to reach the top floor via a suspension bridge.

But now, the elevator lights up, indicating that a guest has entered, and the floor indicator shows that it is... rapidly ascending to the top floor!

It's like someone went in, but nobody saw him.

Everyone's attention turned to the driverless van.

It all started with the appearance of this ghostly truck...

This building, or rather, this world, seems to have changed a little!

"Don't scare yourself. It's someone on the top floor who's trying to bring the elevator down and has blocked all the elevator entrances!" said a school worker.

"That's right!" another school worker nodded. "There's no such thing as... not being able to see the driver."

"No... Before this van came in, the elevator's floor indicator showed it was on the top floor. It didn't even open the door. It definitely wasn't someone on the top floor who called the elevator up. There are only three possibilities: First, the elevator program malfunctioned; second, someone on the top floor played a joke on us, taking the elevator down and then up again to prevent the door from opening; third, there's a ghost. Which one do you believe?" a school worker said in a low voice.

"Damn it!" someone said.

"I'm afraid you're right," someone whispered.

……

Chu Zihang gripped the steel cable tightly.

The moment the steel cable snapped, he jumped off the falling suspension bridge and grabbed the upper half of the cable.

He looked up, and the heavy rain poured down from the gloomy sky, falling into his eyes.

It's a very strange feeling.

He looked at the rainy sky and thought of the reflection of the entire sky in his pupils.

All the rain in the sky seemed to fall from a single point in the sky, and it would all fall into his eyes.

This feeling is like looking down on the world like a god, or seeing the world through the eyes of a god.

The fresh feeling is delightful, a complete transformation. Blood rushes through the veins like a river after ice has thawed, and every cell breathes freely and with all its might, like a spring bud. An endless stream of energy is silently transmitted along the muscles and tendons.

This isn't the first time I've experienced this feeling, the pleasure of tasting "forbidden" wine.

He "bleeds out".

Before the industrial age, the technology of instantly enhancing bloodline purity through mental means was the highest secret of certain families, allowing their hybrid bodies to gain power close to that of pure-blooded dragons.

However, none of the families that possessed this secret left any descendants, and the secret was lost to posterity.

Until the early 20th century, the Lionheart, a new faction within the Secret Society, reproduced this technique, thus quickly surpassing the older generation and establishing itself as a new generation of leaders.

Chu Zihang is the current president of the Lionheart Society.

The Lionheart Socitey originally meant "a society that releases the lion's heart".

Chu Zihang stormed through the open glass window like a thug, looking around with empty and indifferent eyes.

Those eager guards had vanished from his sight.

Just as a god who looks down upon the world never gazes at every passerby.

When you possess the power to easily annihilate an individual into ashes, would you still truly care about its existence?

The sunglasses fell off as they plummeted, revealing dazzling golden eyes that shone through the mist, their unparalleled majesty sweeping across the entire scene.

The guards began to retreat timidly, as if that unparalleled majesty held their hearts in its grasp, threatening to crush them if they did not obey!

The faint chanting in the air suddenly became shrill!

Within the King's domain, the guards' skin was covered in bright red blood droplets. Their bodily functions had been pushed to the limit, and their blood pressure was so high that their capillaries were rupturing.

They leaped again, raising the stun batons high above their heads, the static electricity once more coiling around them like spiderwebs. An attack with no blind spots, coming from all directions simultaneously!

"Word of Power: Monarch's Flame" has opened its domain.

A large amount of heat was released in the confined space, and the temperature rose to over 80 degrees Celsius almost instantly, dispelling the surrounding fog.

The attacking guards lost consciousness instantly, their brains stopped working, and they collapsed to the ground.

The King's Guardian Domain, which had always shrouded the guards, has been destroyed!

The guards regained their senses, and the enhancements to their physical functions were deactivated. As if waking from a dream, they screamed in terror.

Chu Zihang walked past them expressionlessly.

With a "whoosh," a curtain of icy water descended from above, and the fire safety system automatically began spraying water, perhaps because the small-scale Junyan had made the system detect the high temperature.

An empty corridor, human figures scattered on the floor, thick fog, water falling from the sky...

Chu Zihang wiped the water off his face. What happened?

It's like standing all alone in the rainy night.

"Captain, the elevator's going up! The elevator's going up!"

The in-ear walkie-talkie suddenly connected!

elevator?

His mind was in chaos. He groped along the wall, searching for an exit. His watch was still working, and there were 3 minutes and 50 seconds left. He still had a task to complete.

He heard a faint sound behind him and turned around abruptly, seeing the VIP elevator that could reach any floor. This was the moment it passed the 21st floor.

—A dazzling light shone from the gap in the elevator door, as bright as a car headlight!

"Dad..." Chu Zihang uttered these two words hoarsely in a daze.

What's wrong?

He didn't know. From the moment that Maybach appeared, everything around him changed silently.

The torrential rain, the thick fog, the familiar scent in the air...

It all reminds one of that endless elevated road from many years ago.

That Maybach was like a knife that could cut through time, forcibly piecing together two ends of time and space. Everything that had appeared in Chu Zihang's dreams over the years was reproduced in a distorted way in the Runde Building.

He couldn't be sure until the elevator passed the 21st floor, when he clearly smelled the scent coming from inside—an unforgettable smell, like the man's hands that always smelled burnt from frequent smoking.

People who have died cannot be brought back to life, right?

Is he really dead?

Have I lost him forever?

Illusion, these are all illusions. Something is wrong. It's like a trap. I can't be fooled. I must regain my senses as soon as possible!

He wanted to yell to remind himself.

But he didn't want to remind himself...

He wanted to believe...

He knew what he wanted to believe: that night, that unexpected incident that made the front page of the newspapers, and the fact that there were no bodies.

There's a one in a thousand chance, maybe a one in ten thousand, that man isn't dead. Even if the chance is smaller... one in a hundred thousand... one in a million... or one in ten million...

It doesn't matter, he will believe it.

He has already lost him once; there must never be a second time, not even a one in a trillion chance of losing him again!

The boy, now free of his lion's heart, lunged forward with a knife!

A red light flashed with the "Exit" sign. It seemed like someone was banging on the door frantically, trying to rush in. At some point, the knocking became deafening.

Chu Zihang kicked the door open, and an even thicker mist of water gushed out.

In the stairwell, under the pale white light, those familiar yet unrecognizable shadows stood silently, greeting him with expressionless faces, whispering amongst themselves, just like the welcoming ceremony six years ago.

He took off his headphones, stomped on them to shatter them, completely severing his connection with the person behind him, and drew his sword to meet the attack.

What followed was nothing but slaughter.

My father said that we shouldn't have any pity for these things, because they can't be considered living people.

……

……

"I never imagined that a hundred years later, someone would embark on the path to becoming a god again."

In the shadows of the stairwell, someone spoke in a laughing voice.

"Yes, just as I never expected that after so many years, you would have become a rat that likes to hide in dark ditches."

The young man who came to have some fun said with a smile.

An uninvited guest, outside the script, has arrived!