Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

"Now that we're in, let's begin the search," Lu Mingfei, as the person in charge of the operation, gave the order. "Work in pairs, keep communication open, although I'm not sure if it's still of any use here. Prioritize finding any valuable clues, especially those related to the missing persons. Be careful, and alert immediately if anything seems amiss."

Lu Mingfei naturally teamed up with Frillie. Fingel wanted to join in, but was stopped by a look from Chu Zihang, so he reluctantly teamed up with Chu Zihang.

Zhu Mumu and Lingdang form their own pair.

They began their cautious exploration from the platform.

Inside the abandoned ticket booth, the glass is blurry and the writing on the register on the table has long been eroded and blurred by time, but you can still vaguely see some names and numbers from that era, written in old-fashioned fountain pen handwriting.

Scattered on the waiting bench were several faded "Big Big Bubble Gum" wrappers, glass soda bottles printed with the words "Arctic Ocean," and even a rusty tin pencil box with a Transformers pattern printed on it.

Everything froze in a certain moment, as if on a certain day in 1992, everyone here suddenly disappeared, leaving only these objects full of life.

“It seems like there was a hasty, abnormal evacuation or disappearance here,” Frillian said softly, pointing to an overturned bench and a woman’s shoe lying next to it. “Many items are placed in a way that doesn’t look like normal abandonment, but rather like they were left behind in a moment of chaos.”

Lu Mingfei nodded, feeling uneasy. He had a feeling that something was silently watching them from behind those dimly lit corners and empty ticket windows.

On the other side, to ease the tension and exchange information, Fingel chatted with Zhu Mumu while searching: "Taoist Master, judging from your posture, you're quite skilled. Have you ever encountered a place like this before, uh, a super-duper 'ghost wall'?"

While using a compass to probe the aura, Zhu Mumu replied, "May the Heavenly Venerable grant me boundless blessings. There are indeed records in the ancient books of my sect that our ancestors have dealt with some places similar to 'fragments of grotto heavens' or 'demon realms,' all of which are related to the residual power of the dragon race."

He paused, recalling an unpleasant experience, "My cultivation is still shallow. I only dealt with a dangerous 'drought demon's tomb' with my master and a few senior uncles. It was located deep in an extremely arid Gobi desert in the northwest. It looked ordinary, but in fact, it was a hundred meters underground, a hidden world."

"Oh? Tell me more? It's even more mysterious than this place?" Fingel became interested, and even Chu Zihang next to him slowed down his search and listened attentively.

Zhu Mumu took a deep breath, a hint of lingering fear flashing in her eyes. "That is not a simple cemetery, but the final resting place of an extremely noble third-generation being. Although he has been gone for a thousand years, his remaining will and power are still immense, transforming the entire tomb into a huge living maze."

"A maze?" Lu Mingfei was also drawn in and couldn't help but interject.

"Hmm." Zhu Mumu's expression was solemn. "The passages inside are not fixed. The rock walls will move and merge on their own, and there are endless traps and mechanisms. What's even more terrifying is the 'aura of decay' that permeates the area, which can constantly erode life force and deplete magic power. Moreover, many of the familiars and alchemical guards that the being tamed in his previous life also roam within."

"At that time, there were twelve of us, all skilled members of the sect. Led by our master, we entered the maze carrying numerous magical artifacts and talismans. However, the maze was ever-changing and far more dangerous than we had anticipated. We were constantly losing members; some were crushed by suddenly closing rock walls, some were burned to ashes by the yin fire in the traps, and some were dragged into the darkness by their kin. In order to protect me and Lingdang, our master forcibly activated a forbidden technique, tearing open a key point of the array, thus giving us a sliver of hope."

The little girl with the bell also had tears in her eyes, and she added softly, "Master, he... he could have walked by himself."

Zhu Mumu patted his junior sister on the shoulder and continued, "In the end, only Lingdang and I were lucky enough to escape. As for that third-generation seed's coffin, we couldn't even catch a glimpse of it from afar. Its power is unimaginable."

He glanced at the frozen 90s-era train station around him. “Compared to this place, that tomb was a pure killing formation, while this place is more like a prison of memories filled with immense sorrow and resentment. But the level of danger may not be any less.”

If a tomb of a three-generation species is so terrifying, how terrifying must Nibelungen, the king of the earth and mountains and one of the four great kings, be?

"Snap!" Chu Zihang stopped and squatted down under a load-bearing column. He wiped away the thick layer of dust with his fingers, revealing the marks underneath.

"Someone has been here recently."

Chapter 159 Midnight Radio (Part 1)

Night was a heavy black cloth, tightly wrapping around the old Santana that was running alone on the highway.

Ahead, cleaved by the headlights, stretched an endless gray-white road, its surface creaking monotonously under the wheels.

The driver gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white.

My eyelids felt as heavy as lead, and each blink was incredibly difficult. The edges of my vision began to blur and become indistinct, with bizarre, colorful spots appearing.

The radio had long since stopped working; only the tuning knob, at a point of poor contact, emitted a hoarse, electrical sound.

can not sleep.

The driver shook his head, trying to banish the persistent drowsiness from his mind.

My fingertips fiddled with the rough plastic knob, futilely searching for a clear, human voice amidst the rustling sounds—anything, weather forecast, medicine seller, or relationship hotline.

If only this eerily silent journey could have a little more human presence.

"squeak!"

A sharp, distorted whistling sound pierced the carriage, mixed with mournful howls, and exploded unexpectedly.

The driver was jolted awake, almost swerving the steering wheel, his heart pounding in his chest.

The strange noise lasted only a second or two before it stopped abruptly.

Then, a deep male voice flowed out smoothly.

It was too low and too stable, even a bit affected and pretentious, but in this environment, it only made people feel a chill creep up their spines to their heads.

"So he pushed open the door. Behind the door was no floor, only a swirling vortex of countless pale arms and silent screaming faces. He fell down, a fall that was so long that he could recall every forgotten detail of his life, including the glass lamp he had broken when he was three, and the clown's ever-smiling face with its bright red lips that had pushed him down."

The male voice paused, and a metallic clanging sound came from the background.

"Welcome to Midnight's 'Guide to the Lost,' I am the narrator, 'The Night Watchman.' Tonight's theme is the clown."

The driver swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing dryly.

The air conditioner was on too high, and cold air was blowing straight into my collar.

The car slowed down a bit.

“In the shadowy folds of this world, there are names that circulate,” the male voice continued, “They are not recorded, but exist only in the whispers of fear. One of them is called ‘The Clown.’ He is not a character in a circus who makes people laugh; on the contrary, he wears a mask and a stained costume, wandering between reality and nothingness.”

"His mission? Or rather, his hobby? Hunting. But he's not indiscriminate. His target is very clear: hybrids."

The radio signal fluctuated slightly.

"His hunting methods are unknown because there are very few eyewitnesses, and even fewer who can speak out. It is said that he will first observe, like savoring the top notes of a fine wine, tasting the fear, confusion, and struggle of his prey. Then, at just the right moment, perhaps it is the light in the stairwell that is off when you return home alone late at night, perhaps it is the brief trickle of rusty red liquid that flows from the tap when you turn it on, perhaps it is a soft laugh in the long silence after you answer the phone, and he will appear."

"The smile on the mask is eternally unchanging, vibrant, exaggerated, and comical. But the eyes behind the mask, tsk tsk tsk. It is said that anyone who has seen those eyes will have all their thoughts frozen in an instant, leaving only trembling. They are not human eyes, but two bottomless holes."

The driver glanced fearfully at the right-side rearview mirror.

The mirror showed only a small section of road behind the driver's car, stained red by the taillights; beyond that, there was endless darkness.

It's empty.

The driver looked away, his palms slightly sweaty.

"And about his origins, or rather, his lair," the Night Watchman's voice was lowered to almost a whisper, forcing the driver to involuntarily lean forward to hear the narration mixed with the hiss of electricity.

"Underground to the ancient capital, the network is not limited to the brightly lit, bustling subway lines. Deeper, more forgotten places, lie other passages. The deepest of these has long been abandoned, erased from official maps, sealed away by cement and fear. It is said that at the end of that tunnel, the laws of physics become ambiguous. The walls may become as soft as viscera, or they may seep out cold, rusty droplets."

"It doesn't belong to the world of the living, nor is it purely the realm of the dead. It's a loophole, a chasm. Countless restless souls, with nowhere else to go, drift here like iron filings attracted by a magnet. And those poor wretches who have completely lost their way and gone astray, their remains also pile up here, becoming part of the tunnel's structure. There is no light, no sound, only eternal silence, and desperate people waiting to be cleansed."

"The Joker, that's where the rumors started. It's his garden, his storeroom, his playground after the hunt. He sees those gifted hybrids as filth that must be eradicated in the most thorough way."

At this point in the story, the atmosphere became extremely tense.

Just then, a piece of music came on the radio. It was a melody played on an old music box mechanism, tinkling and out of tune, repeating a few simple syllables, which made people's scalps tingle.

Just as the music box's sound gradually faded, the next segment was about to begin.

"Stab!"

The noise exploded without warning!

It was completely covered by eerie music and bass voices.

The sound, which had been compressed from countless screams, cries, and frantic babbling, filled the small carriage with an extremely high decibel level, shaking the windows.

The driver was so frightened that his heart almost jumped out of his throat. He lightly touched the brake pedal, and the car swayed slightly.

The terrifying noise lasted for about three or four seconds, like a sudden mental storm.

Then, just as abruptly as it appeared, it disappeared.

The world returned to silence.

The only sounds were the monotonous creaking of tires on the road and the driver's heavy, somewhat disheveled breathing.

The radio was completely silent; even the faint noise from before had disappeared, leaving only a utter, hollow state of no signal.

The faint backlight of the FM pointer illuminated that small area, which stubbornly remained at the previous frequency, but there was nothing there now.

"Damn it," the driver cursed under his breath, his voice hoarse.

I raised my hand to turn off this damn radio, but then hesitated for some reason.

A strong sense of unease gripped the driver, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The driver took a deep breath, trying to calm his wildly beating heart, and looked at the rearview mirror again.

My breathing stopped for a moment.

The blood froze into ice crystals at that moment.

In the mirror, in the shadows of the back seat of the driver's car, which was originally empty.

A face appeared!

Chapter 160 Midnight Radio (Part 2)

An extremely exaggerated clown mask.

White background, red and blue paint, upturned eyes, and a bright red mouth that stretched all the way to the ears.

It appeared quietly in the rearview mirror, as if it had always been there, sitting in the back seat of the driver.

The two eye holes on the mask were pitch black and bottomless.

The mask was facing the driver, and the smile on his lips widened slightly.

The feeling of being watched was cold and sticky, like a spider web enveloping the driver.

The driver's mind went blank; he was unable to think or move. Only the most primal fear, like a high-voltage electric shock, pierced through every nerve in his body.

Perhaps a second has passed, perhaps half a century has passed.

The driver turned his head, and his neck made a stiff "crack" sound.

back seat,

empty.

The dark seat covers had only a few blurry stripes of light and shadow swept across them by the streetlights outside the window.

Nothing at all.

No masks, no clowns.

The driver gasped for breath like a drowning man, his heart pounding wildly in his ribs, and his forehead instantly covered in cold sweat.

He turned around and stared intently at the rearview mirror inside the car.

The mirror only showed the empty back seat.