Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

"Who would willingly end their life like this? Don't you find it tragic?"

The man appeared without warning. Akira Sakurai was allowed a brief stay in the common room before lights out, under the watchful eyes of the guards. Then he saw the figure, lounging comfortably in the worn-out velvet chair opposite him, a stark contrast to the gloomy and oppressive surroundings.

Just as Sakurai Akira was about to focus and see the other person's face clearly—was it a new enforcer? The attire was so different. In an instant, the lights in the entire lounge went out with a "snap," plunging everything into darkness without warning.

The darkness wasn't absolute silence; faint lights from other rooms in the distance and the emergency lights in the guard post were still on. But this area of ​​the lounge seemed to have been isolated, immersed in an inkwell. The guard at the door was completely unaware of this sudden darkness and the extra person inside, and didn't ask any questions or raise an alarm.

Words of power? Or what?

In this deliberately created, isolated darkness, Sakurai Akira heard that man's voice ring out again, "Who would willingly end their life like this?"

The man's voice carried a soft, feminine quality, yet it possessed an imposing authority far surpassing that of the stern-faced law enforcers. He sat simply in that worn-out chair, yet gave Sakurai the illusion of sitting atop an invisible throne.

"No, no, no! I absolutely refuse!" Sakurai Akira blurted out, as if his most sensitive and painful nerve had been touched. The pent-up grievances and resentment he had suppressed for so long broke through the dam of reason at this moment. "I did nothing wrong! I didn't hurt anyone! Why do they have the right to lock me up here for the rest of my life and make me grow old alone!"

In the darkness, he felt the other person smile slightly. Then, a portable medicine box was pushed into his trembling hands. Inside, twelve glass ampoules were fixed side by side. The medicines displayed a gradient of colors, gradually transitioning from a bright, fiery red at the far left to an ominous purple at the far right, like a confined, concentrated rainbow cocktail, reflecting an alluring yet dangerous luster in the dim light seeping in from the window.

"Then inject this. It will set you free," the man said casually, yet it was like a key that had locked the final lock on Sakurai Akira's fate.

Then, before Sakurai Akira could react, the lights suddenly came back on, blinding him. The lounge was empty, as if nothing had happened. Only the real, cool-to-the-touch box of colored potion in his hand proved it wasn't a hallucination.

The guard at the gate impatiently urged, "Sakurai, what are you dawdling for? It's break time, you should go back to your dorm!" He didn't react at all to Sakurai's brief moment of distraction or the strange object that had suddenly appeared in his hand.

It all felt like a dream.

In the days that followed, on nights when even the owls in the deep mountains were asleep, Akira Sakurai began his transformation. He curled up on his bed in his single dormitory room, listening intently to the receding footsteps of the guards outside the door, and then, by the dim moonlight outside the iron bars, he injected those colored liquids into his veins, one needle after another.

What exactly did the drug do to his body? Sakurai Akira didn't know for sure. But he could clearly feel something long dormant being violently awakened. His bloodline, deemed trash, was now boiling and roaring violently, like ice cubes thrown into scalding oil. Every cell in his body seemed to awaken from a long hibernation, greedily breathing, dividing, and transforming.

Power, a wild and surging power he had never experienced before, surged through his veins like a tidal wave. Sometimes he would wake up suddenly from bizarre dreams, his sheets soaked with sweat. He would look up at the cold, bright moon outside the iron bars of his window and no longer feel his own insignificance. Instead, he would have the illusion that he was standing at the center of the world, the master of everything, and that the moon was merely an embellishment on his crown.

Just as the man in the darkness had promised, Akira Sakurai got what he had always dreamed of: confidence, power, and the feeling that he was finally alive, even though that feeling quickly slid into the abyss.

Chapter 331 The Rampaging Beast

However, what followed was an uncontrollable desire. Like vines, they grew wildly from the darkest corners of his heart, entwining Sakurai Akira's reason. One late night, the burning sensation brought on by the drug reached its peak. He felt like a piece of metal thrown into a furnace, burning from the inside out, with magma flowing through his blood.

He was driven by primal impulses.

When he woke up, he found himself embracing his female teacher, Nami. Nami's beautiful spine was twisted and broken into several pieces, folded at an inhuman angle, and her throat was ripped open with a huge gash, with congealed blood splattering and staining the sheets and walls red.

His own mouth reeked of blood.

The events of last night, when he lost control, flashed vividly in his mind like shattered film, tinged with blood: He rose as if sleepwalking, the surging power within him allowing him to easily break the lock. He walked to Nami-sensei's dormitory, where she lived alone, and knocked on the door. When Nami opened the door, still sleepy and confused, he, like a true beast, pinned her down on the cold floor.

What killed Nami was the tyranny that had completely lost control in the throes of extreme excitement after experiencing power for the first time.

Fear and regret pierced his heart, but soon, ecstasy overwhelmed him like a volcanic eruption.

Nami died at the age of twenty-nine. She was the only light in Sakurai Akira's adolescence, the most beautiful and unattainable woman he could ever meet. At that time, he was so far away from Nami, as far as the stars. The only way he could get her attention was through clumsy mischief, which would earn him a few angry scoldings from her. Even after becoming a school janitor, he was always a humble and weak child in Nami's eyes.

But now, he's changed! The potion has completely transformed him! He's entered a world where the strong reign supreme. In his eyes now, everything in the world, including Nami whom he once looked up to, is as insignificant as an ant. He can have any woman he wants, and everyone must obey him. He can kill whoever he wants, and they must die! This feeling of controlling the lives of others terrifies him, yet it also intoxicates him.

He dragged Nami's still-warm body to the corner of the campus under her favorite cherry blossom tree and hastily buried it.

Under the deepest darkness of the night, he moved like a ghost towards the high wall that had imprisoned him for over a decade. The wall now seemed like a low step to him. He ran as if riding the wind and thunder, his body incredibly light. With just a slight bend of his knees, he leaped over the crackling, electrified barbed wire, like a raptor breaking free of its cage, plunging into the boundless darkness outside.

On the run, he did consider stopping the injections of those colorful drugs. Fragments of reason occasionally sent faint warnings. But with each injection that seeped into his veins, his confidence multiplied, and his strength surged. An increasingly intense, increasingly twisted desire drove him. He needed release, he needed to prove his power, he needed to draw a sense of existence and the thrill of conquest from his prey.

Along the way, he began hunting down lone women. He treated them cruelly, sucking their warm blood as if savoring fine wine.

This is the fifteenth one.

However, even with this unparalleled power and inflated confidence, a chilling feeling that penetrated to the bone was always with him, and he couldn't be sure if he could truly evade the pursuit of law enforcement.

Akira Sakurai didn't know exactly how many enforcers there were, or who they were, but he had heard some terrifying legends circulating in the shadow world of hybrids: when they carried out executions, they were the embodiment of all evil in the world, their methods were extremely ruthless and their style was extremely bloody, and they possessed the terrifying ability to extract secrets from the mouths of stone statues.

If anyone dares to defy the ironclad laws of the darkness, the only thing they can do is flee, and flee endlessly. Like a fox being chased by hounds, until the day they are captured and mercilessly executed.

At this moment, in the rattling northbound train, Akira Sakurai, like a lurking cheetah, continued to scan the carriages with his beast-like sense of smell.

He hadn't yet identified the most suitable prey. Most of the passengers in this carriage were young couples or groups of chattering high school students on school trips.

They are interconnected, forming a small group. If someone suddenly disappears, it will quickly be noticed by his companions, causing a commotion and revealing his whereabouts. What he needs are lone prey, someone he can enjoy the hunt to the fullest and someone he can escape safely from.

He waited patiently. The train whistle sounded again, tearing through the Hokkaido twilight.

There were other passengers in the carriage, but only one met his hunting criteria at the moment.

She was a lone girl, wearing a typical sailor-style high school uniform with a dark blue shirt and a red bow tie. She looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, definitely younger than twenty-three-year-old Sakurai Akira.

The girl's figure was getting taller; the slightly tight hem of her top and skirt outlined signs that she was developing and growing taller. Her long, black hair fell smoothly over her shoulders, with a plastic cat hair clip on one side, and a large Hello Kitty backpack sat beside her.

His whole being exuded an air of youthful naiveté and inexperience, like a newly formed, fuzzy green fruit.

Akira Sakurai generally doesn't like women who are too young; he prefers mature women with defined curves.

During those isolated years at the church school, he could only catch glimpses of alluring women on screen through the occasional television programs he was allowed to watch—a distant and unattainable dream for him.

During his ten-plus days on the run, he turned this dream into a bloody reality. He could touch with his own hands what he could only imagine in his dreams, and then destroy them. This sense of control—possessing beautiful things and then crushing them with his own hands—brought him immense satisfaction from his dream coming true.

However, Akira Sakurai's gaze lingered on the girl's lower body for a few more seconds.

The girl had an exceptionally beautiful pair of long legs.

Based on the experience that Sakurai Akira accumulated in just over ten days with blood, if this prey dressed up a little, put on mature makeup, and changed into a short skirt and high heels, walking on the bustling streets of Tokyo, she would be enough to become the focus of countless eyes.

Time was of the essence. He had to seize every opportunity to hunt during his stops. For someone like him, whose strength was forcibly enhanced by potions and who lived like a mayfly, every hunt could be his last, so he had to act quickly.

He keenly noticed that the girl was completely indifferent to him. Through the blurry reflection of the car window, he could catch glimpses of her occasionally glancing at him. She was secretly observing him. Such prey, often harboring curiosity about the unknown and danger, or in a period of emotional emptiness, are actually easier to target than experienced adults.

Akira Sakurai was full of confidence in his charm at that moment. After injecting himself with a colored drug called the Molotov Cocktail, the thin and unstable dragon blood in his body was greatly purified and activated.

High-purity dragon blood naturally exudes an irresistible attraction to ordinary humans. This is an innate advantage of higher species over lower species, like a magnet attracting iron filings.

Although he was still wearing the cheap jacket and jeans he'd snatched from a convenience store, which looked rather shabby from days on the run, if he wanted to, he could concentrate and gaze into a woman's eyes, and she would often become mesmerized, drawn to him involuntarily, and obediently sit down next to him like a moth to a flame.

He subtly sniffed again, trying to detect a more specific scent on the girl.

A light, pleasant scent of a young girl wafted over, a blend of the clean aroma of soapberry and the sweetness of flowers, though it was hard to pinpoint the exact type. The scent was refreshing, yet it inexplicably irritated Sakurai Akira.

What he craved was the hormones emanating from mature women; that scent could instantly ignite his rage.

The girl's youthful, pure floral scent, like a rusty key, inadvertently touched a long-forgotten corner of his memory. Sitting on the grassy field under the square sky, he inhaled the afternoon's fragrance of grass and flowers wafting in from beyond the stone walls. There might have been moments of tranquility in his memory, but the underlying tone was ultimately despair.

He could see the girl's inner struggle and hesitation. Her feet, clad in round-toed, square-toed leather shoes, were lightly tapping the carriage floor, her toes drawing invisible circles on the ground. She seemed anxious, yet also carried a hint of the unease of a young girl who feared her thoughts being seen through.

The prey had entered the hunting range. Sakurai Akira adjusted his posture, like a bow slowly drawn in the shadows, ready to deliver a fatal blow.

Chapter 332 The Unsuspecting Prey

"Is your name Madoka?" Sakurai Akira opened his eyes, a wicked and mysterious smile playing on his lips—a smile he believed to be in control of the situation. That smile had once captivated thrill-seeking women in bars.

"Yes! My name is Ogata Madoka!" The girl jumped up and stood up straight as if she had been sprung up, loudly announcing her full name. Her posture and tone were exactly like those of a well-behaved student who had been suddenly called on by a strict teacher in class.

"I'm a lost magician named Sakurai Akira, so I know your name. We were destined to meet." Sakurai Akira maintained his smile, waiting for the expected reaction. He thought the other person would be struck by his supernatural words and charming smile, and then approach with curiosity and a touch of shy attraction.

"Mr. Sakurai, you're a magician! Mr. Sakurai Akira is so amazing!" The girl named Xiaoyuan was not charmed at all. Instead, she clapped her hands in surprise as if she had seen an interesting clown in a circus. She even bowed solemnly before sitting down in the empty seat opposite Sakurai Akira. She placed her hands properly on her knees and looked at him with bright eyes, full of pure curiosity rather than any romantic feelings between a man and a woman.

Sakurai Akira suddenly realized how childish, even foolish, his behavior had been. His prey's reaction was completely different from the script he had rehearsed countless times. In the past, when he would recite magician lines to women drinking alone in dimly lit bars, they would usually play along, plop down next to him with a provocative smile, and subtly rub against him.

That was the game he was familiar with, the game between predator and prey.

He wasn't a magician at all; he simply noticed the two small, round characters embroidered in fine thread in an inconspicuous corner of the homemade cat doll hanging from the girl's conspicuous Hello Kitty backpack. Anyone with a keen eye could spot such a small trick.

"Mr. Sakurai, are you going out alone too?" Madoka asked after settling down, with the politeness of a student.

“Yes, my destination is Otaru,” Sakurai Akira replied, regaining control of the rhythm.

"Hey! My destination is also Otaru! What a coincidence!" Xiaoyuan clapped her hands again, her face showing genuine joy at meeting someone traveling the same way.

This dialogue was like something out of a cheesy, 1980s Japanese romance drama. Sakurai Akira was speechless for a moment; all the lines he had prepared were stuck in his throat.

These days, with the beast-like eyes and sudden surge of confidence granted by the drug, he can easily seduce one woman after another. This gives him the illusion that he is already a master of love and will be invincible in front of women.

But when faced with this high school student with a completely different way of thinking, he realized with frustration that he didn't really know how to strike up a conversation with a normal girl, especially one with a special psychological state. He was utterly tongue-tied and at his wit's end.

"What a coincidence! I'm also going to Otaru!"

How should he respond to that? Should he act like a restless, scheming high school student, saying, "The moonlight is so beautiful! XX-chan, let's go on a trip together!"? Or should he imitate those world-weary, melodramatic artsy young men, slowly gazing out the window and saying in a deep voice, "No matter how beautiful the scenery, nothing beats having a loved one in your arms"? Or perhaps, he should directly play the role of a lecherous old man, flashing a self-satisfied charming smile: "Little sister, you're so cute, uncle will treat you to a lollipop?"

Every possible response flashed through his mind, and each one was utterly terrible, each bearing the heavy imitation of something from a TV drama. It was then that Sakurai Akira suddenly realized that in the twenty-three years of his life before his escape, he had rarely had the opportunity to speak with normal girls his own age.

His understanding of the outside world and how men and women interact came almost entirely from Japanese dramas played on his old television. In that cramped single dormitory room, during countless long and lonely nights when he was locked up, he could only stare blankly at the glowing screen, taking those fictional plots and dialogues as templates for the real world.

"Is Mr. Sakurai in college? I'll be starting college next year too. May I call you senior or senpai?" Seeing that he hadn't spoken for a while, Madoka took the initiative to start a conversation, her eyes filled with cautious probing and respect.

"Hmm, whatever," Sakurai Akira said, feeling like a robot programmed with simple responses.

He was starting to get impatient. This high school student with the cute cat hair clip seemed to be out of touch with the times. In Tokyo, girls her age would probably be worldly-wise, some even having been involved in compensated dating for years! They understood eye contact, hints, and the rules of the game for adults, not engaging in such a retro and naive conversation.

“Did I disturb your rest? Please, Marseille, I’ll be right away.” Xiao Yuan keenly caught his fleeting impatience, immediately stood up uneasily, bowed again, and prepared to leave.

"No, it's just my leg, you don't need to worry about it," Sakurai Akira waved his hand helplessly, his tone somewhat stiff.

This was the first time he had encountered such a tricky problem while hunting. The prey had clearly walked right into his trap, yet it was trying to leave because of his poor interaction. He felt something was wrong. Was his judgment flawed, or was this prey simply special?

"Madoka, can you tell me what you're going to do in Otaru?" Sakurai Akira quickly asked in an attempt to keep Madoka from leaving.

"Well, how should I put it, I'm going to bury my friend."

"friend?"

"My friend is a cat named Xiao Nian," Xiao Yuan stopped and carefully took out an exquisite ceramic urn from her Hello Kitty backpack. It was a handmade ceramic piece, decorated with colorful glaze depicting a cute chibi version of Xiao Yuan and a little black cat, with the words "Xiao Nian, forever together" written beside it.

Seeing the urn, Sakurai Akira secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Now he was basically certain that Madoka wasn't bait sent by the enforcers. Even if there were high school girls among the enforcers, even if they were good at disguising themselves, they couldn't possibly have a cat's urn, imbued with genuine emotion, made on the spot and carried around just to stage a melodramatic scene of burying a kitten in Hokkaido.

This is so out of character for law enforcement, which is known for its efficiency and ruthlessness. This girl is most likely just an ordinary high school student who genuinely went to bury her pet and has some psychological issues.

"What's the story between you and Xiao Nian?" Sakurai Akira sat up straight again, speaking in a gentler, more guiding tone. Perhaps listening to her prey's story would make it easier for her to lower her guard.

"Let me think about it, Mr. Sakurai," Madoka thought seriously for a while, her gaze drifting to the fleeting scenery outside the window, searching through the river of memories. "Well, it's a long story. When I was very, very young, I was a little withdrawn, and none of the people in my class knew this secret. Mr. Sakurai, please don't reveal the secret," she said in a low voice, her expression solemn.

Akira Sakurai instantly understood the problem. The reason why Madoka's dialogue style seemed stiff and unnatural, like reading from a script, was a possible aftereffect of autism.

In a way, the two are somewhat similar, both being isolated from the normal world by an invisible barrier. As soon as Sakurai Akira boarded the train, he noticed Madoka sitting by the window, lost in thought. The train hadn't started moving yet, and she was silently watching the bustling crowd on the platform.

No wonder he could detect a unique, snow-like coolness about this young girl—not a body odor, but an aura. Having lived in a lonely, icy world, experiencing the most profound cold, even under the scorching sun, a lingering, unmelting chill remained deep within her soul.

“Before, I was very afraid of interacting with other people and always hid in my own world. Even my parents couldn’t communicate with me. When I was five years old, I still couldn’t speak,” Xiaoyuan began to recount, her voice very soft, as if afraid of disturbing the little self in her memories.

"Did your aunt and uncle take you to see a psychologist?" Sakurai Akira finally found a way to keep the conversation going. He needed to maintain this fragile connection and wait for a better opportunity.

The hunter's patience was rekindled at this moment.