Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

“I remember. That painting was so special that anyone who saw it once could never forget it,” Chu Zihang said.

He stood in that secret room where the murals were kept for a long time; the large golden painting left a very deep impression on his mind.

Against a pure black background, a skull drawn in pure gold and a human form a double fish shape, head to tail. The skull's hand bones are clasped together with the human's hand, as if passing something to each other—a bone, a bone carved into the shape of a key.

At the time, he couldn't understand what the painting was about at all; he only felt that the painting was filled with a strange beauty that transcended time.

And now, the person who truly understands painting is sitting in front of him, wearing a scarlet robe and smoking a pipe.

Chapter 783 The Well Where Bones Are Hidden

"Let's start with that one then," Kazama Ruri said, tapping his pipe gently on the edge of the tatami mat. The ashes from the burnt-out tobacco fell silently as he refilled the pipe with fresh tobacco.

Let's travel back to ancient Japan—

He borrowed a light from the paper lantern, brought it close to the pipe, and took a deep drag. A fleeting, dark red light flashed in the tobacco, like an eye that suddenly opened and then immediately closed in the depths of the night.

Ruri Kazama exhaled wisps of white smoke, which slowly rose, spread, and swirled in the light of the paper lantern, like a layer of crumpled gauze.

The pipe was originally something for old men to play with. In the corridors of hot spring hotels and in the tatami lounges of Go academies, old men with wrinkled faces would smoke pipes while chatting about the weather and Go in hoarse voices.

Yet, even a handsome man like Kazama Ruri possesses an unexpected beauty when smoking. His long, slender, fair fingers hold the black pipe, exuding a casual yet alluring charm, as if even the act of smoking itself has become part of his performance.

Smoke filled the air and lingered for a long time, like a white curtain enveloping the three of them, completely separating the Japanese-style house from the noisy world outside the window.

"You must be very curious about what exactly that god who sleeps in Takamagahara is," Kazama Ruri said softly. His voice was shrouded in smoke, making it seem somewhat ethereal, as if it came from a very, very far place.

"Of course there are no real gods in this world. So-called gods and demons are things that humans cannot understand. When humans encounter something they cannot comprehend, they either grovel down and worship it as a god, or they pick up weapons and curse it as a demon. In fact, it is neither a god nor a demon; it is simply itself. There are all sorts of things in the world that are worshipped as gods: some are a tree, some are a river, and some are just a strangely shaped stone. But the god in Takamagahara is just a sleeping skeleton."

He paused for a moment. The flame of the paper lantern reflected two tiny, dancing golden spots in his pupils.

"The skeleton of the White King."

"Isn't it more than just a piece of dry bone?" Chu Zihang said.

"Of course it's not simple. Dragons are magnificent creatures, and the White King is one of the emperors among them. Even though it has been dead for tens of thousands of years, its blood and genes still remain in its bones. It's not just bones—it's a seed. A seed buried deep in the ancient frozen soil, waiting for spring to arrive so it can sprout. Given the right time, the bones can be reformed into a new embryo. The White King will descend upon this world once more."

Caesar gasped. He recalled the book "Dragon Genetic Genealogy" he had flipped through in the library of Kassel College. That thick book, with its gold-embossed cover, described the resurrection mechanism of dragons in extremely calm academic terms.

Cocooning.

Even the lowest-ranking dragon, as long as some of its remains have not been completely destroyed, may one day in the future reassemble into a cocoon.

The White King is the supreme being second only to the Black King. Its skeleton is not a remains, but a time bomb designed to remain dormant for tens of thousands of years without losing its activity.

"You still keep this deadly thing?" Caesar slammed his folding fan onto the tatami mat. "It should have been destroyed long ago. We should have strapped it to a nuclear bomb and blown it to smithereens, or launched it into outer space with a rocket! Keeping this thing on Earth is like all of humanity sitting on a volcano that could erupt at any moment!"

“Yes, that’s something extremely dangerous.” Kazama Ruri nodded slowly, not at all surprised by his excitement.

"It is both the bone of a demon and the bone of a god, depending entirely on whether we classify the dragon race as gods or demons. The Snake Clan has passed down a saying for generations: after the White King is resurrected, he will bestow his blood upon his descendants, helping us evolve into pure-blooded dragons. How wonderful it would be to be a dragon, with a long lifespan, and even if you die, you can be reborn through cocooning; you have power that surpasses that of humans, and you can understand the deepest mysteries of the world without learning; you are born a king, and you never have to bow to anyone; you can enjoy eternal pleasure and conquest, without sorrow, without illness, without aging. That is the only remains left in this world by the ultimate beings."

Ruri Kazama took a deep drag on his pipe, this time a very deep one. The red light in the bowl flashed for a moment, like a tiny firework bursting between his fingers. Then he slowly exhaled the smoke from his nostrils, two white plumes of smoke rising in front of him and merging into the white veil that enveloped them.

“Who could bear to destroy it?” he said.

"Fortunately, Izanagi didn't think that way. He was the one who had direct contact with the White King. He knew just how terrifying that so-called ultimate being was. He wasn't blinded by those beautiful words like 'immortality,' 'power,' and 'king,' because he had seen it with his own eyes, perhaps even seen what happened to the humans around the White King when he revealed his true form, perhaps even seen what those blessed descendants ultimately became. He didn't leave a diary, not a single line of text, but he made his decision through his actions."

He placed his pipe across his lap and made a sealing gesture with his hands.

"He sealed the sacred remains in a well. Then he chose three of his most outstanding children and appointed them as priests, ordering them to guard the well for generations to come, ensuring that the sacred remains would never be removed. This is the origin of the three inner families. The Minamoto clan corresponds to Amaterasu, who governs the sun and the divine realm; the Tachibana clan corresponds to Tsukuyomi, who governs the night and the tides; and the Uesugi clan corresponds to Susanoo, who governs the ocean and storms. The successors of the three families are respectively called Amaterasu-no-Mikoto, Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, and Susanoo-no-Mikoto. 'Mikoto' is an honorific title for the priests, meaning that their lives no longer belong to themselves, but only to this mission passed down from generation to generation."

Kazama Ruri raised her eyes to look at Caesar, her eyes, half-removed from makeup, appearing exceptionally deep behind the smoke.

"My brother is Amaterasu. A man who reigns over the world like the sun."

"Where is that well?" Caesar asked.

"It's called the Well of Corpses. It's somewhere outside of Takamagahara, but no one knows its exact location," said Kazama Ruri.

"Have you ever heard of the funeral rites of Mongolian nobles? The son carries his father's remains deep into the vast grasslands, clamps the remains between two thick wooden planks, secures them with gold rings at the top and bottom, and buries them vertically in the ground. Then thousands of cavalrymen ride across the grasslands, flattening the entire land without leaving a trace. The nobleman's son brings a mother camel and her newborn calf, and kills the calf on the grave in front of the mother camel. From then on, only the mother camel remembers the location of the grave. While the mother camel is alive, descendants can follow her to the grassy burial site to pay their respects; but after the mother camel dies, no one in the world can find the burial place anymore."

"Izanagi used this method. He did not want his descendants to find that well."

Neither Caesar nor Chu Zihang spoke. Since Kazama Ruri had put her words to this point, there must be a "but" hidden behind them.

Kazama Ruri raised the pipe to her lips, but did not take a drag.

"But the sacred remains still awoke."

"The White King has awakened?" Chu Zihang asked.

Chapter 784 The Awakening of the Holy Remains

“No,” Kazama Ruri shook her head. “The Sacred Remains is just a piece of dry bone; it can’t hatch anything on its own. No matter how strong a seed is, it can’t sprout without soil. The Sacred Remains must be fused with living flesh and blood—living flesh and blood of a hybrid, flowing with dragon blood. The reason Izanagi sealed it in the deep well was so that it would never come into contact with any hybrid.”

"Because he knew what it was. It was the skeleton of the White King, and the White King was most skilled at mind manipulation among all dragons. It was born with an ability, like the fragrance of flowers attracting bees, like the anglerfish in the deep sea lighting a bait lamp in the dark. It could lure any creature that approached it to willingly merge with it. Not through violent conquest, but through a voice that whispers repeatedly in your mind, like the person you love most calling you, like your mother calling your childhood name, making you willingly break the seal, reach into the well, scoop it out, and place it in your heart."

Kazama Ruri casually flicked the ash from her cigarette, and the ash fell silently into a small celadon dish beside the tatami mat.

“But Izanagi himself is that mother camel.”

"He knows the location of the well. As long as he is alive, the Holy Remains still have the potential to awaken. He was once the hero who sealed the Holy Remains; there is probably no hero in this world more remarkable than him. He used that piece of bone to build a dungeon that no key could open, and then made himself the custodian of the only key. But heroes grow old. Old enough to become delirious, old enough to be unable to distinguish between memories and hallucinations, old enough to hear that voice whispering in his ear every night when he lies in bed."

"In the final days of his life, he withered and shrunken beyond recognition, clinging to life only with the remnants of dragon blood within him. Every night he dreamt of his beautiful wife, Izanami, still as young as on their wedding night, wearing that white robe embroidered with golden cloud patterns, standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, smiling and reaching out to him. That was the seed planted in his mind by the Holy Relic. This seed had been planted when he was still young and powerful, but back then he was clear-headed enough to distinguish between memories, temptations, and true danger. He suppressed the seed at the deepest level of his consciousness, suppressing it for his entire life. Only when he grew old and his mind became blurred did that seal crumble little by little, like paper soaked by rain."

As Kazama Ruri leaned forward slightly, his scarlet robe slipped a few inches off his shoulders, revealing his fair collarbone.

"So Izanagi dug up the sacred remains again. Dragging his aging body, which could barely move, he returned alone to the grasslands he had sworn never to set foot there again. The old camel, following the path in her memory, almost invisible due to the erosion of time, found the well. He moved the stones aside, reached in, and lifted the sacred remains. Then he merged with the remains, transforming into a deformed dragon. In mythology, its name is—"

"The Yamata no Orochi," Caesar said for him.

“The first generation Orochi,” Kazama Ruri nodded, his pipe slowly twirling between his fingers. “It was enormous, ferocious, and a greedy devourer. But it hadn’t had time to complete itself. The fusion of the sacred remains with the host is a long process; the longer the fusion lasts, the closer its form becomes to a complete dragon. The first generation Orochi was discovered early in the fusion process, and in this incomplete state, it could still be killed.”

"Susanoo retrieved the Ame-no-Habakiri, forged by Izanagi himself, from the shrine. Then, he poured a large amount of mercury into the eight rivers upstream where the Yamata no Orochi drank. Mercury is an indigestible poison for dragons, more deadly than any sword. After drinking the mercury-contaminated water, the Yamata no Orochi fell into a state of exhaustion from poisoning, its eight heads collapsed to the ground, and its scales peeled off one by one. Susanoo seized the opportunity to cut off its eight heads one by one. He killed a dragon."

"But Susanoo's own life was also coming to an end. The battle to slay the dragon had exhausted all his strength, and the poison of the dragon's blood had corroded every inch of his bones. In his weakest, dying moments, that voice echoed in his mind as well. When he personally separated the sacred remains from the remains of the Yamata no Orochi, the seed had already been planted deep within his consciousness. Just as a mother gives her last breath to her newborn baby before she dies, the sacred remains had already found a new host the moment before the host died. The second person to merge with the sacred remains was Susanoo himself."

Chu Zihang didn't say anything, but his eyes conveyed the question he wanted to ask: The cycle starts with Izanagi, then Susanoo, and then what?

"Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi believed that the sacred remains had been burned to ashes along with the corpse of Yamata no Orochi. They buried Susanoo with the most solemn ceremony, as a hero and the only survivor among the Three Sacred Treasures. His remains were buried in Takamagahara, the ancient city that symbolized the divine kingdom, the sacred ground guarded by the priests of the three inner families for generations, and the most secure tomb they could imagine. But they did not know that what they buried in Takamagahara was not the remains of a hero, but a seed that had already sprouted. The sacred remains awakened again through Susanoo's body, becoming the second Yamata no Orochi. By the time Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi finally understood what the roar coming from the depths of Takamagahara was, it was already too late."

Ruri Kazama extinguished his pipe. He placed it on the dressing table.

“Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi did one thing. They didn’t run away because they knew that once Yamata no Orochi stepped out of Takamagahara and into the human world, the whole of Japan would be chewed up and swallowed up by it. They used their last strength to sacrifice themselves and lock that thing away. Then they sank the entire Takamagahara, that ancient city that had once been the heart of the divine kingdom and had brought glory to generations, along with themselves and Yamata no Orochi, into the sea. The ancient city slid down to the deep sea, dragging its foundations, and was covered by more than eight kilometers of seawater.”

"Eight kilometers, what does that mean? Sunlight can't reach it, human submersibles can't reach it, and no hybrid could survive at that depth. The seawater formed a new seal. The sacred remains were completely isolated; no hybrid could approach it, no flesh could merge with it, until the Lenin, like a key falling ten thousand meters from the sea, crashed into Takamagahara. Its wreckage shattered the seal, and the blood of the ancient dragon seeped in along the keyhole-like cracks, awakening what was dormant."

The room fell silent again.

"The sacred remains have now awakened and left Takamagahara. We cannot know its current form, nor how far it has awakened. It may still be a slowly multiplying fragment of bone, or it may have already parasitized the chest of some unknown hybrid. It is like a huge, invisible ghost, silently wandering the Japanese land, searching for its next and final host. Give it enough time, and Yamata no Orochi will descend upon the world once more. Give Yamata no Orochi enough time, and it will complete itself into the White King, a pure white demon king, a flawless, fully-formed dragon emperor."

Kazama Ruri raised her eyes, looked at Caesar, and then at Chu Zihang. "That's the white demon king. Only the black demon king can subdue it. But the black demon king Nidhogg is dead. If the white king is resurrected, it will be invincible."

“According to your Japanese mythology, the Yamata no Orochi is a creature with a body as large as mountains,” Caesar said, frowning as he gestured the outline of mountains in the air with his finger. “This doesn’t make any sense biologically. If a creature that large existed, its own weight would be enough to break all its bones. A blue whale that is thirty meters long and weighs two hundred tons is already the physical limit of the largest animal ever to have existed on Earth; any larger and its skeleton wouldn’t be able to withstand it.”

"It may not be as enormous as the mountains, but it is certainly a colossal dragon of terrifying size." Kazama Ruri picked up her pipe again, but didn't light it. She simply held the mouthpiece between her lips, using it to aid her thought. "It was born incomplete. The fusion of the sacred remains and its host was never perfect. Each fusion was like forcibly stuffing a complete puzzle piece into a completely misaligned frame. So, Yamata no Orochi isn't the agile flying dragon you've seen in textbooks. It's more like a deformed child among dragons: sluggish, brutal, and so enormous that it couldn't even support its own body. In the murals, it wasn't depicted as a graceful dragon. Think back carefully to that painting; what was its posture?"

Caesar closed his eyes and thought for a moment.

Eight long necks emerged from a bloated, mountain-like body piled on the ground, like eight enormous pythons crawling out of a ball of flesh. It had no wings, no claws, and even its tail was indistinct. It simply lay motionless on the ground, only its eight heads moving.

"It's not a dragon soaring in the clouds; it's a monster paralyzed on the ground, unable to move. Its weight has crushed its ribs, spine, and leg bones, yet it doesn't die, because dragons have such incredible vitality. Unable to move, it can only dip its eight heads into eight rivers to drink, like a living mountain of flesh, nailing itself to that spot. But this is not its final form. It is merely an ugly pupa, clumsy, fragile, and repulsive, but inside the pupa, the caterpillar is dissolving and reconstructing its entire body, waiting only for the moment it breaks free from the cocoon. It will emerge as a butterfly, reigning supreme over this world as the White King."

Chu Zihang remained silent for a long time.

"If such a colossal dragon did indeed exist in history, where are its remains now? As far as I know, dragon skeletons are far more resistant to decay than human skeletons, and can be preserved for tens of thousands of years or even longer under certain conditions. If the remains of the first or second generation of Yamata no Orochi are still somewhere on land, given its described enormous size, it would be difficult to completely go undetected. Satellite remote sensing, geological exploration, and even ordinary archaeological excavations—it's impossible for something this large to leave no trace."

Kazama Ruri smirked, took the unlit pipe from her lips, and twirled it between her fingers.

"I don't know about that. If I'm lucky enough to see it in person, I'll remember to take a picture with it and send a copy to each of you."

“This kind of joke is really not funny,” Caesar said.

Chapter 785 Bondarev

"Let me present you with another great gift. Let's hear the second story." Kazama Ruri placed her pipe on a celadon dish, bent down and pulled out a pre-prepared file folder from under the dressing table, and handed it to Caesar. "But before the story begins, you two might as well take a look at this file first."

A brown file folder with a badge printed on the cover: crossed swords and shields against a red five-pointed star, and below that, a sickle and axe.

The KGB insignia. This insignia was swept into the dustbin of history along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it once represented one of the most fearsome intelligence machines on the planet.

At the height of its power, the KGB's reach extended above all Soviet party and government organs, encompassing everything from intelligence gathering and political assassinations to domestic stability maintenance and overseas subversion.

There was a time in the Soviet Union when people would automatically lower their voices when mentioning the KGB, as if the walls were listening. And indeed, the walls were listening.

Caesar took the file folder, untied the white cotton thread sealing it, and pulled out a yellowed officer's file. The edges of the pages were brittle and slightly curled, making a soft cracking sound as he turned them.

The first page of the file had a black and white photograph. The person in the photo had a typical Russian face, with high brow bones, deep-set eyes, a straight nose, and a sharply defined jawline. He was young and handsome, with broad shoulders, and was wearing a Soviet army officer's uniform.

“This man’s name is Bondarev,” Kazama Ruri said, tapping the photograph lightly with a finger. “But today, he is called Tachibana Masamune.”

Caesar's pupils contracted slightly.

He recalled that brief meeting at the Shinshin-ji Temple, where Tachibana Masamune knelt before the tea table, holding a teacup in both hands, and spoke Japanese with a slight foreign accent.

Caesar noticed that his pronunciation contained a certain retroflex palatal sound, a feature that native Russian speakers found extremely difficult to completely eliminate when speaking Japanese.

Masamune Tachibana readily admitted that he was indeed born in Russia and moved to Japan with his parents when he was young.

If his account is true, then the Soviet officer named Bondarev before us is the same person who, years later, changed his identity, crossed the ocean, and climbed to the top of the Japanese underworld to become the patriarch.

Caesar handed the file to Chu Zihang, who took it and quickly flipped through it, his eyes scanning back and forth between each line of Russian typewriter marks and handwritten annotations.

"Although this is a human story, its thrill is no less than that of Japanese mythology. When humans become ferocious, even dragons have to step back." Kazama Ruri picked up her pipe again, filled the bowl with golden tobacco, and gently pressed it down with her fingertips. "Decades ago, in northern Siberia, inside the Arctic Circle, there was an unnamed port that only icebreakers could dock at..."

He struck a match, held it to the flame of the paper lantern to light it, and then moved it to the pipe. The tobacco shimmered with a dark red glow in the firelight for a moment, before white smoke slowly billowed from his lips.

He calmly transported the listeners back to the depths of winter in 1991, to the chalky snowfields of Siberia on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

The port had no name, only a code name. In the KGB's classified files, it was called "Black Swan Port," a lonely fortress built of permafrost and concrete, perched on the closest inhabited coastline to the Arctic Circle, sealed off by ice and snow for ten months of the year, accessible only by nuclear-powered icebreakers.

There is a research institute, an orphanage, a giant icebreaker docked at the pier, and a top-secret experimental project containing dinosaur skeletons, embryos preserved in formalin, and remains of unknown creatures excavated from the ancient permafrost.

The story continues to unfold. Initially, Caesar and Chu Zihang would occasionally interrupt him, posing questions such as, "What are the coordinates of that port?" "The Lenin is a nuclear-powered icebreaker; how was its propulsion system modified to carry the ancient dragon embryo?" "How did Bondarev manage to escape the KGB's nationwide manhunt all by himself?"

Each question is addressed with specific, verifiable details.

Ruri Kazama answered each question precisely and clearly, providing accurate coordinates, names, and time points without any ambiguity.

But gradually, both of them fell silent.

Those questions are the gateway to this story, but once you actually step inside, the gateway no longer matters.