Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Without hesitation, Lu Mingfei bought the flounder and asked the vendor to spread the whole fish out on a diamond-shaped wire mesh to grill it while brushing it with soy sauce.

The local diners in the restaurant excitedly tapped their chopsticks on the plates to support the young foreign diner, and each of them received a small plate of grilled, tender white fish.

Erii sat on a cloth mat next to the oven, holding a teacup bigger than her face in both hands, her cheeks flushed red from the firelight.

She ate the whole time—fried chicken nuggets, udon noodles, grilled fish, and ochazuke (rice with tea). Her appetite was astonishing, yet she ate quietly, like a cat that had been fed to the perfect, comfortable temperature.

Then they strolled together along the long street adorned with paper lanterns, killing time in a casual manner.

Erii squatted in a small shop selling hand-painted porcelain dolls on the street corner for nearly twenty minutes. Finally, she picked out a rough pottery cup with a goldfish pattern. She took out a notepad and bargained with the old shopkeeper who didn't speak any English. Her bargaining method was to quietly cross out the price that the shopkeeper had drawn on the tag, write down the price she could accept in neat handwriting next to it, and then raise her eyes and stare at the other person with her red eyes.

They didn't finally head out of town until after 9 p.m.

But they didn't go to the parking lot to get the burgundy Porsche 911. Caesar saw through his binoculars that Lu Mingfei patted the Porsche's hood as he passed by the parking lot, as if he said something to it, and then walked towards the train station ticket window at the other end of town without looking back.

They bought two tickets and entered the deserted little station facing the sea.

Chu Zihang silently climbed in through the broken window on the other side of the wooden house, holding a timetable that had just been printed out from the station's automatic ticket machine.

"I checked. There is a last local train heading back to Tokyo at 9:45 p.m., which transfers to the Shinkansen in Matsuyama City and arrives at Tokyo Station at approximately 3:00 a.m."

“That’s a pretty accurate calculation. Driving a sports car all the way here, but taking the train back at a leisurely pace, just in time for the human smuggling ship to set sail.” Caesar put down his binoculars and chewed and swallowed the last bite of dried squid in the darkness. “But what does he plan to do with the deposit on that Porsche? A deposit at a car rental company is no small sum.”

“The deposit isn’t the most important thing to worry about right now,” Chu Zihang said, looking at the vast mountain range behind him, whose outlines could only be barely discerned in the darkness. After a moment of silence, he suddenly said, “I don’t know why, but I’ve felt like someone is following us all this way.”

Chapter 834 Frilian: Transform into a Dragon, Erii

Inside the cabin overlooking the sea, Caesar took the telescope down from his eyes and wiped the condensation from the lenses with his sleeve.

In the few seconds that he looked down to wipe his glasses, the figures of the three people on the platform suddenly disappeared.

He hadn't left. The gravel beach in front of and behind the platform and along the railway tracks were all open spaces with no buildings to hide in. The only exit was the ticket gate with the "Meijinji Station" sign, and that wooden door hadn't been opened since he started cleaning the mirror.

Lu Mingfei, Erii, and Frilian simply vanished into thin air, as if swallowed up by the night itself.

Caesar raised his telescope again and scanned the entire platform repeatedly. He saw only the two pairs of black high heels and sneakers that were still in place, neatly placed side by side on the edge of the platform, and Erii's huge Rilakkuma, sitting quietly on the waiting bench.

"Chu Zihang, come and look at this."

Chu Zihang darted over from the other side of the cabin, took the binoculars, and aimed them at the platform.

He was silent for a few seconds, then put down the binoculars, and the two men looked at each other.

Without needing any verbal communication, they simultaneously had the same thought: no one could disappear silently under the noses of two hybrid elites unless someone lowered an invisible rope from the sky to hoist them away, or there was something wrong with the space beneath their feet.

Just as Caesar and Chu Zihang exchanged that "something's happened" look and hadn't even had time to react, the air on the platform, about twenty meters from where they had disappeared, suddenly twisted violently.

A silvery-white crack tore open from the void. The light shining through the crack was neither the stark white of a fluorescent lamp nor the orange-red of a flame, but an extremely soft, pale gold with a forest-like scent.

Erii ran back two steps, her bare feet stepping on the cold concrete of the platform. She bent down and picked up the giant Rilakkuma that she had forgotten next to the vending machine, tucked the bear under her arm, and then turned and ran back to the edge of the crack.

Frillie's silver hair peeked out from inside the crack. She reached out and firmly grasped Erii's wrist, pulling her back.

The crack disappeared.

The platform returned to its previous silence, filled only with the sounds of waves and insects, as if the scene that had just occurred had never happened.

"What was that just now?" Mai Shude had witnessed the whole thing through the scope. Her voice was unusually tense, and her fingers instinctively gripped the trigger guard of her sniper rifle.

She had seen Chu Zihang's Junyan, seen Lu Mingfei's fleeting afterimage as he slashed down dozens of biker gangs on the streets of Ebisu, and even witnessed the inhuman speed of the black-clad waiter last night, who could grab the rear bumper of a Lamborghini with his bare hands. But she had never seen this kind of disappearance before.

It's not about speed or invisibility, but about being deleted from the universe on the spot and then randomly reassembled at another coordinate point.

She immediately sent the video back to Su Enxi, and the sound of potato chips being chewed on the other side stopped abruptly a few seconds later.

Su Enxi zoomed in on the video frame by frame, watched it three times, and finally said only four words: "I don't know."

Mai Shude remained silent for a moment, then pressed her eye back against the scope.

“Whatever it is, keep observing the platform. They picked up the Rilakkuma, which means they're coming back. Maybe they just moved to a different location temporarily.” She didn’t say anything more, her finger tightening slightly on the focus knob of the scope.

A few minutes earlier, on the platform, Frillian stopped two steps away from Erii and then turned to Lu Mingfei.

“I have something I must tell you now. It’s about her bloodline.” She spoke directly, not writing with magic. The two instinctively moved to a corner away from Erii. The sea breeze blew from the end of the platform, bringing the salty sound of the tide.

“Eliminating her dragon bloodline is not feasible,” Frilian’s first sentence cut straight to the heart of the matter. “Her dragon blood content isn’t calculated as a percentage like hybrids; there’s almost no detectable complete human sequence independent of dragon genes in her blood. I took a blood sample from her last night after you fell asleep and compared it with the dragon gene map retrieved from the Kassel database. If we forcibly remove the dragon genes through surgery or magic, her body will collapse in a very short time—not just injured, but completely irreversible organ failure.”

Lu Mingfei leaned against the cold vending machine, arms crossed, and remained silent for a long time before looking up at her: "Is there any other way?"

“Yes,” Frilian said. “Her bloodline is indeed unstable, but the reason isn’t because the dragon blood concentration is too high. I’ve always felt that this way of judging is just a label you humans made up yourselves. The reason she lost control is that her human body couldn’t bear the full awakening of the dragon’s consciousness. When the dragon’s genes were rapidly activated, they repeatedly put a load on her central nervous system that exceeded its limits. Her human brainstem and spine were repeatedly impacted by the dragon’s consciousness, like trying to light a six-volt light bulb with a 120-volt voltage.”

“Every time she initiates a trial, every time she passively senses all the life fluctuations within a few kilometers around her, it’s an extra blow to her circuitry. But she shouldn’t be judged as a ‘ghost,’ much less be treated as a humanoid weapon.” Frillian drew a simple human silhouette in the air. “She just lacks a vessel that matches her bloodline.”

Lu Mingfei stared at the silvery traces still remaining on her fingertips, not quite reacting yet.

"what do you mean--"

“I don’t want her to continue taking your human medicine. The serums she’s been using, the extracts that inhibit dragon blood activity, are essentially using toxins to suppress toxins. These things can keep her in human form temporarily, giving her three to five days or even three weeks of peace, but they are gradually raising her critical blood limit, making the rebound when she breaks through the threshold even more uncontrollable.”

“The people at Kassel College, and the Snake Clan, didn’t truly understand what she needed,” Frillie paused. “What she needed wasn’t healing, but being caught. She needed a vessel where she could place all her power.”

Lu Mingfei opened his mouth.

When you say "catch," do you mean the literal meaning or—

“Literal,” Frilian said. “Dragons are creatures that can change forms at will. The emperors and monarchs on the thrones of the first generation of dragons could. The White Queen could even more; she was more adept at form transformation than any dragon you could imagine. Erii, as a direct descendant of the White Queen, was born with the potential to become a dragon. It’s just that no one ever told her, and no one ever opened that door for her. She always thought she was incomplete, but in reality, she was just a complete being locked away in a human medical manual.”

She paused for a moment, then said, "I have a magic spell, which, in your terms, could probably be called 'Dragon Transformation Technique'."

Lu Mingfei was startled.

"You read about it in the library in Kassel, didn't you? The entire process of the Dragon King reshaping his body in the cocoon, transforming from human form into a world-destroying dragon. Those files are SS-level encrypted within the Secret Society. I didn't peek on purpose; I just wanted to know how much you humans have misunderstood. The principle of Dragon Transformation is similar to cocooning, but in the opposite direction. Cocooning allows dragons to be reborn in a larger battle form, while Dragon Transformation allows hybrids with enough dragon blood to reshape their bodies into a stable dragon form while retaining human consciousness."

“Not the kind of dragon with wings and scales, but a dragon in human form—like the Dragon King walking among you. Outwardly indistinguishable, but the internal neural structure, organ functions, and bloodline circuits are all rearranged according to dragon physiology. The dragon blood within her will cease attacking her and instead become a true source of power,” Frillian explained.

“She will never be able to go back to being human,” Lu Mingfei said softly.

“She was never human,” Frilian said softly. “She was always a dragon, but one that had been forced to live in a human body for almost twenty years, repeatedly trying to live peacefully with that body but never succeeding. You’ve never seen her truly relaxed. But I have. In the forest.”

Lu Mingfei thought of that other space with ivy and pale golden sunlight.

When Erii was sleeping on the grass inside, it was probably the only time since he had known her that he didn't need to cover his wrists with gloves.

He didn't answer immediately, but instead looked at the red-haired figure sitting quietly on the platform, gazing blankly at the Seto Inland Sea.

She sat there quietly the whole time, without urging them, holding the Rilakkuma bear she had finally managed to find.

Then he turned back and nodded at Frillie.

What do you need me to do?

Frilian told him that once the process began, it could not be stopped. The Dragon Transformation Technique needed to be completed in an absolutely safe environment without any external interference. She would take Erii into that small world that she maintained, and let Erii complete the entire transformation in the forest.

All Lu Mingfei needed to do was wait outside, but he had to make sure no one interfered with the entrance to the rift until they came out.

“Of course,” Frilian said, turning to walk towards Erii, then suddenly stopped and looked back at him. “You can come in anytime you want. You’re not an outsider.”

Lu Mingfei stood still, clenched his fist and then let go, and walked towards Erii.

He knelt down in front of her, and Erii looked up, her red eyes reflecting the silvery streetlights above the platform.

“Frilian will take you somewhere in a moment,” he said, taking the pencil and notepad from her and writing carefully, “It’s the same forest where you slept before, and it’s very safe. There, she will make your body better, so you won’t get hurt as easily anymore, and you won’t have to wear gloves anymore.”

Erii looked down at the line of text, her eyelashes fluttering twice, then took the pen and drew a small question mark at the end of his sentence.

“Really. I promise you,” Lu Mingfei said.

Erii stared at his face for a long time, confirming that this promise was different from the casual "I'll be right back" that he kept in his pocket.

Then she nodded, hugged Rilakkuma, stood up, and walked towards Frillie.

Frillie stretched out her right hand and gently drew a line in the air. The silvery-white crack opened again, and a breeze unique to the forest, carrying the scent of ivy and damp earth, flowed out from it.

Erii stood in front of the crack, then suddenly turned around, poked her head out from behind the bear, and waved to Lu Mingfei.

Lu Mingfei waved to her. Then the crack closed.

On the platform, only the distant sound of the tide lapping against the shore and Lu Mingfei's shadow standing still remained.

Chapter 835 Dragon Erii in Human Form

The silvery-white crack closed behind us, shutting out the sound of the Seto Inland Sea's tides and the moonlight of Baijinji Town.

Erii stood barefoot on a soft patch of grass, holding a giant Rilakkuma in her arms.

She was carried into the forest by Frilian while she was asleep. When she woke up, she only saw the pale golden sunlight filtering through the leaves and a blue butterfly perched on an ivy.

It was early morning in this little world, the light was soft and warm, and the air was filled with the fragrance of damp earth and wildflowers.

Frillie stood before her, her long silver hair swaying gently in the still forest. Her wand was planted in the grass before her, its magical runes lighting up one by one.

The entire forest seemed to respond to this magic; the ivy leaves trembled slightly, and the branches of several old trees in the distance creaked softly, like some ancient resonance.

The crystal at the tip of the wand began to slowly rotate. With each rotation, a layer of translucent golden light appeared in the air, spreading outwards like ripples from the center of the wand. These halos did not bounce off the trees; instead, they were absorbed by the bark, causing the entire tree to briefly emit a very subtle fluorescence.

Frillie released her wand, letting it float in mid-air and spin on its own.

She walked towards Erii.

“This magic is called ‘Dragon Transformation’,” she said, slowly and clearly pronouncing each syllable in Elvish.

Erii couldn't understand it, but she could feel that Frilian's voice resonated in the forest in ways invisible to the naked eye.

On the branches of those old trees covered with ivy, several blue butterflies that had been sleeping in the morning mist were startled awake and fluttered their wings into the sky.

"It will make you no longer human."

Erii hugged Rilakkuma tightly.

“But being human has never brought you any benefits.” Frilian reached out and gently placed her fingertips on Erii’s forehead. “What has brought you pain has never been your bloodline, but those who told you that ‘bloodline is a flaw.’ If you could do it all over again, would you still choose to be locked in that windowless vault as a human?”

Erii didn't write anything. She raised her head, looked directly at Frilian with her clear, reddish-gold eyes in the morning light, and then shook her head firmly.

"Then don't do it." Frilian withdrew her fingers and placed her hands together on the center of Erii's chest, at the very bottom of her sternum. When she used her magic to examine her meridians, she found that this was the area with the highest concentration of dragon blood in Erii's body. Every time the judgment was activated, the surging dragon genes would erupt from this location simultaneously into her heart and brainstem.

"First, you have to endure the pain. Not just physical pain, but your nerves and bones will be restructured throughout the process. The dragon blood will melt down and rebuild the structures in your body that do not belong to the dragon species, piece by piece. This is reshaping, not destruction, but when rebuilding something, every hammer blow means that the old things have to be torn down."

“Then, you must endure the fear. The Dragon Transformation Technique will not take away your consciousness, and I will not let you lose control of yourself. But during the long process, you will have recurring nightmares, and you will hear voices that do not belong to anyone else swirling in your mind. The White King's voice will be among them,” Frilian paused, “but you are yourself. Remember. Do not let that voice overwhelm you.”

Erii nodded vigorously.

Frilian pulled the wand from the grass, gripped it with both hands, and placed the end directly below Erii's sternum.

Then she began chanting a spell.