Dragon Race: Lu Mingfei Returns from Warhammer

Chapter 411 Chen Motong

"The seventeenth neural stimulation has ended. Friga VII... has still failed to establish a valid connection."

Chen Motong's consciousness sank into chaos, as if he had fallen into a thick and real nightmare.

"Frigga VII," this string of icy characters seems to be her designation as a "commodity" in this place.

Before her, there were six codenames: Number One, Number Two... six living people; Chen Motong remembered their faces—they were all her brothers and sisters.

She was once the object of their greatest envy because she was their father's most valued child and the apple of the Chen family's eye.

Now they were all obliterated by darkness before her, accompanied by their dying screams—because they failed to pass some kind of selection set up here.

When it was her turn, she passed... It seemed that this was why her father valued her.

But this does not mean the end; rather, it is the beginning of a deeper torment.

"The eighteenth nerve stimulation begins."

The cold electronic sound was like a death knell. Chen Motong, who was firmly bound to the mechanical bed, let out a painful scream. The mechanical device on her head emitted a strong electric current, like countless fine blades piercing her nerves and brain.

At the same time, a sound suddenly boomed from the surrounding darkness, and some ancient and mysterious dragon-script hymn rang out; this sacred chant intertwined and twisted with the painful cries of humans, creating a bizarre scene.

"The nineteenth nerve stimulation session has ended..."

"The twentieth nerve stimulation begins..."

"Don't waste time...kill me!" Her voice was hoarse and cracked, like the low growl of a dying beast.

But the cold, electronic voice… or rather, the person behind the scenes, ignored Chen Motong's pleas. The brief pause was like a rest before execution, and a new round of electrical stimulation immediately began.

The excruciating pain, like a knife piercing her nerves and brain, struck again, and Chen Motong's will to live finally began to crumble. The resounding Dragon Script Hymn seemed to be dragging her into the abyss.

Suddenly, the excruciating pain and the eerie whispers of the hymn were stripped away from his senses, and Chen Motong's consciousness seemed to be plunged into ice water, instantly becoming still.

She felt the quicksand beneath her feet, looked down, and found herself standing on an endless, dark wasteland shrouded in eternal twilight.

All was silent except for the faint sound of sand moving.

She raised her head blankly—

At the edge of the horizon, an unimaginably enormous tree pierced the dim yellow sky, standing majestically. Its roots, like pulsating blood vessels, plunged deep into the darkness, while countless branches stretched upwards, supporting a canopy forged from billions of stars. A sacred and desolate golden light cascaded down like a waterfall, becoming the only source of light in this deathly silent world.

Inside that giant tree, a pulse exceeding the frequency of a heartbeat was constantly emanating; at the same time, a throbbing originating from the depths of his bloodline was quietly awakening in the depths of Chen Motong's consciousness, which was on the verge of collapse.

Where... is this?

Chen Motong didn't know where this place was, but she had a feeling that this place seemed to be the beginning of everything, or perhaps... her final destination?
Her gaze inadvertently swept across the edge of the huge shadow cast by the golden tree, and a blurry figure made her heart skip a beat.

The figure seemed to sense her gaze and turned to disappear into the deeper darkness.

As if possessed, she chased after him.

The quicksand flowed silently beneath her feet. She parted the layers of golden light, like a veil, and finally, beside a low dune, she could make out the figure—

A boy who looked to be about her age was wearing a dark green school uniform. He was thin and frail, like a tree that hadn't had time to grow strong before being battered by wind and rain.

The other person stopped and turned to face her.

The boy's face was not exceptionally handsome, still retaining the delicate features of a young man, but his eyes held a weariness and relief that seemed beyond his years, almost transparent.

Chen Motong was certain she had never seen this face before, yet a strange, subtle tremor ran through her heart, as if a long-forgotten string had been gently plucked.

He looked at her, a very shallow and clean smile curving his lips, like the first ray of sunlight breaking through the ice in early spring.

"Senior Sister," he said softly, his voice carrying a hint of hoarseness from bygone days, like the wind that had passed through a long rainy season.

Chen Motong was stunned; the address was unfamiliar and abrupt.

I've come to say goodbye.

The boy's smile deepened, a slight ripple spreading across his eyes, carrying a sense of ease and relief as if a mission had been accomplished. "On... the previous path, I made the choices I had to make... so there are no regrets."

He looked up, his gaze seemingly piercing through the endless stars in the golden canopy, directed towards some more distant place.

Chen Motong was puzzled and didn't know what the boy meant.

"Now we have 'him'."

The boy's voice was soft, yet carried an undeniable certainty: "A 'Lu Mingfei' who is far stronger and more resilient than me. He will end it all."

His gaze returned to Chen Motong's face, his eyes as clear as an autumn lake, carrying pure and unreserved blessings.

"So, don't worry, senior sister."

He tilted his head slightly, like a vague, clumsy yet sincere boy from my memory.

May you have a peaceful and joyful life ahead.

As he finished speaking, his figure began to thin out, like a thin mist blown away by the morning breeze, or a snowflake thrown into molten gold.

Without any dramatic upheavals or mournful farewells, he quietly and with a smile, in the eternally flowing radiance of the golden tree, transformed into tiny specks of light, silently dissipating and merging into this desolate desert that bears countless stories and the weight of time.

Only that final wish, carrying a touch of youthful, clumsy warmth, gently landed like a feather in the depths of Chen Motong's cold and chaotic consciousness.

She stared blankly at the void where the boy had vanished, her lips slightly parted, moving like a fish out of water, but unable to utter a single syllable.

What should she say? She didn't know; she didn't know him, and she didn't even know where she was.

But that unfamiliar "senior sister," that clean yet weary smile, that clumsy yet sincere blessing... were like a pebble falling into the depths of her cold and chaotic consciousness, stirring up a subtle yet unquenchable ripple.

Chen Motong stood there, like a puppet abandoned on a huge stage, his empty vision filled only with the towering tree on the horizon.

The biting cold brought her fully awake.

She regained her senses of her body, yet remained unable to move—cold metal chains bound her firmly to the bronze cross behind her, like a suffering saint in a mural.

The bronze cross behind her clung tightly to her skin, constantly transmitting the chill of metal and air, relentlessly piercing her bone marrow.

Where am I now? Is this another nightmare?

Her gaze fell downwards, and she noticed a mysterious magic circle centered on her beneath the cross. Although she didn't know much about it, the familiar style of the spell clearly indicated it was alchemy.

The alchemical matrix shimmered with a dark golden light, softening its pure evil and adding a touch of holiness.

What terrified her even more was that the energy source maintaining this alchemical matrix seemed to be herself—

Each of her wrists had a cut, and bright red blood was precisely guided and drawn out by an invisible force, flowing continuously into the golden patterns of the magic array beneath her feet. It was unknown how long it had been flowing.

The bronze cross behind her seemed to emanate a mysterious power that sustained everything, preventing her from bleeding to death.

"you're awake?"

A man came into Chen Motong's line of sight.

"Father……?"

Chen Motong was stunned. She never expected that the man who was revered and even feared by all the children, yet who loved her the most, would appear here.

……

A cold yet clear thought pierced her confused consciousness.

Or perhaps, the reason she appears here in this state is because this man is so fond of her?

Her thoughts seemed to become clearer as a result, and fragments of her memories before losing consciousness were rapidly piecing together.

The reformers, yes, that group of "reformers" who gained great power and support, launched a rebellion war in an attempt to overthrow the orthodox "ancient ancestors";

All clans were plunged into chaos, with radicals supporting the reformers, conservatives upholding the ancestral lineage, and the ancestral lineage itself harboring a terrifying "foundation"...

At the time, she also wanted to join the ranks of those supporting the reformers—not because she enjoyed watching the drama unfold, but because she genuinely loathed this family, including her father, to the core.

Then, without realizing it, I suddenly lost consciousness.

Clearly, it was her father, Chen Zhuyin—whose name alone suggests a cunning and calculating boss—who brought her here.

"Om..."

The tremors and shaking of the ground traveled up the cold cross... Was she on a ship?
A biting cold enveloped her; the temperature was very low, but not from the air conditioning in the room, but from the outside ambient temperature… Summer solstice had passed, and the Lesser Heat was approaching…

The ship was rocking violently, not like the tossing of ordinary waves, but more like... crushing some solid obstacle.

Is this an icebreaker? Is she in the Arctic right now?!
"It will start again soon, Mo Tong." The man moved closer, his deep eyes revealing no emotion, his steady voice devoid of any fluctuation. "Relax."

"What exactly do you want to do!" Chen Motong's voice was hoarse with weakness and anger. "You brought me here, tied me up here, and used my blood... what do you want to do to me!"

She struggled fiercely, the chains scraping against the bronze cross with a harsh sound.

The man's gaze swept over the wound on her wrist, where blood was still being drained, his expression as indifferent as if he were observing the operation of a machine.

"This world has fallen into chaos because too many external factors have caused it to deviate from its proper course." The man spoke slowly, his tone heavy with a sense of mission. "I have a responsibility, and I must bring it back to the right track that I know."

His gaze returned to Chen Motong's angry and pale face, devoid of any fatherly warmth.

"You too, Mo Tong. Your worth shouldn't be like this."

"You are my most successful masterpiece; you possess the genes of that supreme being..."

The man paused, not continuing, "In short, you will realize your greatest value on the new timeline, instead of just serving as a beacon for navigation as you are now."

"Because you are of no use to 'him' now."

Value, masterpiece.

Why didn't she seem surprised when she heard those words?

Chen Motong's lips curled into a mocking smile, as if she were saying to the man in front of her, "I saw through your false facade a long time ago."

The man frowned slightly, seemingly displeased with Chen Motong's reaction. A hazy mist veiled his face, then violently swayed and distorted like a reflection in water.

When the light dissipated, the face of her father, which Chen Motong both knew and hated, changed—

His deep black eyes turned into a melancholy deep blue like the Aegean Sea, and his jet-black hair faded to a dazzling gold; a handsome, almost perfect European-style male face with sharp features appeared before him, and there was even an elegant but cold smile on his lips.

"You..." Chen Motong's hoarse voice caught in his throat.

The change was swift; new features quickly covered that blond, blue-eyed face. Although still handsome, the rugged facial lines and high nose bridge clearly indicated a weathered Slavic appearance.

His gaze toward Chen Motong carried the indifference of Siberian permafrost.

Chen Motong felt a strong wave of nausea and dizziness. This man seemed to be deliberately displaying different identities in front of her, both real and extremely fake.

She couldn't tell who this being was, or how many faces he had. What was he doing in other parts of the world when he was wearing a face other than "Chen Zhuyin"?
Woo-woo-woo!

The piercing alarm abruptly interrupted the man's monologue.

"Two humanoid targets detected, rapidly approaching this area!"

An emergency alarm was issued via the cabin intercom.

The man's indifferent expression, typical of "Russians," froze instantly, then shattered like a broken mirror. All pretense, all "performance," was abruptly interrupted by the alarm.

The change occurred again. A pair of molten gold, violent vertical pupils were ignited in the dim light. Accompanied by the sickening sounds of bones dislocating and muscles tearing, his body was constantly deforming, stretching, and expanding, seemingly changing into the optimal fighting form.
At the same time, cold, hard, dark scales with a dark metallic luster quickly covered its skin surface, layer upon layer, tightly biting together to form a ferocious black armor, with grotesque bone spurs protruding from the joints.

A sky-blue cloak appeared as the light shone through, fluttering in the surging air currents.

He turned his head to the side, and a bluish-gray, mask-like bone armor covered his face, with only his inhuman, molten gold pupils still burning with furious flames.

Its gaze returned to Chen Motong on the cross, and it spoke in a low voice:

"Everything will start anew soon, Mo Tong."