Dragons begin with courage

"You're more interesting than I imagined, being able to stand before me." Caesar spoke, his voice laced with laughter but devoid of warmth. He casually tossed the hunting knife in his hand, its blade flashing with a cold light as it flipped.

"In a hurry." Chu Zihang's answer was concise to the point of being stingy. His gaze was lowered, falling on the hilt of his sword, as if he were adjusting his breathing, or perhaps gathering thunder.

"Oh? Then I'll do it as soon as possible."

The final syllables of "儘快" had not yet completely dissipated—

Moved!

Caesar's figure blurred abruptly! Not vanished, but his explosive speed exceeded the limits of retinal perception! Dust billowed from the ground where he had stood. He transformed into a crimson afterimage, like a cheetah poised for battle, or an eagle swooping down from the summit of Mount Olympus, carrying a breathtaking, pure, concentrated "momentum" as he hurtled towards Chu Zihang!

Lu Mingfei hid behind the car, feeling an invisible pressure like a mountain crushing him, causing him to stop breathing and his blood to flow backward!

Caesar's hunting knife vanished—no, it didn't vanish, it was because it was too fast! Man and knife almost became one, transforming into a cold glint that tore through the air, heading straight for Chu Zihang's center line! This strike was devoid of any fancy moves, possessing only the ultimate speed and power, carrying the domineering will of a Roman emperor to destroy everything. Before the blade even arrived, the sharp wind from the blade had already made Lu Mingfei's skin sting.

Faced with this near-fatal attack, Chu Zihang made a move.

He didn't retreat, didn't prepare to block, and didn't even make any large movements. He simply stood firmly on his feet, and with a slight twitch of his wrist holding the hilt of the knife, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

"Clang—!"

A clear, piercing sound, like a dragon's roar, rang out as metal clashed!

The longsword in Chu Zihang's hand, which was originally as still as water, seemed to come alive. The tip of the blade drew a tiny but terrifyingly precise semi-circle in the air, and with a hair's breadth difference, it touched the very tip of the force that Caesar's hunting knife was slashing at, which was also the "node" where the old force had not yet been exhausted and the new force had not yet been generated!

It's not a head-on collision of brute force, but a subtle and exquisite "interception"!

Time seemed to stretch out. Lu Mingfei saw Caesar's unstoppable momentum suddenly halt, like a charging rhinoceros crashing into an invisible, elastic wall. The confidence on his face froze slightly, and his body, due to this precise interruption, experienced a subtle disharmony, forcing him to lean back and take two quick steps to dissipate the force that had been redirected.

Chu Zihang remained standing, his stance as steady as a mountain. However, the longsword in his hand was now emitting a low, rapid "humming" vibration, its blade transforming into a hazy afterimage—the blade was vibrating at an extremely high frequency, subtly transmitting and dissipating the terrifying force it had just endured into the air.

Caesar's overwhelming imperial pressure was quietly torn open by this slash.

Lu Mingfei finally caught his breath, only to find his palms soaked with cold sweat. He stared intently at the two figures in the arena who were once again locked in a brief standoff, and the butt of his gun seemed to emanate a faint, insignificant warmth belonging to himself.

Just as Lu Mingfei's adrenaline surged and he was about to pull the trigger to deliver a cold shot to the imposing "Golden Lion King"—

Click.

A faint, almost imperceptible sound, like the sole of a boot crunching over gravel, came from behind me.

A chill ran down Lu Mingfei's spine! He suddenly remembered that Caesar had just said through the loudspeaker, "I only have myself and a girl left here."

There's one more person! A sniper! Right behind me!

The instinct for survival overwhelmed his fear. Almost entirely relying on the muscle memory left from watching action movies all night in an internet cafe, he suddenly turned around, gripping the heavy pistol tightly with both hands, the muzzle trembling but pointing it firmly at the shadow behind him.

"Yo-ho?" A teasing, familiar female voice rang out, making his heart skip a beat. "You brat, it's only been a short time, and you've already learned how to play this?"

From the shadows, Nono emerged. She had changed into a deep red combat uniform, her figure lithe and agile. Her long, wine-red hair was tied in a ponytail, and her face wore her characteristic mischievous smile. She didn't even look at the dark muzzle of the gun; instead, she pointed her index finger at Lu Mingfei, mimicking firing a shot, her lips silently making a "bang!"

It was Nono. Lu Mingfei's tense nerves relaxed slightly, and the taut muzzle of his gun subconsciously lowered a little. She was also a student in Kassel, so her presence here... didn't seem surprising.

However, the playful smile on Nono's face froze in a fraction of a second, turning into a sharp fear!

"Get down!!!"

"Bang!" Nono's pistol flashed.

Almost at the same instant—

boom!!!

A deep, muffled gunshot, like the pounding of a giant hammer, unlike any other rifle sound, tore through the air, arriving belatedly!

Lu Mingfei was shoved and stumbled to the ground. In the last moment before his vision blurred, he saw a huge and tragic "blood flower" explode on Nuonuo's chest, on her deep red combat uniform! It was as if an invisible giant fist had slammed into her chest. The immense impact sent her flying backward, her feet leaving the ground, before she crashed heavily to the ground, her back slamming against the Hummer's tires with a dull thud.

She looked down at the almost black "bloodstains" that were spreading rapidly across her chest. Her lips twitched, as if she wanted to force out her usual nonchalant smile, but she only coughed up a little "blood foam," her voice hoarse: "It's not your fault..."

Lu Mingfei's gaze followed the trajectory of the bullet—on the roof of an off-road vehicle in the distance, a girl dressed in black combat uniform, with a figure as agile as a female leopard, was slowly retracting that intimidating Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle with its thick barrel! Wisps of smoke curled from the muzzle.

The female sniper moved without the slightest pause, as if she had just completed a routine practice. She lightly leaped off the roof of the vehicle, discarded the heavy sniper rifle, and with a backhand, drew a dull black special operations knife from the scabbard on her leg. In a few leaps, she was in front of the slumped Nono, her eyes cold. She grabbed Nono's dark red hair, forcing her to tilt her head back, and pointed the gleaming tip of the knife at her pale carotid artery.

"General." The female sniper looked up at Caesar and Chu Zihang, who had temporarily stopped fighting due to the sudden change in the distance. Her clear voice carried the declaration of a victor, "President, we won!"

They won? Lu Mingfei's mind went blank.

An indescribable, chilling emotion instantly overwhelmed all fear, confusion, and self-mockery. It wasn't anger; it was more like something deeply buried in one's blood, something absolutely cold, had been ignited. At the edge of her vision, there seemed to be extremely dim golden stars flashing by, so fast it was almost an illusion.

The female sniper raised her dagger, about to bring it down—

"Watch out!" Caesar's warning and Chu Zihang's pupils contracted sharply at almost the same time!