Dragons begin with courage

"Ye Sheng?! Aki?!?!" Professor Mans' pupils constricted, and he roared incredulously, "Lifeboats! Quick! Lower the lifeboats! Pull them up!! Quick—!!"

The scene was extremely chaotic. When Ye Sheng and Ya Ji were dragged onto the deck, their heavy diving gear removed, and they coughed violently to expel the river water they had inhaled, Mans practically pounced on them.

"Professor...quick...go..." Ye Sheng grabbed Mans's arm, his lungs burning with pain, yet he screamed with all his might, "The Dragon King...the King of Bronze and Fire...has awakened!"

Mans shuddered violently. He didn't even have time to ask how they had created this impossible chance of survival; his years of honed crisis instincts overwhelmed everything: "Full speed! Get out of this water! Activate all defense plans! Quickly!"

The ship's engines roared, cleaving through the river as it frantically fled towards safer waters. Only after sailing a sufficient distance, and seeing no terrifying scene of the Dragon King burning the river as he had anticipated, and only the wind and rain continuing on the river, did Mans finally catch his breath, but the fear and doubt in his heart reached their peak.

He whirled around, staring at his two beloved generals, wrapped in blankets, their faces pale but undeniably alive. His questions rained down: "Tell me! What happened?! According to calculations, your oxygen supply shouldn't have been enough to sustain you to the surface! Even if… even if one of you sacrificed yourself, giving all your oxygen to the other, only one could survive at most! Not to mention you encountered the awakened Dragon King! How… how could you possibly have survived?!"

Ye Sheng and Aki exchanged a glance, both their eyes filled with deep confusion and lingering fear. Ye Sheng's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice dry: "We... we don't know either. At that time, the Dragon King did indeed awaken, and we were almost in despair... but the next second, it seemed... we lost a certain period of 'time'."

"time?"

"Yes," Ye Sheng struggled to organize his thoughts, trying to describe the incomprehensible experience, "Everything froze, except for the Dragon King... Then, we were 'moved' out of the Bronze City and directly to a place near the water's surface. Because we skipped the most oxygen- and energy-consuming part of the escape route, the remaining oxygen... was just enough for us to float."

"Words of power!" Professor Mans exclaimed, his eyes sharp as knives. "It's a high-level time-related Word of Power! A third party has intervened!"

Ye Sheng nodded heavily; this was the only reasonable explanation he and Aki had come up with. He paused for a moment, a more complex emotion appearing on his face, a mixture of gratitude, confusion, and a hint of barely perceptible loss.

"And, Professor... we found 'that thing'..." His voice trailed off, "but it's gone now. The person who saved us... he took 'that thing'."

Professor Mans frowned, a hint of unease flashing in his eyes. He knew perfectly well what Ye Sheng meant by "that," because this dive wasn't just about exploring the palace of the Bronze and Fire King; it was also for a certain "S-rank dragon-slaying plan"—Kassel College wanted to completely eliminate the Dragon King!

Shudeya listened silently. She didn't know that Ye Sheng had other missions. The more you know about a mission, the easier it is to fail. However, she guessed that the "that" Ye Sheng mentioned was the bronze pot found in the palace. This would explain why Ye Sheng was so desperate to protect that bronze pot.

However, the bronze pot is now gone; it was taken by that powerful being who possesses time-related incantations. Or rather, that powerful being's target was always the bronze pot; saving them was merely a side benefit, a reward for them taking out the pot.

The mantis catches the cicada, and the oriole is behind.

"Don't blame yourself." Professor Mans patted Ye Sheng's still slightly trembling shoulder heavily. "An being capable of manipulating time-based incantations of that level wanted to take something from you, and you were powerless to stop it. The fact that you came back alive is the greatest fortune. Let's return."

The ship sliced ​​through the dark river, heading back the way it came. Three people stood silently on the deck; the relief of the successful rescue was quickly replaced by the heavy weight of losing the mission's core objective. The figure of that mysterious hybrid, like a ghost, cast a huge shadow over everyone's hearts—who was he (or she)? To which side did he (or she) belong? What was his (or her) purpose in taking that mysterious bronze jar?

The fog was thicker than the churning night fog on the river, completely shrouding the road ahead.

However, at this moment, not only Ye Sheng and his two companions fell silent, but another group of people also fell silent.

Along the Three Gorges, atop a steep cliff overlooking the river, the night wind is fierce, making it almost impossible to stand.

A tall, slender woman with long hair, dressed in a black, form-fitting combat suit, slowly lowered the binoculars with intricate gold-plated patterns. She removed her noise-canceling headphones, letting the whistling river wind fill her ears. Her beautiful face remained expressionless, except for a complex glint in the depths of her eyes—a glimmer of solemnity, doubt, and… an indescribable sense of relief.

"Hey, long legs, what's going on at the scene? The footage is choppy, all I can see is the energy readings spike and then plummet!" A hurried female voice came through the earpiece, accompanied by the familiar crisp sound of biting into potato chips—it was Su Enxi, the "Potato Chip Girl" who was far behind the scenes but had countless intelligence sources.

Mai Shude—the woman known as "Long Legs"—put her headphones back on, her voice calm and even, yet every word carried weight: "Operation outcome changed. Ye Sheng and Aki Shude are both alive. Their safe return to the Moniach has been confirmed."

"What?! They're both alive?!" Su Enxi's voice suddenly rose, filled with undisguised astonishment. "This is impossible! According to all the models we've calculated, the remaining oxygen after the Bronze City mechanism is triggered, the ascent time, plus the factor that 'Samson' will inevitably be alerted... the probability of the two of them surviving is infinitely close to zero! At most... at most only one can survive! I'm definitely not hoping for your sister..." She realized something, her voice changing rapidly as she tried to explain.

"There's no need to explain all this." Mai interrupted her, her tone still cold, revealing no emotional fluctuation. "Aki and I are sisters by blood, but we don't have much of a bond. That's not the point right now." She paused, her gaze returning to the ship in the distance, gradually shrinking in the waves and disappearing into the thick fog, and slowly uttered the crucial information: "They failed to bring out the 'egg.' Constantine's 'cocoon' did not reach Kassel College as planned."

"They didn't bring them out?! The mission failed?! They messed up?" Su Enxi's voice became shrill.

"No." Mai Shude denied it decisively, her eyes slightly narrowed in the night. "I suspect a third party intervened. Not only did they steal the 'egg' from Ye Sheng and the others, they also managed to 'rescue' them from the clutches of the enraged Samson."