Dragons begin with courage

It turns out that Lao Tang had known all along.

Lu Mingfei thought he was disguising himself well, using the red dot control to pretend to be flustered, but he didn't know how keen his intuition was for the "feel" of the controls when he was a true StarCraft master. The subtle lag in the mouse trajectory, the unnatural interval of a fraction of a second during extreme operations—these were as clear as ink spots on a blank sheet of paper to Lao Tang.

That's something that two equally lonely people tacitly agree on.

Now, the curtain has been torn apart by their own hands.

"Words of Power: Heaven and Earth as Furnace." Norton's voice echoed in the vast bronze space, devoid of any warmth.

Serial number 96, one of the supreme authorities of the Bronze and Fire King lineage. For hybrids, it is a powerful alchemical aid; for the Dragon King, it is the law of creation and destruction. As Jia Yi wrote in "Ode to the Owl": "Heaven and earth are the furnace, creation is the craftsman; yin and yang are the charcoal, and all things are the copper." At this moment, the entire Bronze City is his furnace, and all things can be used as copper for his smelting.

On the towering bronze walls, hundreds of meters high, gears meshed rapidly, and molten, dark red metal surged and roared through the pipes. Chains hanging from the dome clanged, and the soul fire within the cages flickered wildly, as if performing a frenzied dance to the king's will. The air was thick with sulfur and metallic vapors, concentrated to a level that would suffocate an ordinary person.

Norton took only one step forward. That step felt as if it had struck the very heart of the entire Bronze City!

A powerful, invisible shockwave exploded outwards! It wasn't just a simple air blast, but a tremor caused by the compression of space itself by the Dragon King's power! The bronze ground rippled like water, and the extremely hot air was compressed to its limit, forming a visible white shockwave ring that spread wildly outwards from Norton's center!

Lu Mingfei's pupils contracted sharply. Instinctively, he held the unconscious Nuonuo tightly in his arms and used his still intact back to shield her from the impact.

boom--! ! !

Like being struck head-on by a fully loaded battering ram at 200 kilometers per hour! Lu Mingfei didn't even have time to groan before he and Nuonuo in his arms were sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into the cold, hard bronze inner wall dozens of meters away! The loud crash echoed through the space, and a shallow, human-shaped crater was smashed into the bronze wall, with spiderweb-like cracks spreading outwards.

"Cough—Pfft!"

Lu Mingfei lay curled up on the ground, his internal organs feeling as if they had shifted, the intense pain causing his vision to blur. He struggled to lift his head, spitting out a mouthful of warm blood, a few drops of which landed on Nuonuo's pale yet still delicate cheeks in his arms, creating a stark and poignant contrast with her fiery red hair.

Even though Norton was far from his prime, the chasm between the Dragon King and the hybrids—a chasm built from the essence of life, the authority of rules, and millennia of accumulation—was as fragile as a child's toy in the face of absolute power.

Norton did not approach further. He simply raised his right hand slowly, his index finger pointing towards the dome.

At his fingertips, a dazzlingly bright, breathtakingly pure point of incandescent light appeared out of thin air. It wasn't flame; it was the very concept of "high temperature," forcibly compressed, tamed, and pushed to some physical limit. The point of light rapidly expanded—not by spreading, but like the opposite of a black hole—frantically devouring the heat and energy of the surrounding space, condensing above Norton's head into a slowly rotating, incandescent white fireball with a diameter exceeding one hundred meters!

Word of Power: Sovereign Flame! Sequence 89! But in the Dragon King's hands, it was no longer the explosive energy released by the hybrid, but a miniature sun suspended in an artificial hell. Its core temperature was enough to vaporize any known alloy in an instant, and the heat radiation emanating from its edges had already caused the distant bronze walls to soften and drip molten copper.

Norton's golden pupils, piercing through the destructive radiance, gazed at Lu Mingfei, who was huddled in the corner, cradling Nuonuo in his arms, looking utterly disheveled. In that gaze, there was no longer a trace of the complexity that belonged to "Old Tang," only the cold, resolute decisiveness of a monarch, executed like a procedural exercise.

"In this way, I can completely format the redundancy and rebuild the 'Heart of the Dragon'," Norton declared in his final judgment. "Farewell, my... only friend."

That was a highly concentrated royal flame, which could undoubtedly turn Lu Mingfei and Nuonuo to ashes.

Just as that incandescent point of light was about to leave the finger—

Time stood still.

Norton's fingertips glowed with a royal flame, the scorching dust floating in the air, the beads of sweat sliding down Lu Mingfei's forehead... everything became extremely slow, as slow as moving through sticky glue.

No, it shouldn't be measured by time freeze, because the Dragon King is immune to the control of the Word of Power. This isn't a time stop like Time Zero, but rather Lu Mingfei's consciousness has entered another space-time, making Lu Mingfei's thinking countless times faster!

A figure appeared silently beside Lu Mingfei, blocking the path between Norton and Lu Mingfei.

Without a doubt, it's Lu Mingze!

At this moment, Lu Mingze was still wearing a black suit, a faint smile playing on his lips, a smile that carried both innocence and wickedness. He held up a huge black umbrella, the surface of which was perfectly dry, as if isolating the space from all heat and chaos.

"Lu...Mingze?"

"Because you're going to die, I came to see you." Lu Mingze glanced at the fireball that had already slipped from his fingertips and been thrown at him, then looked at Nuonuo in Lu Mingfei's arms, and smiled slightly. "Real time hasn't been frozen, you know. While we're talking, you might have already been burned to death by Jun Yan in reality. Along with that sleeping red-haired princess in your arms."

"Norton is back, and he's not the old Tang you know. Norton possesses the Word of Power: Candle Dragon, a world-destroying Word of Power with serial number 114. Once unleashed, the entire Three Gorges will suffer destruction comparable to a nuclear explosion, and no one will be spared."

Lu Mingfei's consciousness turned cold. It was the same again, appearing in a desperate situation, offering what seemed to be the only "choice."

"Don't be so angry, anger is the original sin." Lu Mingze shrugged, his smile both innocent and wicked. "Actually, I can help you. But I have conditions. It's like the bet between Mephistopheles and Faust: I'll make a contract with you, I'll grant your wish, but the price is your soul."

Lu Mingfei didn't speak, but just quietly looked at Lu Mingze.

He took a few steps closer, his voice low, as if a demon were chanting in his ear:

"This is the most cost-effective deal in the world. You are about to face the four supreme rulers of the dragon race. Bronze and Fire, Sky and Wind, Earth and Mountain, Ocean and Water... Each of them possesses the power to overturn the world. And I will only take a quarter of your soul for each wish I grant."

"You've seen my abilities. That night at the library, you were the brightest star in Kassel." Lu Mingze's eyes gleamed with a seductive light. "Now, if you just nod and offer a quarter of your soul, I'll immediately take care of Norton for you. You'll be a hero, escape unscathed, and even... you can win the heart of a beauty! Isn't that exactly what you've been longing for?"

He slowly stretched out his hand, palm up, as if waiting for Lu Mingfei to place something intangible yet incredibly precious on his hand.