Chapter 108: The Fall of Odin

The torrent imbued with the power of immortality swallowed Odin and his eight-legged steed in an instant. This was Lu Mingfei’s breakthrough under extreme conditions: he had deliberately infused the power of immortality within his body into his attack, creating something akin to immortal flames.

Yet unlike the flames, immortal fire, though impossible to extinguish, did not inflict particularly severe burns. Its troublesome trait was simply that it could never be put out.

The immortal torrent, on the other hand, possessed precisely the opposite nature. The power of immortality strengthened the torrent’s force, hardening gentle water until it resembled flowing steel alloy. It relied on overwhelming power to seize victory.

“Cough, cough.”

After landing his strike, Lu Mingfei staggered to the ground. Feeling the scant strength remaining in his body, he looked toward Odin, who had been hurled far away by the immortal torrent, and toward the eight-legged steed, half its body crushed into a mass of flesh, its surface covered in wounds, yet still possessing enough vitality to scream and howl.

He could not help sighing inwardly:

“This beast’s vitality is truly astonishing!”

During his battle with Odin, if Odin had not continually ridden Sleipnir and attacked from above, and if Sleipnir had not coordinated with Odin to launch combined attacks, Lu Mingfei would have touched Odin with the immortal flames long ago.

Am I overthinking this?

He cut open his own hand. Drops of scarlet blood seeped into the bead, and the dark heavy iron instantly bloomed with alternating gold and black hues. Its weight lightened accordingly, making it effortless to lift.

Five minutes later.

The undead within the Nibelungen had been completely exterminated. Their corpses were piled into mountains. Lu Mingfei had killed an enormous number of them during the battle, completely emptying Odin’s Nibelungen.

He pressed all three buttons at once.

Nothing happened.

“Ah? Hahahaha!”

Holding the shattered Flame Spear, he walked step by step toward Odin. The features of a dragon gradually began appearing across his body. Fine blue-gray scales surfaced, followed by dragon claws and horns. The wounds on his right arm slowly recovered at an incredible speed, and he became increasingly monstrous.

“Don’t interrupt. Your honorable name is Moon Drinker, a forbidden name that must never be spoken. No one in this world knows your name, because they are unworthy of knowing it.”

“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not interrupting. I merely gave you a little psychological suggestion. If you hadn’t wanted to do it yourself, my suggestion would have been useless. Come on, be honest, my friend. You already had that thought.”

“Lu Mingfei” said this with a smile.

Odin retreated at his fastest speed, his eyes burning as he watched Lu Mingfei’s transformation.

“Lu Mingfei” blinked.

“Big brother, drip your blood onto it. I’ll handle the rest.”

If the Flame Spear had not shattered, a dragonified Lu Mingfei would have been extremely troublesome as well!

But now…

Lu Mingfei had directly reclaimed all the immortal flames from the first two stages. He was cultivating and ascending within a vortex of fire, and his might was rising explosively with it. Who knew what this fellow might evolve into?

After chatting for a little while longer, the sense of incongruity in Lu Mingfei’s heart grew increasingly intense. He felt that this person did not resemble Lu Mingze. The voice was the same, but everything else was completely different.

He raised the Flame Spear horizontally to block. Gungnir once again slammed viciously into its shaft.

“Lu Mingfei, how is the transaction going?”

Lu Mingfei’s brows knit tightly. He had never imagined that this fellow could even reverse time. Unaware of this possibility, Lu Mingfei had originally intended to kill him with a single strike, so that attack had consumed a tremendous amount of his immortal power. He could no longer condense another extraordinarily powerful attack in a short period.

He had to keep killing undead. Quite a few of them possessed dragon forms, and some were even close to the level of the strongest second-generation dragon species. Without expending considerable effort, Lu Mingfei could not guarantee Chen Motong’s safety.

Lu Mingfei still had some doubts, but under the current circumstances, Lu Mingze indeed seemed to have no reason to use a stopped-time space to communicate with him. Moreover, only Lu Mingfei could hear this voice. Odin could not.

As they drove, Chen Motong, sitting in the passenger seat with her head bandaged, transformed into the familiar Little Devil. He looked at Lu Mingfei’s profile and said with a smile, “Big brother, you’re truly amazing. You actually defeated Odin.”

“Mm. I’m merely a passing Star God. One day, I suddenly noticed a crack here and became curious, so I sent a wisp of consciousness inside to take a look. Unfortunately, I can only exist for a limited time, and I’m about to disappear. If I don’t come out and have some fun now, I won’t get another chance.”

Unlike certain other Dragon Kings, Odin’s Nibelungen possessed astonishing substance. The number and quality of its undead were naturally very high as well. If these undead were released, even Kassel College might…

“Damn it! He actually got away!”

“A Dragon Sovereign?”

But where am I supposed to put all this?

After a moment of hesitation, Lu Mingfei placed Gungnir and the shattered Flame Spear inside the Maybach. He then used Heaven and Earth as a Furnace, melting the structures within the Nibelungen out of thin air and refining a massive quantity of foundation stones into a small bead.

“Hmph! What a despicable fellow.”

This seems rather nice, too.

He held the bead in his hand. The bead, refined from an enormous quantity of Nibelungen foundation material, nearly dislocated his arm when he picked it up. Its weight was tremendous; only its size had been compressed.

“I’m tired of always using other people’s techniques. Today, I’ll create one of my own. The water in this move comes from the torrential rain of the Nibelungen. The downpour is like a flood descending from the heavens, so I’ll call it Heaven’s Flood Surge.”

“Why?”

The flaming spear instantly pierced through Odin’s body. An endless sea of fire incinerated him, but immediately afterward, time seemed to freeze. Odin’s body returned to the instant before it had been burned, and he continued fleeing through the flames.

Lu Mingfei answered casually.

He weighed the Abyssal Depths Bead in his hand before casually throwing it toward the distant road.

With a thunderous boom, it exploded. It seemed that the bead had only become light and manageable while in his hand; its actual mass had not changed. Once thrown, it was still an immensely violent weapon.

“Is that so?”

“The power you wield is the most fundamental power in this world. But because this world’s Path of Immortality is too weak, the amount of time you can remain in this state is limited. The immortal power of the world that you consumed just now was not your own.”

“…”

What harm could he possibly have intended?

He had only wanted to burn Odin a little!

“You can understand it as the Great Dao of laws.”

The burning Gungnir fell to the ground. Odin, who had been charging forward, slammed on the brakes. He watched as Lu Mingfei slowly floated into the air. Immortal fire surged toward him from every direction, forming a flaming dragon tornado amid the torrential rain and enclosing him at its center.

He had even said that when traveling outside, it was advisable to choose a nickname, and that Dan Heng was a pretty good name.

What was he even talking about? I can’t understand him.

But all of this was deliberate.

The Maybach had been strengthened by the blessing of immortality. Lu Mingfei had also controlled the angle and force of the impact perfectly, knocking Chen Motong unconscious without seriously injuring her. Only with Chen Motong unconscious could he reveal his true strength before Odin.

“If you can’t give me an answer I like within ten seconds, I’ll make your big brother explode.”

Odin instinctively took a step back, gripping Gungnir tightly. The weapon was almost completely covered in immortal flames. Under the pressure radiating from the dragonified Lu Mingfei, Odin had gradually forgotten the heat of the spear.

At this moment, Gungnir was entirely wrapped in immortal fire. The flames that originally belonged to Lu Mingfei were now burning Odin’s body. A strange sensation slowly rippled through his heart.

“Not bad. That’s a good name.”

Damn you, Odin!

Lu Mingfei cursed him inwardly once more, then could only continue clearing out the undead.

“You really aren’t from this world.”

Just as he was about to finish Odin off, he discovered that a large number of undead had surged forth again. They pounced directly upon the battered Maybach. Their target was clearly Chen Motong.

“Not my true form?”

“My true self?”

He cleared out one wave of undead at the fastest speed possible, then rapidly condensed a flaming spear. Holding the shaft in one hand, he threw it at Odin in the distance.

After a moment of thought, he smiled and pressed all three buttons.

“I want to become a younger sister and watch the Earth explode together with my big brother!”

“Whoosh!”

He gently exhaled. A radiant smile gradually appeared on his face as he said inwardly, “A little trouble has come up, Furina. Give me ten minutes.”

At that moment, a familiar voice rang out in Lu Mingfei’s heart.

Lu Mingfei frowned slightly.

He slowly climbed to his feet, blood seeping through his armor. That last strike had clearly caused him considerable damage. Although it was not enough to make Odin completely lose his ability to fight, judging from his appearance, he had plainly been grievously wounded.

“Time reversal?”

And furthermore…

He always felt that this fellow was deliberately guiding him in a certain direction. Although Lu Mingfei found it somewhat strange, everything he said was indeed reasonable, and the improvement in Lu Mingfei’s strength was genuine. There was no way to fake that.

Perhaps he truly was the legendary Dragon Sovereign. Even the Dragon Kings were unworthy of opposing him.

But if he simply confessed everything and left like this…

Would that not be a little too lacking in amusement for him?

“Here. This is my final gift.”

I gave him good guidance?

The smile on Lu Mingze’s face vanished instantly. A chill shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head. He forced out an awkward laugh, his expression becoming extremely strange.

“Hmph. You actually dared to leave me hanging… Fine. I’ll reluctantly forgive you this once.”

Lu Mingfei looked at his own hand, feeling a faint sense of recognition. He could not help asking, “Then why didn’t you come out and speak? You weren’t like this before.”

“Hmm?”

What is immortality? I have no idea.

Lu Mingfei had almost never come into contact with the inheritance of dream power. He only remembered that, at the very beginning, he seemed to have dreamed of a divine dragon born amid the primordial chaos of Heaven and Earth. Was that perhaps the ancestor of the myriad dragons beneath the Heavenly Abyss?

Lu Mingze opened the box and glanced inside. There really were three buttons, colored red, blue, and green. He closed the box and said, “I’m not going to use this thing. I’m not interested in it. You should understand my personality, right?”

“Big brother, this is not your true form.”

At this moment, the blessing of immortality had been completely exhausted. The cracks in the Flame Spear continued to widen, and the self-destruction of the Evil Eye had also reached its end. Finally, with a crisp cracking sound, it split apart.

Gungnir pierced straight through Lu Mingfei’s heart.

Although the attack looked simple, Lu Mingfei could sense a fatal danger. It was as if invisible threads of fate had linked his heart with the tip of Gungnir, forming a strike that was absolutely certain to hit.

“I refined it into your bonded weapon. Its name is now the Abyssal Depths Bead.”

Take a gamble!

He began charging in the distance. Gungnir was aimed at Lu Mingfei’s heart. The burning, curved spear cut through the darkness of the rainy night, leaving behind a trail of brilliant crimson as it thrust toward its distant enemy.

“…”

Just once. Just once!

Unfortunately, Odin was giving him no opportunity.

After a brief sigh, Lu Mingfei turned to look at the Maybach. Its roof had been crushed beneath his foot, so Chen Motong inside could hardly have been unharmed.

“What benefit do you gain from interfering with my judgment?” Lu Mingze asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Who are you? Were you the one interfering with my choices and judgment before?” Lu Mingze asked coldly.

“Because you possess a power that should not exist in this world. You are not a Dragon King. You are the sovereign of all dragons—the Dragon Sovereign. Your status surpasses that of Nidhogg. In your complete state, you could even kill the Black King in a single strike. That is who you are, big brother—the greatest monster in this world.”

“I know what you’re worried about. Let me be frank with you: I’m about to disappear, because this world’s will is rejecting my consciousness.”

Is that an answer you’re satisfied with?

But even if I think of Him now, what use would it be?

I underestimated Gungnir. With his heart pierced, dragonification could not grant Lu Mingfei enough strength to defeat Odin. Even though Odin was in poor condition, Lu Mingfei—without the Flame Spear and pinned in place by Gungnir—could not defeat him.

Lu Mingfei cast a sidelong, contemptuous glance at the fleeing Odin. He merged the power of immortality into the torrential rain created by Odin, constructing several azure divine dragons that coiled around him. Then he muttered:

“What is a Path?”

“Heh heh.”

“I kept calling you a monster, the greatest monster in this world. Do you know why?”

Because…

The person driving the car no longer felt like Lu Mingfei.

Did I… lose?

Perhaps.

Lu Mingfei lowered his brows slightly as he watched Odin slowly approach. He secretly prepared to stake his life on one final, devastating surprise.

Hmph. He’s inferior to me!

Lu Mingfei smiled proudly. Even though his right arm was now crippled and the immortal power within him was nearing its limit, he looked down on Odin from the bottom of his heart. It was the youthful pride of a boy, an arrogance and confidence impossible to describe in words.

There’s a third stage?

Odin’s eyelids twitched violently. Lu Mingfei’s independent dragonification in the second stage was already formidable, but Lu Mingfei was ultimately only a humanoid juvenile Dragon King. Without the support of the Flame Spear, his strength could not compare to Odin’s semi-mature form. That was why Gungnir had been able to kill Lu Mingfei’s second stage in a single shot.

Little brother, your big brother has let you down! Once things calm down and I get the chance, I’ll definitely send you an Evil Eye. Sigh… I’m sorry about this one!

After confirming Chen Motong’s condition, Lu Mingfei turned his gaze back toward Odin.

A second cracking sound rang out. The Flame Spear, already fractured by the previous attacks, was now on the verge of shattering completely.

It was Furina.

Lu Mingfei’s dazed gaze instantly became clear, as though he had suddenly remembered something he should never have forgotten. He recalled the time they had spent together and felt the warmth in his heart. He seemed to suddenly understand what kind of immortality he truly yearned for.

“Throwing?”

A helpless yet indulgent smile gradually appeared on Lu Mingfei’s face. The power of immortality began brewing within his body once more, forcibly pushing Gungnir out of his chest.

Maybe.

“To truly master the power of immortality, bloodline alone is completely insufficient. You must use your own will to sense the concept and power of immortality, and then draw upon it. Only after completely mastering the power of immortality will you become your true self.”

Although Lu Mingfei could explain his dragonification as an intensified use of his bloodline, if the battle became too intense, Chen Motong would inevitably notice something. After all, he was fighting in the form of a dragon while possessing power comparable to a Dragon King. Anyone who saw such a scene would draw the wrong conclusion. Anyone who did not would have something wrong with their brain.

“Is that so?”

The only problem was that it always made strange noises while driving, as though it might explode at any moment.

Lu Mingfei lowered his head and stared at Gungnir. He gripped its scorching shaft with his dragon claw and faintly sensed that something was wrong.

Why did Lu Mingze keep pausing whenever he spoke? Was it because he could not do so within the Nibelungen?

“Dragonification?”

That was it—dragonification!

Lu Mingze understood his own powers, so he could roughly guess what sort of person their master was. Most likely, he was someone who lived for amusement, doing whatever seemed the most interesting.

Lu Mingfei’s gaze sharpened.

Odin’s Nibelungen?

I’ll strip away an entire layer of your land!

Take it all. Take everything!

“Nothing much. You simply gave excellent guidance.”

“Because it’s fun. Turning someone like you—someone who appears on the surface to be an ordinary little boy, yet who carries pressures beyond what ordinary people could imagine—into someone who acts solely for pleasure is incredibly entertaining to me. Not trying it would be a terrible loss.”

Lu Mingfei tried to pull Gungnir free, but the spear seemed to have nailed him in place. No matter how hard he tried, he could not remove it. The spearpoint even continued inching forward with all its might.

Flames merged into his body. Azure power spread outward from him as its center, transforming the torrential rain within a vast area into azure currents under his control. At the same time, the horns and scales on Lu Mingfei’s body gradually turned azure as well.

Bloodied, Odin launched a charge. Only now, as he staked everything on one final attempt, did he truly resemble a warrior.

Should I just let Odin escape?

Of course not!

If I get hit and don’t hit back, am I still Lu Mingfei? Am I the kind of useless coward who just takes it?

“Ah, a fantasy-style setting.”

It hurts so much.

Lu Mingfei lowered his head and looked at Gungnir, which had pierced into his body and stopped just as it reached his heart. He laughed while blood poured from his mouth. Even without the Flame Spear, he could endure the attack with his own body. The Flame Spear had already blocked more than enough of its force.

Lu Mingfei sat in the Maybach, staring at the undead piled up like mountains. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. As he looked around the interior of the Nibelungen, a bold idea suddenly emerged in his mind.

Carrying a large quantity of lightweight materials, Lu Mingfei drove the battered Maybach out of the Nibelungen. Fortunately, he had previously strengthened the car with the blessing of immortality, and the vehicle itself was also exceptionally sturdy. That it could continue driving in such a ruined state was nothing short of a miracle.

“Crack!”

Should I escape? Right now!

“Lu Mingfei” handed Lu Mingze a small box and said with a smile, “There are three buttons inside this box. One will make the Earth explode, one will change your gender, and one will let you reshape your body. Do you want to press one and give it a try?”

Lu Mingfei pointed with one hand. Several azure divine dragons charged directly into the horde of undead, crushing countless bodies. Yet the undead continued pouring out like an endless swarm of locusts. He simply could not kill them all.

Lu Mingze thought for a moment. What the God of Amusement wanted most was amusement. Therefore, giving him enough entertainment should be the final answer. Which button was pressed was not important at all.

“Clang!”

“Lu Mingfei” threw back his head and laughed, clutching his stomach.

“That’s an excellent answer. You’re an interesting fellow. Come visit my world sometime. The main body might even let you try becoming an envoy. Hahahaha!”

He laughed as he vanished, and the scene returned to the real Lu Mingfei driving the car. Lu Mingze secretly breathed a sigh of relief. In truth, he had been gambling just now. That fellow really might have blown up the Earth. His level of power was extremely high, and he was even more dangerous than Nidhogg.

(End of Chapter)