"Seriously, Brother," Lu Mingze said suddenly, his voice spectral and distant. "I told you right from the start that you and Nono wouldn't have a happy ending, so you should let go of whatever you need to, and as soon as possible."
"How strange. Why does everyone keep saying that?" Lu Mingze asked. "At first, it made sense just because she was the boss's girlfriend, but later on, even Mom and the others started saying it, and Nono even turned out to be the one Odin is waiting for..."
Lu Mingze said nothing, merely sitting beside Lu Mingfei and listening quietly.
"It was only suddenly that I realized Senior Sister really is an extraordinary person—an A-class bloodline with no Spiritual Word, possessing such a mysterious and powerful background yet never showing it..." Lu Mingfei abruptly trailed off. What he left unsaid was that he had thought of the photo album of Nono that Lu Mingze had once stolen. That album was still hidden under his bed, locked inside a combination safe alongside a little yellow duck.
That photo album recorded every significant moment in Nono's life, but in all those moments, there was no father, no mother, no Caesar, no Su Xi, and of course, no him... There was no one else at all, only Nono herself.
Perhaps to outsiders, she was a glamorous red-haired witch, but in truth, Nono's heart must be terribly lonely, right? Lu Mingfei thought. Nono was an A-class high-bloodline Hybrid, so logically she ought to feel a distinct "Grief of Blood." In fact, as an S-class Hybrid, he ought to feel an even stronger "Grief of Blood"—much like that bottle cap from the Arctic Ocean in the Nibelungen of Beijing—except that he himself had never been able to feel it at all.
Oh well. Lu Mingfei realized he had fallen into a preconceived bias. The fact that he couldn't feel the "Grief of Blood" had always been considered an exception, which didn't mean others couldn't feel it either. Earlier on, he hadn't even believed he was a Hybrid; he had never imagined what kind of loneliness the true "Grief of Blood" really was. In his eyes, Caesar was dashing and debonair, Chu Zihang—whom he knew well—was repressed yet a gossip, Finger the loser was utterly shameless down to his core, and Nono was that angel-like little madwoman.
Yet he had overlooked the fact that Caesar actually had very few close friends within the college, and his most familiar acquaintances were essentially Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang, with whom he had shared life and death in Japan. As for Chu Zihang, he had always been a solitary wolf among the crowd, someone from Shilan High School to Kassel College whom people could only gaze at from afar, finding it hard to ever draw close. Nono's only best friend was Su Xi; aside from her, the people she was most familiar with were Caesar and Lu Mingfei. And Finger... that guy was an anomaly. With his audacity and shamelessness stripped of all lower limits, he had probably forgotten even something like the "Grief of Blood" entirely.
So everyone was actually lonely, and he was the only one who hadn't noticed. In truth, his own friends were very few as well—when he counted them up, there were only these few—it was just that he himself hadn't felt the loneliness.
Perhaps precisely because of loneliness, every single person by his side was so precious; thus he would trade his life with Lu Mingze for Nono, for Chu Zihang, and for the Little Monster. Finger would travel thousands of miles from Cuba to find him, risking being torn apart by Ghouls just to stall for him on the elevated highway. Nono would disregard everyone else's opinions to take him running for their lives all the way, suffering heavy injuries several times over.
Because they were all very important people to each other.
In a lifetime, there were only a few good friends, only a few people held deep within one's heart—how could he bear to let them be lost?
Even this Little Devil tangled up with him—though a grim reaper constantly eyeing the little life he had left—was also such an important figure in his life. That was why even when he knew he was heading into a decisive battle with him upon coming here, he couldn't bring himself to make up his mind, because without him, life seemed as though it would become incomplete.
How much resolve must one muster just to sever a part of one's own life?
"So now," Lu Mingze placed a hand on Lu Mingfei's shoulder, "do you understand, Brother?"
Lu Mingfei slowly raised his head. What met his eyes was Lu Mingze's clean, fair face, his Golden Pupil—once as blazing as lava—now as pale as autumn water.
"I know. I've known ever since we stood on the peak of the mountain." Lu Mingfei let out a slow sigh. "Besides, this severance has been a scam from start to finish, hasn't it?"
"Why do you say that?" Lu Mingze asked indifferently.
"They used your power to construct this Nibelungen, pouring a tremendous amount of effort and care into it. According to the principles of a Nibelungen, once the master of a Nibelungen dies, the Nibelungen collapses—just like that time in the Beijing subway, because the person who set the rules of the world died, the rules collapsed," Lu Mingfei said in a low voice. "So our duel does them no good at all. If I win and you die, Safe Haven will collapse, and all their efforts will be destroyed in an instant. If you win and I die, then you'd probably kill all of them, wouldn't you?"
"I'm not that cruel a person, Brother," Lu Mingze said coldly. "Though if they really were to snatch you away from my side, I suppose I would."
Inappropriate as the mood was, Lu Mingfei couldn't help but chuckle. Looking at Lu Mingze's expression, it didn't seem like he was joking; could the Little Devil really value the bond between them that much?
"So then, why did they arrange this severance? I know they know far more than I do, so I was wondering if the connection between us is far closer than I imagined. If the outcome of the severance is nothing more than you winning or me winning, Mom probably wouldn't worry so much. When I said I wanted to leave, Dad didn't stop me either, but I thought about it later: could they really be so at ease letting me walk away with this secret?" Lu Mingfei's train of thought gradually cleared. "If they want to sustain the existence of the Nibelungen, they need you to stay alive, or someone to take your place in supporting the Nibelungen."
The conclusion was already crystal clear: one of them must inherit the power to sustain this Nibelungen, and this person had to remain under the control of Safe Haven. If Lu Mingfei had been the one to open his eyes, Lu Lincheng would presumably have found a way to make him stay; if Lu Mingze had been the one to open his eyes, perhaps at this very moment that Gungnir would be suspended right above his heart.
"You guessed right, Brother." A trace of a smile surfaced at the corners of Lu Mingze's mouth. "No matter the outcome, they never intended to let you walk out of this Safe Haven."
"It doesn't matter, though, Brother. You still have me; I will stay with you forever." Lu Mingze's Golden Pupil flared once more. "Those who oppose us shall perish!"
"If I guessed correctly, we're trapped in this dreamscape now, aren't we?" Lu Mingfei stood up, looking up at the heavily overcast sky above.
"Yes. They used a large quantity of drugs to plunge you into a deep dreamscape. Just as they said, only when one of the two of us dies can we get out," Lu Mingze said. "Because this dreamscape is built on the foundation of us both. When we are both in the dreamscape, that foundation remains stable. Only when one of us dies will that foundation collapse, and the dreamscape will be broken."
"Then what do we do? Does it really have to come down to only one person walking out?"
"Of course not," the Little Devil flashed an enigmatic smile. "Leave it to me, Brother. If a dreamscape cannot be dismantled from the inside, then we'll just dismantle it from the outside instead."
Dr. Duden rubbed his hands nervously, pacing back and forth across the room. From time to time, he cast a glance at Lu Mingfei lying on the bed. The electroencephalogram beside him showed that his emotions were relatively stable right now, not fluctuating violently as they had ten minutes ago.
Yet that very fact indicated that the battle within the dreamscape wasn't as intense as he had imagined, and Dr. Duden was deeply worried that a result he did not wish to see would occur.
A sudden gust of cold wind swept through the room, causing Dr. Duden to instinctively tighten his collar.
"Who left the window open?! Don't you know people are busy here?" he muttered, walking toward the window. Outside, snow drifted through the air, and a flash of gold swept past not far away.
"Kholgina? You guys should be in class at this hour, shouldn't you?" Dr. Duden grumbled as he closed the window, but when he reached it, he froze. This was the fourth floor, for goodness' sake—how could anyone climb up to such a height to open a window?
The next moment, he shivered slightly because he clearly remembered locking the window with his own hands and even drawing the curtains.
Yet that memory felt somewhat hazy, like a dream. In contrast, what was happening right now felt so real, just like waking up from a dream a moment ago.
He firmly believed his memory wouldn't make such a low-level error. He held himself to extremely strict standards, repeatedly verifying procedures before starting any work and engraving every detail into his mind, never letting low-level mistakes interfere with the workflow.
Yet right now, he felt his memory had fallen into chaos. When he tried to recall everything that had just happened, everything else seemed hazy as well, much like failing to remember the details of a dream after waking up.
"Who... are you?" He clutched his forehead and turned around, only to discover a young girl standing in the room.
The girl looked familiar—golden hair, petite stature—yet he had no recollection of ever seeing her.
No! There was still something wrong somewhere! Dr. Duden grabbed the windowsill. There had to be an error somewhere in his memory, and a fatal one at that!
What was it? He had to remember immediately! Otherwise, it would lead to irreversible consequences!
Right, exactly! He remembered now: he had indeed checked every single detail, down to how many doors were locked outside and how many people were left in the room, but at this moment, the door at the entrance was still bolted from the inside, and the room was left with only him and that girl—everyone else had vanished!
"Who are you?" he asked again.
The girl did not answer. Dr. Duden finally saw her appearance clearly: she looked like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old Russian girl, seemingly not yet having begun to develop. Her small face was as cold as frost, and in her hand, she carried a triangular bayonet utterly disproportionate to her build.
The very next instant, just as his consciousness was clearing, his body was pierced through by that triangular bayonet.
As his consciousness blurred once more, he seemed to recall where he had seen this girl. But how could that be? Clearly, no one had survived coming out of there, and even if she had survived, she ought to be in her thirties by now!
Along with the sound of Dr. Duden collapsing to the floor, everything seemed to return to normal.
The medical staff filling the room lay sprawled in disarray. Most of them still had breath, but having been injected with a massive dose of drugs, they wouldn't be waking up anytime soon. Only Dr. Duden had been pierced through by the triangular bayonet, his blood pooling on the pristine white tiles. The window was indeed still tightly locked; only the door latch had been pried open once, and was now merely bolted simply from the inside.
Zero frowned. "Mirror Pupil" silently activated, and all the instruments and drugs in the room were rapidly broken down and reassembled within her brain—those she had seen and those she hadn't, those she knew and those she didn't. With unbelievable capability, she comprehended these instruments and drugs, and then she began to operate, opening the required pharmaceuticals according to strict standards, compounding them in precise proportions, and injecting them into the apparatus to preheat and centrifuge. Processes that required multiple people to complete could be managed methodically by her alone, and she finished them both swiftly and flawlessly.
A syringe of reagent slowly pushed into Lu Mingfei's vein. Zero removed her gloves, picked up the triangular bayonet, and stood by the door waiting for him to wake up.
Lu Mingfei in the dreamscape felt his body jerk suddenly, as if a cooling sensation were flowing through his blood vessels. He lifted his arm in astonishment as sunlight broke through the clouds and shone upon him.
"Time to wake up, Brother," Lu Mingze said. The sunlight that should have illuminated the world did not shine upon him; his blazing Golden Pupil appeared slightly dim under the glare of the sun, yet the smile on that small face remained as fresh as the morning breeze at dawn.
Lu Mingfei hesitated for a moment, then asked, "After I go out, is there any way I can save you?"
"You mean that me who was pierced through by Gungnir? There's no need for that, Brother. That's merely a soulless vessel; you can say it's not dead, but you can't call it alive," Lu Mingze said indifferently. "Run quickly, Brother. Some things are about to happen. If you don't want your friends to stay here and be buried along with you, take them and run fast!"
Lu Mingfei wanted to ask something more, but he felt his vision gradually blur. He knew he was about to be pulled out of the dreamscape; everything within the dreamscape twisted and grew ethereal, save for the Little Devil's figure, which remained so clear, and the smile hanging at the corners of his mouth, which remained so sincere, yet filled him involuntarily with a trace of sorrow.
There seemed to be a sense of betrayal, as though he were abandoning the Little Devil and fleeing alone.
"Go on ahead without worry, Brother," Lu Mingze seemed able to hear what Lu Mingfei was thinking. "Of course I won't die. As long as you still need me, Brother, I will stay with you."
Lu Mingfei suddenly remembered so many things Lu Mingze had said to him in the past. Aside from the relentlessly instilled laws of power and might, there had also been times when he had repeatedly walked with him through swaying winds and driving rain, soaking together in the increasingly deep seawater, refusing to be driven away, stubbornly insisting on sharing the rain with him.
Yet every time, he himself had managed to escape safely, while the other had been left behind every single time.
That feeling—wouldn't it be terribly lonely?