Lu Mingfei looked at Zero in surprise. Zero said coldly, "That is a name I used to use."
"No!" Number Seventeen's expression seemed startled. "You're Renata!"
"My name is Zero." Zero's tone seemed somewhat impatient, her hand hidden behind her back gripping a pistol pulled from who knows where.
Number Seventeen did not dwell on the question any further. The next moment, his gaze shifted to Lu Mingfei, his golden pupils flashing with doubt and uncertainty.
"Could it be you? Is it you?" Number Seventeen could not help taking half a step back, but a cryptic smile immediately appeared on his face.
"It doesn't matter if it's you. Since you both came back together, I can keep you both here!"
The moment he finished speaking, Zero suddenly burst into action, firing rapid shots. With her shooting technique, she could accurately force him away from vital points at this distance, but it would still be enough to incapacitate him.
However, her rapid shots missed. Number Seventeen actually anticipated her sneak attack, dodging aside before Zero even raised her gun.
Zero's eyes narrowed slightly as she activated Spiritual Word: Mirror Pupil.
"His Spiritual Word is Kamaitachi," Zero said flatly.
Lu Mingfei understood. No wonder Anton had been able to find them so quickly. In the domain of Kamaitachi, all surrounding sounds were under the caster's control. It seemed Zero's action of hiding a pistol behind her back had not escaped Number Seventeen's ears, which was why he had been able to anticipate her surprise attack.
Yet as fellow masters of Kamaitachi, Lu Mingfei did not believe the Number Seventeen before him could surpass Caesar. Furthermore, the usefulness of Kamaitachi was greatly reduced in close-quarters combat, and Lu Mingfei did not think Number Seventeen could best Zero in that regard.
Watching the little girl approach him, Number Seventeen's expression shifted slightly. He certainly did not think this doll-like little girl could pose any threat to him, but he still had a deep impression of that tyrant-like boy. Though he could not remember the boy's face, the Lu Mingfei before him gave him that exact same feeling.
Anton's memories were hazy to him; otherwise, had he known that Anton had just been sent flying by Zero with a string of uppercuts, he surely would not have thought he could easily dispatch this doll.
Just as the distance between the two shrank to less than five meters, Zero started running, accelerating, and suddenly lunged right in front of him before Number Seventeen's shocked eyes. She bent her waist, turned sideways, and delivered an uppercut!
Another beautiful string of uppercuts—Lu Mingfei couldn't help wanting to shout "Shoryuken"!
Number Seventeen's arm had barely raised halfway when he took a fierce blow to the lower abdomen. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that this doll-like girl possessed such formidable strength and such precise technique. This punch forced him to double over, reducing the height difference between him and the two of them. Zero took a stepping jump, driving her knee fiercely into Number Seventeen's chest. Just as Number Seventeen completely lost his balance, Zero stepped off his knee to leap up, swinging a vicious whip kick straight into his face.
Amidst a spinning blur, a very distant memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.
At some year's Christmas dance party, the tyrant-like boy had suddenly appeared in the center of the dance floor, his blinding golden pupils overawing the entire room. With a set of uppercuts nearly identical to the ones Zero had just used, he had beaten him down and snatched away the girl he had set his sights on.
"So it was you..." Muttering the final words, Number Seventeen was kicked straight in the forehead by Zero and passed out cold.
Zero turned around expressionlessly, not sparing Number Seventeen another glance.
On that burning Christmas night years ago, Number Zero had used a set of uppercuts to beat up Anton for her. Now, through the shifting of years, seeing an old friend again, she was long past being the weak little doll of the past. She too had practiced those uppercuts. Facing Anton once more, she no longer needed Number Zero to fight her battles, so she had used that set of uppercuts once again and beaten up Anton once more.
Her face remained expressionless, yet her heart actually felt a tiny ripple of pleasure.
It was a feeling she hadn't experienced in many years.
Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded, looking at the instantly defeated Anton and the icy-cold Zero. Although he believed in Zero's abilities, he hadn't expected her to end the battle so violently, and Her Imperial Highness's expression even seemed stirred by something. While his mind was wandering wildly, Her Imperial Highness shot him a cold glance.
"Uh, coming, coming!" Lu Mingfei hurried along with dainty little steps behind Zero. Though he was full of questions, now was clearly not the time to ask them, so he would just have to save them for later.
...
"Number Seventeen lost contact?" Lu Lincheng grabbed his adjutant by the collar, his dual pupils seeming to spew fire.
"We just lost connection with him. His signal can't be found," the adjutant answered tremblingly.
"Notify all idle personnel to go look for him immediately," Lu Lincheng shoved the adjutant aside and said in a deep voice.
"Look for Number Seventeen?" The adjutant thought to himself, when did that guy get on such good terms with the Secretary-General? Could he be the Secretary-General's illegitimate son?
"Lu Mingfei! Hurry up and find Lu Mingfei for me!" Lu Lincheng wished he could twist this guy's pig head off. "If we can't find Lu Mingfei, we're all screwed!"
"Understood!" The adjutant thought the Secretary-General really was Lu Mingfei's biological father after all.
"If you find Number Seventeen, bring him to me as well," Lu Lincheng spat out a puff of smoke and slowly added.
"Understood." The adjutant thought in horror: Could the Secretary-General and that kid still have some unspeakable relationship?
Lu Lincheng glanced at him, having no idea what kind of chaotic nonsense was going through this idiot's brain, and shook his head helplessly. He didn't have time to drag this out. According to intelligence from scouts, although Kassel College's first attempt to open the door using the "Key" had failed, the existence of this Nibelungen was now confirmed, and the next step was already underway.
"Mingfei, you'd better get back here fast," Lu Lincheng forcefully stubbed out his cigarette.
At the edge of the huge blizzard, Execution Bureau personnel bustled back and forth, first melting the snow with hot water, then trimming it with blowtorches. Someone embedded a mold into the ground, poured melted bronze over the surface, and finally removed the mold. The sound of a man's orders continually came through the earphones.
"That mold is crooked! Move it away quickly! Over there, yes, you! You're in the way, get out of the way and clear space for the mold! Where's the mercury? Get the mercury ready quickly."
At the distant American headquarters, the Vice Principal sat reclining with his legs crossed, holding a wine flask and taking sips from time to time. On the screen projected by EVA was an aerial drone shot of the exterior of the Nibelungen, where Execution Bureau members could be seen pouring a bronze floor across the snow. After removing the molds, complex patterns were left behind—some resembling writing, others resembling totems. Mercury flowed through the patterned lines; anyone familiar with Dragon Kind history knew this was an alchemical array, driving the array's operation through alchemical power to produce effects similar to Spiritual Words without human labor.
"Just this array is enough?" Mr. Turing asked doubtfully. The Vice Principal didn't even need to be there in person; he could accomplish this alchemical miracle just by directing the Execution Bureau members?
"Of course it's not that simple," the Vice Principal rolled his eyes. "If alchemy were as simple as tracing a picture, wouldn't everyone be an alchemist?"
"Then what should we do next?" Mr. Turing asked earnestly and inquisitively.
"The thing I sent over is the key to driving the array," the Vice Principal snapped his fingers. "I used the Principal's Gulfstream a few hours ago, I figure it should be arriving any minute now."
The roar of a Gulfstream resounded in the skies of northern Siberia. Without looking, the Execution Bureau personnel knew the Principal's precious baby had arrived. The only thing capable of generating this kind of excessive noise was undeniably the Principal's Gulfstream, the *Sleipnir*, and a masterpiece modified by the madmen of the Equipment Department at that.
The landing runway had long been cleared. Compared to a regular aircraft runway, it could barely be called passable—just clearing the snow off a stretch of road and paving it over—but for the pilot of the *Sleipnir*, it was more than enough.
Everyone present was the ace of aces, full of confidence in each other's strength.
The *Sleipnir* landed with a roar, the howling blizzard whipped up by the gale nothing short of overwhelming. Just this piloting style alone showed it came straight out of Kassel College.
Personnel standing by on both sides trotted to the aircraft door, waiting for the pilot's instructions to unload.
The person in charge stepped forward to inspect, confirming that the cargo in the cabin was well preserved. Through EVA's projection, it could be seen that bronze utensils were packed inside.
"Bronzeware?" Mr. Van der Valt looked toward the Vice Principal.
"They're alchemical utensils I've blessed," the Vice Principal replied while picking up the microphone. "Hey, hey, hey! You guys be careful! If you knock even a corner off the stuff in this box, selling all of you wouldn't cover it!"
The person in charge at the site repeatedly flipped through the manual sent by the Vice Principal, trying to make heads or tails of the scribbled handwriting.
"I don't need you to understand it, just figure out what goes where," the Vice Principal brandished the microphone and his wine flask. "Hey! I'm talking to you! Put that bronze vessel down! Can't you even tell the difference between a basin and a tripod?"
The other elders of the Secret Party and Han Gao could only watch in silence as the Vice Principal gesticulated wildly with a microphone in front of the screen. If they weren't so familiar with the Vice Principal's style, they would have thought he was a drunk karaoke regular. Aside from that, when it came to alchemy, none of them were qualified to speak before the Vice Principal; Flamel was the absolute authority in this field.
It was said that all previous Flamels had been steadfast allies of the Secret Party, always the calmest figures in the conference hall with the charisma to have the final say. Yet the Vice Principal was reeking of alcohol and stepping all over the conference table... Mr. Turing couldn't help wondering if he really was dead drunk.
Just as Mr. Turing decided to step up and snatch the wine bottle from the Vice Principal's hands, the Vice Principal suddenly gave a fierce wave of his hand. "Where's the Key? Bring the Key here! How are we supposed to open the door without the Key?!"
The person in charge at the site cautiously carried the Key into the projection range, took a drop of blood from the Key according to the Vice Principal's instructions, and dropped it into the bronze vessel. A miraculous thing happened: the bronze vessel seemed to come alive, a single drop of blood rapidly spreading along the patterns across the entire body of the vessel. Not daring to delay, the person in charge cradled the bowl and ran all the way to the bronze array.
"Right, right, just put it there, don't move it. Finally managed to get you to do one thing right, running those couple of steps like a big maiden," the Vice Principal swayed as he sat back down on his stool. "Get your ass out of there smartly, or are you waiting to be eaten by the barrier?"
The very instant the person in charge retreated from the bronze array, the entire formation roared into operation. Mercury began to flow, and the drop of blood from the Key merged into the alchemical secret arts under the traction of the mercury. The storm not far away seemed to sense this, once again extending that tentacle made of wind and snow.
"Is this enough?" Beowulf asked.
"I've enhanced the Spiritual Word strength of the Key through alchemy. In a sense, you could say it raises the bloodline rank of this drop of blood to a certain degree," the Vice Principal stared fixedly at the screen. "But whether it's enough to open this Nibelungen, I don't know either."
As that tentacle reached closer, the spinning speed of the alchemical array grew faster and faster. The person in charge standing not far away rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things.
Blood-red mist surged over the entire bronze array, gradually forming a tentacle resembling the snowstorm.
The two tentacles intersected in mid-air, and the bronze array trembled violently. The Vice Principal's expression grew increasingly excited.
"It worked... It succeeded!" The Vice Principal kicked over his chair and slammed a ferocious fist onto the table in Valhalla.
By this time, no one cared about the Vice Principal's disrespect toward the ancestors of the Secret Party. Everyone stared fixedly at the screen, watching that patch of blizzard that had lingered for decades suddenly weaken, as if torn open from the middle with sunlight shining from within.
It looked just like the gates of heaven opening.
The next moment, ten thousand cannons fired simultaneously. Countless shells shot out from the gates of heaven, and on EVA's screen, simultaneous flashes of artillery fire could be seen lighting up the distant hillsides.
"The Doomsday Faction!" Beowulf clenched his fists, snatching the microphone from the Vice Principal's hand. "All hands, prepare to charge!"
...
Inside the Nibelungen, Zero suddenly turned her head to look at the sky in the opposite direction.
"What's wrong?" Lu Mingfei walked to her side, panting. The medicinal effect sustaining his movement was about to wear off, and his physical condition was rapidly approaching that of a septuagenarian or octogenarian, as if his body were rapidly aging within the span of a few minutes.
"There's the sound of artillery," Zero narrowed her eyes.
Lu Mingfei was stunned. Just as he wanted to ask something, a wonderful feeling suddenly coursed through his entire body.
It felt as comfortable as someone exhausted after a whole day suddenly soaking in a hot spring. Every parched cell in his body was cheering, and warmth flowed through his tired limbs and bones. His legs could move freely again, and his strength was rapidly recovering, as if he had suddenly jumped from seventy years old back to twenty, giving him a feeling of rebirth.
"The Nibelungen has been opened!" The next moment, he thought of the reason. According to what the doctor had said earlier, the Little Devil's will was suppressed inside the Nibelungen, which was why his body presented a state of severe senility. Now that his power had suddenly returned, there was only one most likely explanation.
The college had forcefully opened the Nibelungen, which meant they would inevitably go to war with Safe Haven next!