Chapter Five: The Darkness of the Torrential Rain (5)

"In such heavy rain, who is out there?"

Chu Zihang caught a glimpse of a humanoid shadow cast against the rain-streaked window and froze, momentarily thinking it was a traffic officer. He instinctively reached to lower the window, but a thunderous, furious roar from the man stopped him cold.

"Sit still and don't move!"

Chu Zihang’s hand hung suspended in mid-air. Having grown up, he rarely listened to the man, but that roar carried a long-forgotten sense of paternal concern and authority, compelling him to obey.

Just as he was about to ask "Why?", his gaze swept across the car's dashboard, and a wave of overwhelming terror surged through him. The silver needle on the speedometer flickered wildly around the 120 mark.

Who could possibly keep pace with a Maybach traveling at 120 kilometers per hour and reach out to knock on the door?

The dull thudding of the knocking grew as rapid and relentless as the downpour. More and more dark shadows gathered outside, their hollow eyes staring down at the occupants through the glass. A sudden flash of silvery light illuminated their faces, turning them deathly pale.

"What are they?!" Chu Zihang’s body began to tremble uncontrollably.

"Dead servants..." Lu Mingfei replied instinctively.

The man paused, glancing at Lu Mingfei through the rearview mirror.

Yes, Lu Mingfei was certain. These humanoid shadows were fallen hybrids transformed into dead servants. He had seen that same look in the eyes of the serpentine dead servants at the Gen Corporation—pitiful creatures whose souls had been hollowed out by the devil. Lu Mingze was right; they had stumbled into a Nibelungen.

The knocking suddenly turned into a harsh, grating sound, as if something sharp were dragging across metal or glass. It had to be the claws of those shadows! Chu Zihang couldn't help but cover his ears.

"Don't be afraid... son... and you, Lu."

The man suppressed the tremor in his voice completely. The fear on his face vanished, replaced by a resolve as hard as cast iron. "Fasten your seatbelts! We're... breaking through!"

Before Chu Zihang could react, Lu Mingfei had already quickly fastened his seatbelt. The moment he secured his own, the man slammed his foot to the floor as if they had agreed upon it.

The V12 engine surged to full load instantly, accelerating with such explosive power that the two-ton Maybach shuddered. Within seconds, the needle on the speedometer climbed past 180, far exceeding the speed limit of the elevated bridge. But the man showed no intention of easing off, as the shadows remained stubbornly by the windows, like Grim Reapers waiting to harvest the souls of the dying.

It wasn't fast enough!

Damp, cold air was sucked in, compressed, ignited, and exhausted by the turbochargers, converted into raw engine power. This V12 engine, once used in World War II Messerschmitt fighters, was now outputting its maximum force, the V-shaped crankshaft roaring with metallic fury inside the cylinders.

220... 240... 260...

275! The Maybach's top speed!

In that moment, Lu Mingfei felt the man was a madman. He had only ever experienced such insane speeds in the Principal's Maserati. But that was on a clear day, and the Principal possessed the "Time Zero" domain, allowing him to be so reckless. Yet, here the man was, driving a Maybach like a high-speed train on a rain-drenched elevated bridge!

Just then, Chu Zihang curled up in agony, clutching his head. Lu Mingfei initially thought he was breaking down from fear, but he soon realized that wasn't the case. He saw Chu Zihang’s deep black pupils gradually brightening, stained with a golden hue, as if flames had suddenly been ignited within them.

"It's Spirit Vision. Such a strong reaction... I don't know if this is his luck... or his misfortune." The man gripped the steering wheel tightly, as if holding Chu Zihang’s hand instead. "I had always hoped this day... would come later."

"You know about Spirit Vision?" Lu Mingfei blurted out.

"Don't you? You aren't even afraid of these monsters; you even recognize them as dead servants," the man said. "Though I am curious about your true identity, this is clearly not the time for questions. We'll talk in detail if we get out... if we get out at all!"

At that moment, Chu Zihang, as if emerging from a long nightmare, slowly lifted his head. He looked at the man with those golden eyes that Lu Mingfei knew would never be extinguished, his expression dazed.

"Are we going to die?"

"No," the man took a deep breath. "We have simply arrived at... the real world."

"The real... world?"

"Everything you saw just now, and everything you will see, do not be surprised, and do not tell anyone. If you don't understand something, keep it to yourself... or ask Lu."

The car door glass was being pounded by the shadows with a rhythmic "bang-bang." The man suddenly let go with one hand and gripped the black umbrella handle on the inside of the door. Chu Zihang stared, only then realizing it wasn't an umbrella at all, but a blade—a long, slender Japanese sword, with a pitch-black scabbard and no tsuba.

Lu Mingfei recognized it instantly: it was Murasame, the sword Chu Zihang would carry in his next life.

"The Divine Blade Murasame, the cursed demon sword that brought ruin upon the Tokugawa clan." The man drew the blade, his long fingers gripping the hilt in a reverse hold.

In the next instant, without warning, the man thrust the sword through the car door. Before Chu Zihang and Lu Mingfei could process what he was doing, they felt a massive impact. The Maybach, traveling at 275 km/h, slammed into an emergency stop, the inertia nearly throwing them from their seats.

Black-red blood sprayed like water outside the windows—the dead servants had been cut in half by the Murasame! The man had actually conceived such a insane way to kill!

He handled the car like a professional racer, using the front wheels as an axis to spin the Maybach at high speed, continuously slicing and ramming the shadows that tried to leap onto them. The sounds of muscle being severed and bones shattering echoed outside. Thick, foul blood splattered onto the windows like a painting from hell, only to be washed away by the torrential rain.

Even Lu Mingfei had never seen such a grotesque scene. The battles against the serpentine dead servants at the Gen Corporation were nowhere near this bloody. Under the man's control, a gap was literally carved through the shadows. Seizing the moment, the man corrected the car's heading and surged through the opening.

In the rearview mirror, Lu Mingfei saw the surviving shadows climbing to their feet, watching them fade into the distance.

"Are we safe?" Lu Mingfei asked, his heart still pounding.

"I suppose so," the man said. His face was covered in sweat, and his hands on the steering wheel were still shaking.

"What is going on..."

Chu Zihang looked at the man, whose image in his eyes seemed to have suddenly become that of a stranger, as if he had never truly known him. "Did you... just kill people?"

"Don't be afraid. Things like dead servants... strictly speaking, aren't human anymore." The man scratched the back of his head. "The details are complicated; I'll explain when we leave here. Simply put... you have a special bloodline flowing through your veins."

"A special bloodline?"

Chu Zihang suddenly felt that the man must have been reading too many web novels. Confucius said not to speak of strange phenomena or supernatural forces. This was the 21st century, an era of science—how could there be anything supernatural? Yet, deep down, he couldn't help but believe him, because otherwise, what he had just seen was impossible to explain.

"Well, that's not important. Just pretend you never heard it or saw it. Living in an unreal world is quite nice... at least, it's happier. I've always opposed you studying abroad; it's not the studying itself, just... remember not to apply to a school called Cassel College..."

Damn it, so the Senior Brother applying to Cassel College was your doing? If you didn't want him to apply, why not just say so? Don't you know about human reverse psychology—that the more you forbid something, the more one wants to do it? Lu Mingfei grumbled internally.

Still, just as he had suspected, the man was indeed a graduate of Cassel College. Though, he had no idea what the man had gone through to end up as a driver.

On the road, Lu Mingfei kept watching the rear through the mirror. The dead servants hadn't followed; it was as if they had simply given up. But a sense of foreboding still gripped Lu Mingfei's heart. No one knew where this elevated bridge led. But it felt as if, as long as they kept driving, they would eventually reach an end.

They drove through the dim, rainy night for an unknown amount of time. Finally, they saw bright white lights ahead, and signs for a toll booth flashed by the roadside. The man let out a long breath, relieved.

"We made it out?" Lu Mingfei could hardly believe it.

"I think so," the man nodded. "Once we're off the highway, I'll drop you off by the road, and you can see if you can catch a ride..."

"What about you?" Chu Zihang asked.

"I have some things I still need to handle."

The bright white light in the rain grew closer, and everyone began to relax. But as the Maybach drove straight ahead, the light grew larger and larger, yet the outline of a toll booth never appeared.

"No... this isn't right!" the man suddenly shouted.

As the words left his lips, Lu Mingfei heard the neighing of a horse, fierce as a thunderclap. Why would there be a horse on an elevated bridge? Before he could figure it out, he felt the man accelerate the Maybach to its limit once more, cutting through the rain like a black cannonball toward the white light.

At that moment, Lu Mingfei finally saw what stood within that orb of white light.

The Lord of Norse Mythology, the All-Father of the Aesir, Odin!