Chapter 2: Dragon Tide City

Chu Hengkong was well-traveled for someone with such a short career. He had fought wild beasts in the deep forests along the northeastern border and hunted enemies through the labyrinthine sewers of Paris. He had staked his life against the private armies of drug lords in the back alleys of South America and dueled masters of Aikido in ancient Japanese dojos.

Having faced death so often, he had long ceased to believe in ghosts or gods. While he could not claim to have been raised under the most idealistic circumstances, he considered himself a staunch materialist. Yet, the worldview he had spent years cementing was dealt a crushing blow in under five minutes.

The ritual he had just witnessed... that had to be supernatural, right?

He had been perfectly content fishing on the sea, and in the blink of an eye, he had been "summoned" into this secret chamber. There was no rational explanation for such a displacement. And this new left arm—which had appeared as naturally as if it had always been there—was even more absurd. Even when a regular person gets a tooth pulled, they get anesthesia; who would believe that an arm could turn into a tentacle in the blink of an eye?

"This is completely insane," Chu muttered, shaking Alex’s robe vigorously.

While his mind raced, his hands stayed busy. Within three minutes, he had thoroughly searched every fanatic in the room. His haul included several watches, tobacco of unknown origin, a few transparent beads, and a purple pendant. The last item had belonged to Alex. Chu was certain the Grand Wizard’s reflexes weren't fast enough to dodge the sweep of his tentacle, but the moment he had gripped this pendant, Alex had made a preemptive evasion as if he had foreseen the future.

It was precisely at that moment that the necklace had emitted a faint glow.

Chu casually wrapped the pendant around his right wrist, hoping it might prove useful. The search of the chamber yielded nothing else, and he was not surprised to find that everything was utterly alien to him. The tobacco smelled like moldy bananas, the transparent beads contained swirling streams of water, and the "numbers" on the watches looked like elaborate, ghostly runes.

There were no newspapers or books around, leaving him with little intelligence. The only remaining lead was the large tome the Grand Wizard had used for the ritual.

Unlike the scattered debris in the room, the book looked exquisite and sophisticated. It was as thick as half a dictionary, bound in a hard cover wrapped in silk-like, pale white fabric, with a single eye embroidered in silver thread in the center. The composition of the eye was simple yet vivid; at a glance, one had the illusion of being watched back.

Chu flipped through the book quickly, only to find all the pages blank. The crinkled paper emitted a musty odor, as if it had been soaked in seawater for years. The only writing was on the frontispiece, a paragraph blurred by moisture, with only a few severely distorted words recognizable:

"Knowledge... Wisdom... Eye... Tentacle... Mystery... Abyssal Realm..."

The word at the very bottom was highlighted in bold, bright red ink, looking incredibly alluring: "SUMMONING"!

Chu slammed the book shut, stuffed it into his coat, and walked out of the chamber without looking back. His expression was grim; even someone with nerves of steel couldn't help but let their imagination run wild after seeing this.

This was clearly a relic of some unknown evil god! Those idiots had been acting like he had ruined their summoning ritual—if it had actually succeeded, some fifty-meter-tall tentacle monster probably would have descended to feast, and the first things the god would have eaten were those fools!

What made Chu feel even worse was that he could read these strange characters without any effort, as fluently as if they were his native language. He decided to ponder that later; he had more pressing tasks: figuring out where he was and whether he was still on Earth.

Outside the chamber was a long flight of stairs leading upward. The environment was dark, with no lights, and he heard no sounds of others. Chu’s phone had no signal, GPS was useless, and he had to rely on his surroundings to orient himself. He tried to retract his tentacle and used his right hand to steady himself against the wall as he climbed. The slick, damp sensation on his hands and shoes told him that the walls were dripping with condensation. The air in the confined space was cold and humid, a dampness that felt like it could seep into his skin and rust his very bones.

Chu smiled. He had found a sense of familiarity in this strange environment. This was exactly what the southern regions were like during the humid "returning moisture" season back home. With no windows in the chamber and stairs leading upward, he was likely in a basement. Combined with the fishy-smelling books and the fanatical cultists...

A dilapidated village, fishy sea breezes, superstitious locals—this was likely a small coastal settlement. He had dismantled dozens of such backwater places during his previous missions, and his confidence grew. After a few breaths, he reached the top of the stairs. The exit wasn't a door, but a hatch in the ceiling. Undeterred, Chu pushed it open and poked his head out.

A shrill, howling wind rushed in, powerful enough to uproot trees. Chu vaulted out of the passage in one motion, but before he could even survey his surroundings, he flattened himself against the ground like a dried fish. A cold light flashed by with lethal intent, slicing through the air above his head.

The light was swift and elusive, moving as ethereal and traceless as the wind. Then, similar whistling sounds followed in succession, and one cold light after another swept past. Realizing something was wrong, Chu squinted and focused. As his eyes adjusted, the scene revealed itself, and his mind went blank.

Those weren't lights at all—they were rusty weapons! Great axes, long sabers, spears, swords... countless armaments whistled through the gale, forming a torrent of death above the exit. And the "wind" was not air, but a tsunami-like current. Thousands of tons of seawater were surging through the air, carrying the weapons with them. The current was so close that if he had stood up, he would have been swept away.

Chu swallowed hard. He carefully crawled forward under the torrent of weapons. After about fifty meters, he found a gap where he could barely stand. He rose cautiously and looked around.

He found no safe haven, only more weapons dancing in the air like a migrating flock of birds in autumn. Because the current carrying the weapons was everywhere, the entire sky was occupied by this insane spectacle. No, there was no sky; the colorless current formed a thick curtain of water—it was the "sky" of this place.

As he stood, his view widened. Below the water curtain stood rows of dilapidated buildings, stacked layer upon layer like a mountain city. From the tops of the tallest structures, white lines extended into the water curtain, "fishing" away weapons and armor like hooks. Countless old buildings hid in the shadows of the skyscrapers, their windows glowing with firelight, brightening the dark night.

And where the frantic water curtain surged, a slender, snake-like white shadow danced. Chu tried gripping the purple pendant; the relic, which enhanced perception, activated, allowing him to see the true form of the white shadow.

It was a dragon! A white dragon as long as a ladder to the heavens! Its massive body glided within the water curtain, moving alongside the weapons without a scratch. Its pair of pale eyes shone like stars, visible even from a thousand miles away. The white dragon rode the vortex, as if guarding the city beneath the torrent.

Chu was completely stunned. The worldview he had built over the past twenty-two years shattered under this few seconds of observation. He parted his lips, his voice dry.

"Holy... did I really cross over?"

"That's right. Welcome to Huilong City, the intersection of fate and the capital where ancient dragons roam," a crisp female voice spoke from behind him. "Now, please turn around slowly, so we can get a good look at you."

Chu turned with an impossible sense of calm. Ten meters away stood a beautiful blonde girl, holding a shimmering golden shield. Ten burly men in strange masks stood behind her, fully armed and loaded, each looking like a powerhouse capable of single-handedly crushing a group of fanatics.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on Chu’s left arm, staring at the glowing silver tentacle. The blonde girl flashed her badge and grinned, her small canine tooth reflecting a dangerous light.

"I am Ji Haisu, captain of the Rebirth Squad. Unfortunately, due to your involvement in a demonic summoning ritual, you are under arrest."