Apocalyptic Dragon Riders

chapter 15

Boom! ~ The murky tidal surge of the Qiantang River slammed straight into Morin. Several meters of water crashed over the tide-blocking dam, and the river rose four or five meters in an instant — and this was just an ordinary tide. If it had been the Mid-Autumn Festival tide, it would have easily been twice as high.

Everyone on the riverbank watched, dumbfounded, as Morin was swallowed by the tide. They could only sigh in regret — what a waste of a life.

Moments later, the tide still raged, but suddenly the water split beneath the levee. A figure emerged, completely encased in armor, a massive greatsword taller than a man strapped across his back.

“What… what the hell is going on?!” one of the levee patrolmen rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

Clang, clang. Morin climbed step by step up the embankment. Considering the hundreds of pounds of blacksteel enchanted plate he was wearing, he was practically a walking lump of iron. With the defensive arrays engraved on its surface, even without battle aura, there was no way the tide could wash him away. The air resistance dragon knights endured while flying at high speeds was far greater than this.

“Hey, hey! What’s your name? Don’t you know how dangerous it is to stand on the riverbank like that?!” the old man from the patrol shouted angrily. People these days… really had nothing better to do? Wearing some weird medieval-looking armor just to stand there and take the tide head-on — was his brain fried in gutter oil?

Morin ignored him. The pride and dignity of a dragon knight would not allow him to spare even a glance at such powerless commoners. Even though this world didn’t rank people by strength but by money and status, until he fully adapted to this world’s rules, he would continue to act by the standards he had always lived by.

At dawn, Morin opened his eyes and stared blankly at the snow-white ceiling, a lingering sense of dream still clinging to him. The fused memories tangled together in his sleep — it felt as if he was a man of this world, yet also as if he had only dreamed of being a noble, powerful dragon knight. Both sets of memories were equally vivid, equally sharp. Was he Lin Mo, or was he Morin? Just before waking, he had still been wondering whether yesterday had been nothing but a dream — or whether the dream was the life before it.

Propping himself up with one hand, he flipped the blanket aside and sat up. Then his gaze froze.

His blacksteel enchanted plate. Yes — the set of armor crafted for him by a master smith the moment he signed his dragon knight’s contract, forged with rare materials by the most skilled artisans — the exclusive privilege of dragon knights.

But he clearly remembered taking it off last night and stacking it neatly in the corner of the room. Now it was gone — along with the massive dragonslaying sword, his dagger, his silver water flask, and even the handful of gold coins he had left. Only a strange, ornate flute and a gleaming golden egg remained. Near the egg were scattered bits of silvery metal fragments.

The window was still locked, no signs of forced entry. Even if a thief had gotten in, who would be stupid enough to steal something as heavy as blacksteel plate but leave behind a golden egg and a magical flute? It made no sense.

The golden egg seemed just a little bit bigger than yesterday. Morin — no, now he should call himself Lin Mo, as that was the name on his ID and the identity he now lived under — saw that the metal fragments were clearly from his armor. To his shock, a few small pieces seemed to quiver and crawl, as if alive, before being absorbed into the egg like droplets of water. For an instant, faint runes on the egg glowed.

It was almost as if the egg had a mind of its own — sneaking bites, wiping its mouth clean. Lin Mo stared, wide-eyed. The entire set of dragon knight armor had been devoured overnight! Another piece of his past world, gone. All he had left now was this strange golden egg and the dragon flute — and even calling himself a dragon knight seemed like a joke.

“Damn it, this egg has to have something to do with Goldie!” Lin Mo quickly snatched the flute away from the egg. He didn’t know what the flute was made of, but if this thing ever got hungry enough to eat it too, he’d regret it forever.

There was no way back to his old world, no way to see Aka and the others again. All he had left were these few things to remember them by.

The egg, seemingly sated, stopped moving. It sat there quietly, looking utterly ordinary.

“What a damn bottomless stomach!” Lin Mo grumbled as he found a box about the same size and placed the egg inside. Then he packed his luggage. Today was the day he had to leave for the Air Force Aviation University.

After shutting off all the power, gas, and water, he locked the door behind him. This little apartment that had been his home for over ten years might sit empty for years before anyone returned.

“Hey! Chen Qi, have you seen Lin Mo? What do you mean, no? I even went to his place — nobody’s there! Help me look for him, will you? You’re the one who’s closest to him. Where the hell did that guy run off to?”

“Hello? Zhejiang University? I need Director Jiang — yes, Jiang? I’m looking for Lin Mo. This guy’s gone totally MIA! … What? He left to be a pilot? Today’s flight? That bastard! He didn’t tell anyone! I still have his share of the competition prize money! Damn it, when I find him, I’m gonna beat him senseless!”

Qi Fei, the leader of the cosplay troupe God War Combo, still in her magical girl costume, called half a dozen friends before finally getting the news. She had honestly thought Lin Mo had vanished off the face of the earth. No wonder he’d seemed so weird yesterday.

“That jerk! He ghosted me without even saying goodbye!” Qi Fei pouted, her round cheeks puffing up adorably like a steamed bun. She was furious — volcanic furious. Their group had finally gotten a shot at fame, a chance that came once in a lifetime, and this deserter had blown it all.

She turned back to the TV and watched the carefully edited replay of their performance. Even after seeing it multiple times, she still felt shaken. It was as if a real knight had stepped onto the stage — no cosplay could ever reproduce that presence. The armor could be copied, the moves could be imitated, but that killing aura, that battle-hardened nobility, could never be faked. For a moment, Qi Fei even wondered: had Lin Mo been possessed by some god that day?

Blissfully unaware of Qi Fei’s wrath, Lin Mo arrived at Xiaoshan Airport early and checked in for his flight.

As he boarded the plane bound for Changchun and gazed out the window at the familiar sky, a strange mix of nostalgia and alienation washed over him. To truly soar freely through the sky and to sit inside a machine being carried by engines — those were two completely different experiences.

Though Lin Mo now carried both souls’ memories, the original “Lin Mo” of this world had died from his injuries, leaving behind only fragments of memory. Morin’s soul was the dominant one. If the fusion had been complete, he might never have known who he really was — maybe even gone mad from the split.

As the engines roared and the plane accelerated, Lin Mo smiled faintly. This was his first flight, but he felt perfectly calm. He leisurely opened the book in his hands.

“Excuse me, are you a teacher?” asked the middle-aged man in the next seat, puzzled. When Lin Mo had opened the book earlier, he had caught sight of the cover — Junior High Physics.

“Mm. Just doing some review — I’ve forgotten a lot.” Lin Mo’s face stayed perfectly calm as he kept reading.

“I see.” The man was briefly speechless. People’s hobbies could be strange — some liked to read textbooks as if they were novels. He shrugged and returned to his newspaper.

For Lin Mo, though, modern scientific knowledge was as fresh and fascinating as alchemy back in his old world. A dragon knight needed to be well-educated to survive in different environments, and this was just another kind of study.

The two worlds’ civilizations were radically different — one based on matter, the other on energy — but they complemented each other in surprising ways. Even the basic principles of energy conversion in this middle-school textbook could have solved countless problems that had stumped the alchemists of his world. Some of the concepts even touched on the rules of elemental balance and transmutation, offering Lin Mo entirely new insights.

For first-time flyers, takeoff is usually full of excitement — the plane piercing through the clouds, the endless sea of mist below, the blinding sunlight above. But once the novelty fades, drowsiness soon follows.

Bang! The fuselage suddenly jolted, as if hitting a pocket of turbulent air, then began to shudder violently.

Lin Mo’s head snapped up from his book. His battle-honed instincts screamed at him — Danger!