I glanced nervously at the Galaxy Express 1000, wondering if the train would leave without me. Fortunately, Arondight assured me that they wouldn't.
"They will be waiting for reinforcements, so I estimate that you will have about two hours before you need to return to the Galaxy Express 1000."
"Oh, thank goodness." I breathed a sigh of relief, only to stiffen when I heard Aegis join the conversation.
"I've also hacked into the train's systems, so they will not be able to drive it until you are back onboard."
"…there's no need to go that far. I think."
"I disagree. Our duty is to ensure your wellbeing, Commander."
"Okay." I rolled my eyes, but I was too lazy to argue. I didn't have time to waste, though. Two hours might sound like a relatively long time, but it might not be enough to locate the ancient technological relic that Arondight mentioned.
"Oh, it's close by. It's just over there." Arondight had transformed into his boy form, and Aegis into her girl form, and the former was pointing into the forest. "About five hundred meters ahead, past those trees. You'll see it soon enough."
"Uh, okay." I hurried forward, wanting to get this done and over with. As I plunged into the forest, I suddenly put up my guard. There were predators lurking in the forest, watching my every move. I frowned, catching sight of a couple of reptilian eyes watching me from within the foliage. "Saurian again? How did they get in here, anyway?"
"In millennia past, the Saurian race has dispatched many expeditionary armies into the interdimensional rifts in order to try and control it. the vast majority of them are lost in these spaces in between the material galaxy and nowhere, doomed to wander and live here for generations. A few have ascended to become what you earthlings call…dragons."
"Dragons?" I repeated.
"Yeah." This time it was Arondight who explained. "They gained psychic mastery and are capable of expending enormous amounts of energies to attain legendary feats – these are the mythical dragons spoken about in your religions and folktales. Several slip through the interdimensional cracks and manifest in Earth as interdimensional entities that are godlike to humans without any technological advantage or knowledge. To them, the psychic prowess of dragons must seem like magic, and as such, many earthlings throughout history have attributed divine attributes or demonic properties to them. The magnitudes of such feats extend to controlling the weather, flooding villages or destroying entire medieval cities with fire, but these magic-like phenomena are actually psychic in nature."
"And Caliban Chao University is formed to train psychics to combat these near godlike entities."
I almost jumped at that, because the statement wasn't uttered by either Arondight or Aegis. Instead, I spun around and caught sight of an elderly man who was pretty chubby with white hair, a beard and glasses, who was accompanied by Friedrich.
"…who?"
"Oh, I should introduce you." Friedrich cleared his throat. "This is Professor Guiliani. He teaches at Caliban Chao University."
"I'm to be your mentor," Guiliani explained with a smile. "I'm usually put in charge of the new students who have yet to awaken their psychic potential, so you'll be under me, at least for your first semester."
"W…where did you come from?" I blurted out. "Or were you on the Galaxy Express 1000 this entire time?"
"Ah, well…sort of." Guiliani coughed. "My job is to protect the students, but you recklessly ran out of the train before I could join the conductor in calming down the students. I'm not really specialized in combat, I am better at defense. I'm in the faculty of Mutation, so I can heal any injuries."
He studied me with a frown and shook his head. "Though it doesn't seem like you are injured at all. I'm impressed. I didn't think you can defeat a Titan Boa and still emerge unscathed…especially when you have yet to awaken your psychic ability."
"Who are those two?" Friedrich pointed at Arondight and Aegis. "I saw them turn into a sword and a shield! They aren't human, are they? Are they robots?"
"No, we are ancient technological relics," Aegis answered flatly. As if that explained anything.
"Uh, okay." Friedrich backed off awkwardly when he realized that she wasn't going to explain anything else. He glanced at me and I nodded.
"They are technological devices. The human forms are holographic projections of the AI installed inside them. They aren't…uh, real."
"I…I see. They are so advanced. I doubt even Caliban University has anything like them." Friedrich studied both Arondight and Aegis, both of whom totally ignored him. That was natural because they weren't even of Earth. They were created by an advanced intergalactic empire that had been in ascendance 40,000 years ago before an Alien Alliance united to try to annihilate them.
"Anyway, um…Professor Guiliani? You were saying something about the students of Caliban University being trained to fight dragons?"
"That's right." Guiliani nodded. "That's why we recruit and nurture psychics. It's in order to resist the dragons – who are descended from an ancient extraterrestrial Saurian race that arrived millennia ago to attempt to invade Earth. However, they were mere remnants, already defeated and scattered by a far greater civilization than Earth's population, and were easily driven into hiding. They chose to conceal themselves within this interdimensional rift and ended up mutating, with the strongest among them awakening their psychic potential and becoming dragons."
This was getting more and more convoluted. Psychic dragons? Really? I couldn't help but listen incredulously, but I decided not to question it. It wasn't important to understand what the hell was going on. It was more important to defeat the great enemy and stay alive amidst all this chaos. I wasn't a ruthless person, but even I understood that humanity's survival hinged upon the extermination of merciless and cruel dragons.
"I have heard of you from Lin Xue and read reports regarding your missions. You will be a tremendous asset to Caliban University. I hope you can lend us your aid." He held out a hand and I shook it. Then he suddenly gripped my hand tightly and refused to let go.
"Uh, what are you…?"
"Friedrich! Now! Sedate Li Tian Xing before he changes his mind and run away!"
"Why the hell would I run away?!" I demanded, breaking Guiliani's grip and retreating. "In fact, you trying to sedate me will be what persuades me to escape!"
"Oh…I thought this revelation will come as a shock to you and you'll run away or something."
"I'm not Lu Ming Fei. I've already experienced combat against these things!" I gestured at the charred remnants of the Titan Boa…which was nothing but ashes and scorched marks on the blackened soil. "Why the hell would I run away now?!"
"Sorry. I watched too much Dragon Raja." Guiliani cleared his throat and waved Friedrich away, the latter holding a dripping syringe. "I mixed you up with another protagonist. The both of you play Starcraft 2, for heaven's sake!"
"Please don't." I shook my head and sighed before staring at the ashes. "But that Titan Boa didn't even display any psychic ability. Is it really a dragon?"
"What? That giant snake isn't a dragon. It's just a branch species, a subordinate species that dragons use as fodder against their prey." Guiliani snorted. "It'll be an insult to consider it a dragon."
Wow. Its immense size and armored scales already made it a handful to fight, but it wasn't a dragon? I wondered what a real dragon would be like.
"Anyway, let's return to the safety of the train. I know that you're powerful enough to defeat a beast in this interdimensional rift, but there are entities dwelling in here who existences are horrifying beyond your imagination. It's better to return as soon as possible." Guiliani gestured toward the Galaxy Express 1000. "Come along now."
"Yeah." Friedrich shuddered and glanced around nervously. "I don't want to stay out here for too long."
"If you don't mind waiting a few more minutes, there's something I discovered over there." I hurried toward the direction Arondight pointed me toward. "There seems to be something, uh, buried here that can prove useful to technological research."
"Oh? Something similar to the devices you already own?" As expected of a professor, Guiliani was sharp. He was sending meaningful glances at Arondight and Aegis. "I have to come along then."
"Sure." I nodded and hastened my pace. As I bashed through the foliage, I caught sight of a burrow. A small hill ahead, with something glittering and half-buried within it. It looked like I had hit the jackpot. I was about to dash toward it when I sensed something and instinctively jumped back. Just in time too, for something slashed through the air where I would have passed through in a blow that would have decapitated me. I ducked under a follow up strike before drawing Arondight and activating him. A halo wreathed my blade as I countered with a riposte, and an inhuman shriek resounded through the wilderness.
"Be careful!" Guiliani hollered behind me. "Raptors!"
"Raptors?" I repeated as I steadied my stance and eyed my surroundings warily. True enough, a pack of Deinonychus like creatures were circling me, their hooked claws tapping against the ground incessantly as they growled. One pounced and I parried its claws. Several others seized the opportunity to attack from other directions while I was distracted by their pack-mate, but Aegis was on top of that. Six laser beams and two plasma blasts streaked across the air and discouraged them. Two of them were cut apart or disintegrated, but the others twisted agilely in midair and evaded deftly to land several meters away.
Meanwhile, my opponent swung around and whipped its tail about, forcing me to block it. I staggered before twirling Arondight about to deflect another sickle-shaped claw. Its jaws darted forward to take a bite of my face, but I batted it away with the glowing disruption field of my sword.
"Ugh!"
While I was keeping my opponent at bay, the rest of its packmates lunged at me once more, almost striking from a three-dimensional plane. Fortunately, the laser beams and plasma barrage from Aegis deterred them once more, but they eerily spun around in synchronized motions and leaped away. This time, only one was too slow and was carved apart into cauterized chunks of smoldering meat. The rest landed away gracefully. I glanced at them from over my shoulder, but had to return my attention to another exchange with the lead Raptor's claws.
"How troublesome."
They were nowhere as massive or strong as the Titan Boa from earlier, but they were a trickier opponent. Their numbers and intellect made them more of a threat, more of a difficult enemy to face. With the Titan Boa, it was just one foe and thus, it was easy for me to dodge and evade because it could only ever come from one direction.
Here, if it wasn't for Aegis, I would have been sliced apart by their coordinated attacks long ago. Speaking of which, I couldn't help but narrow my eyes. There was something odd about their attack pattern. It was almost as if they were working too seamlessly. As close knitted a pack as they were, there was no way they could coordinate their attacks so flawlessly unless…
"They are psychic Saurians!" Guiliani yelled a warning. "They are sharing their viewpoints and communicating telepathically in order to launch their attacks!"
"Are you guys all right?" I asked, realizing that I had forgotten about them when I was being assailed. Concern welled up inside my chest and I clamped down on my panic. There was nothing I could do about protecting others when I was having trouble defending myself. Focus on surviving first, and then I could worry about others. Otherwise, we would all die here.
"Don't worry, I've created a barrier." Friedrich grinned and while trading another few blows with the Raptor, I spotted him holding up one hand and conjuring an invisible telekinetic dome that prevented the Raptors from reaching him or Guiliani. "I would have extended it to cover you too, but you seem like you wanted to engage them in close combat."
"Oh, don't worry about it," I assured him with a smile before finally amputating the Raptor's claws at the ankle. With a shriek, the Raptor toppled over, one foot missing, and I finished it off with a stab to its head. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll get rid of every single one of them."