by <unknown>
"Therefore, should you discover the traces of this cockroach, do not take action recklessly. You will not be able to take him down however many of you there are. Just inform me as soon as possible. I very much would like to find out… how grown this weaselly cockroach is right now!"
Chapter 2283: Dark War! |
The dark war between the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils and the Association of Demon Hunters began!
Ever since the ancient times, as long as a country intended to set up intelligence agencies, they would at least establish two departments that checked and balanced each other.
If only one intelligence agency was set, like the Star Glory Federation with the "Secret Sword Bureau" a hundred years ago, and it held the absolute power in intelligence and secret law enforcement, dire consequences would inevitably be caused as long as its head was ambitious and tricked other people in the leadership.
The riot of patriots planned by Lu Zui with the Secret Sword Bureau was exactly the best example.
Therefore, when the age of the New Federation came, the intelligence departments of the federation split apart into Guo Chunfeng's Secret Sword Bureau and Jin Xinyue's Dim Moon Fund, which had both competition and cooperation in a dynamic balance like a seesaw. That was the only way to ensure that the national security would not be threatened no matter which party's ambitions expanded.
The same applied to the Imperium of True Human Beings. Five hundred years ago, when the royal authority was still in the heyday, the emperor never thought to abolish the Association of Demon Hunters no matter how trusted the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was. In the second five hundred years, no matter how powerful and dominating the four Kurfürst families were, and however many contributions the Association of Demon Hunters made for them in darkness, it was impossible to completely annihilate the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils.
It was all about check and balance. Whether the power holder was the emperor or the four Kurfürst families, they would never completely trust the intelligence agencies.
As a result, the two intelligence agencies, haunted by their dark destinies, had to fight eternally to prove to the power holder that they were the colder, sharper, and more efficient saber in the darkness!
Right now, the operation of the reformists had been pushed to the second step.
The Dongfang family had sensed the vague hostility of the other three families. They also feared that Lei Chenghu's Astounding Thunder Fleet would charge into the Dongfang family's heartland and die together with the enemy. Therefore, the main force of the family's fleets had to stay where they were.
Neither Lei Chenghu nor the leadership of the other three families wanted to fight a comprehensive civil war either. Unless it was absolutely necessary, none of them were willing to wage a war in space.
Facilitated by many powerful men and prestigious elders, the four Kurfürst families and the reformists reached a temporary, tacit agreement that the table named "Imperium" must not be flipped over. Whichever force's fleet opened fire first would mean that they were overthrowing the table, breaking the company, and smashing everybody's cake, and they would be attacked by the rest of the players together!
Now that all the armed forces were forestalled by each other on the surface, it was time for the dark forces to show themselves.
With the support of the four Kurfürst families, especially the Dongfang family, the Association of Demon Hunters was much stronger than the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils in terms of scale and capability. By conservative estimation, the number of "demon hunters" was at least five times the number of "devil huntresses".
But the advantage of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was that the enemy was in the light and they were in the dark. In the past hundred years, they had been keeping such a low profile that they almost seemed to be an unimportant and nonprofitable government agency. Nobody knew that they had been trained by the queen in secret for decades. The devil huntresses, trained with the unparalleled techniques from the Supreme Emperor's mausoleum, were as good as the toughest demon hunters in terms of combat ability and much better than their opponents when it came to weirdness and brutality.
More importantly, the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was the attacker, and they could choose their targets free at will.
It must be noted that, nominally, the dozens of worlds around the Empyreal Terminus Sector was administrated by the emperor in person, and all the bureaucrats of those places were supposed to be appointed directly by His Majesty.
However, as the royal authority declined today and the powerful lords took over everything, the emperor's direct appointment was nothing but empty words anymore. The bureaucrats and administrative agencies of the dozens of worlds had long been infiltrated by the four Kurfürst families.
It also meant that a lot of Immortal Cultivators from the Dongfang family and its vassal families, who were in high places in the capital, actually lived and worked in those worlds.
With the Dongfang family as their reliance, such people were certainly not the most honorable and impartial officials. Claiming that it was for His Majesty, they exploited the Immortal Cultivators of other forces and the underclass, transmitting interests to their families while satisfying their own selfish needs in the process. It was a "convention" not to be surprised at right now.
Ever since Li Linghai made up her mind to "renew the Imperium", she had collected tremendous evidence in secret, which she called "cannonballs".
Before this, the Dongfang family's position was indestructible. Those cannonballs would've been resolved easily even if they were shot out. Even the other three families would help cover for the Dongfang family. Not even half a piece of news would be seen on the Spiritual Nexus.
But the case was different today. The reformists had demonstrated their might and gave a heavy blow on the Dongfang family in the previous phase, showing everybody the weakness of the Dongfang family. Therefore, they won the support of the Li family and the connivance of the Yun and Song families.
Those cannonballs, once detonated, must be destructive.
Most importantly of all, the Immortal Cultivators of the Dongfang family who held high positions in the capital that they did not deserve must be captured!
There were thousands of such Immortal Cultivators, and the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils was free to arrest any of them.
As a result, the Association of Demon Hunters had to set up defenses everywhere in exhaustion, not missing out any important characters of the Dongfang family.
Despite the number of the demon hunters, and even counting the Dongfang family's own bodyguard teams, it was still far from enough. It was not like every Immortal Cultivator of the Dongfang family could be protected by dozens of battle-type Immortal Cultivators when they went to work every day, right?
It was not an option to evacuate from the capital to the Dongfang family's own territory either.
Such an action of running before fighting would be perceived as a signal of weakness by the Li, Yun, and Song families. Once the three wavering families whose attitudes were ambiguous and completely leaned toward the reformists, it would certainly be a catastrophe for the Dongfang family.
Therefore, however difficult it was, they had to persist until Dongfang Wang finished the dispatchment in darkness and reached secret agreements with the other three families to win their support. Then, they would be the winner of the war.
Therefore, the future of the war was still rather uncertain.
As May came, the capital entered the hottest season of the year.
The series of news that shocked the entire capital, if not the entire universe, further added the air of smoke in the scorching wind.
On May 2, Dongfang Yu, the Education Director of the military who was responsible for the management of seventy-one advanced military schools of the Imperium, was arrested by the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils in a sudden assault when he was going to a meeting. The next day, one of the media
of the Li family exposed the shocking corruption that involved multiple cases of unjust distribution of military credits. Then, as the cases were pursued further, hundreds of members of the military education system were afflicted. Naturally, most of the people involved in the crime had the "Dongfang" surname.
On May 5, the CEO of "Blackmountain Bank", which ranked the top twenty in the Imperium, was arrested in his personal residence. Although he had taken precautions, and his bodyguard team whose defense and firepower had been upgraded resisted hard, the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils still managed to capture him alive and leave before the reinforcements of the Association of Demon Hunters arrived. As to exactly where the man was kept in prison? Nobody knew. The public headquarters of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils had long been emptied. The only persons left were a few bottom-level clerks who still worked in the office. As for Yue Wushuang and her elite devil huntresses, nobody knew where they were hiding and which target they had locked onto.
May 7… May 8… May 10…
The officials from the Dongfang family and its vassal families were secretly captured almost on a daily basis, and their crimes were exposed on the media of the Li family the next day or the day they were caught. Some of the crimes were corruptions and embezzlements, and some were about the homicide cases a long time ago. Fights among the Immortal Cultivators were more than usual. Even the families of the victims often chose not to settle the issue through the law but to practice more techniques and seek personal retaliation. But of course, the criminals could be punished by law. Whether or not the crimes were invented was not important; the important thing was to show everybody in the entire universe that the Dongfang family was not invincible!
The groups of Immortal Cultivators in the Imperium large and small were like sharks that would go crazy at the scent of the Dongfang family's blood. As long as enough blood was spilled, all the sharks would lunge at the Dongfang family without a care.
Faced with the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils' long prepared attack, the Association of Demon Hunters naturally counterattacked vehemently.
While the officials and magnates from the Dongfang family were secretly captured and accused of being "Demonic Cultivators", the Association of Demon Hunters took action and did exactly the same thing on the reformists and the Immortal Cultivators of the Li family.
However, the Li family was never as good as the Dongfang family, and it had fewer people in the capital than the Dongfang family did. The reformists had been acting stealthily the whole time too. How could they be captured in a hurry?
The Association of Demon Hunters, in their anxiety, resorted to all the means possible without considering the possible damages to the Empyreal Terminus Sector. Despite a few setbacks, they did manage to trace a few secret bases of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils. The battles of the two parties in the darkness were a hundred times crueler than the competitions of fleets in space!
Every day, countless demon hunters and devil huntresses stabbed blades into each other's bodies without sound in the dilapidated streets below the ground of the capital, before they dragged each other into the bottomless abyss, dying at the same time.
Every minute, the shows of schemes, deceptions, betrayals, and anti-betrayals were aired splendidly.
Every second, some humans would be marked as "demons" or "Demonic Cultivators" because of conflicts of interests and thrown into the dark dungeons.
Perhaps the slaughters humans performed on their own kind were always more brutal than their wars against demons and extraterrestrial devils…
On May 19, in White Stone Municipality on the west coast of the main continent, on the high-speed ancillary rail for shuttles in the suburb, a new assault and arrest operation was being conducted in secret.
Chapter 2284: Let's Get Some Excitement! |
The high-speed rails were a public facility to help shuttles increase their speed and save their fuel.
While shuttles could fly in any directions freely, it had a huge consumption on the fuel. Also, when their speed was very high, particularly when they surpassed the speed of sound, accidents tended to happen too.
If hundreds of shuttles were soaring at the speed of sound, and two of them accidentally hit each other, there would certainly be dire consequences.
Therefore, in the "high zone" at the suburbs of the major cities of the Imperium of True Human Beings, convenient rails had been established, which could attract the shuttles to themselves with the electromagnetic force so that the shuttles could fly next to the rail. In such a way, the fuel could be saved, and the security could be greatly enhanced.
At this moment, a black, lengthened, extravagant shuttle was rushing on the rail toward the heavy industrial area at the suburb, surrounded by four fully-armed shuttles that had even exposed the cannons to the air, not disguising their highest alert at all.
At the backseat of this extravagant shuttle sat the president of the Industry Union of the West Coast, who controlled the lifelines of dozens of magical equipment corporations on the west coast. He was from the Dongfang family too.
Over the past half month, a large batch of bureaucrats and magnates had been secretly arrested, which raised the wariness of the Dongfang family. The bodyguard team of the president of the Industry Union had been fully upgraded too. Not only were the high-level agents of the Association of Demon Hunters sitting right next to him, but tremendous experts had also been summoned from the family. Furthermore, he had even hired assassins and killers from the underground world of the capital with his own money. The spacious extravagant shuttle was now crammed with people.
It seemed to be protected by only four shuttles around, but dozens of regular shuttles in a large range were actually also full of special agents, family experts, assassins, and killers. Many of them had already been armed to teeth and could rip the shuttles and unleash their toughest techniques at any moment.
Hundreds of pairs of eagle-like eyes stared at all directions.
Right then—
Theirs was not the only high-speed rail; there were dozens of such rails up, down, left, and right, like dozens of lanes. Four of the rails were specially designed for super-heavy trucks weighing more than fifty tons.
Right then, four trucks in different camouflages passed by the extravagant team of shuttles.
Those four trucks all weighed more than eighty tons. Their cars were so long that they were almost like crystal trains.
Without anybody knowing it, the four trucks moved on parallel with the team of shuttles and adjusted to the same speed. They seemed relatively still.
The experienced bodyguards immediately sensed danger and ordered the team to speed up.
However, the four trucks kept up with them at an unbelievable speed and stability!
The few shuttles in the front and the rear intended to scan the interior of the trucks with mystic rays, but the rays were all reflected back as if they had hit mirrors. Something was definitely greatly wrong!
"Open fire!"
The leader of the bodyguards made the call immediately. Having no time to bother if somebody would be accidentally hurt, he gave the order resolutely.
But before the bodyguards pulled the triggers, the rail before the shuttle team suddenly exploded and broke apart. Two bodyguard shuttles immediately went out of control and flew away!
In the meantime, dazzling electric arcs were unleashed among the four trucks and interconnected into a complicated web of electricity, with countless rune arrays and spiritual stripes glittering in it crazily. It was obviously an extremely brutal array!
Further away, the cars of two of the trucks opened their ceilings and extended glittering bowls that emitted intensive interferential waves, blocking the shuttle team's distress calls!
Huala! Huala! Huala!
The cars of the four heavy trucks exploded, and a hundred devil huntresses that belonged to the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils charged out.
The long-prepared elite bodygu
ards broke the shuttles and ran at the devil huntresses too.
A high-speed, heated battle immediately began.
The demon hunters who were out of the range of interference in case of accidents sent out the distress calls immediately to the branch of the Association of Demon Hunters in White Stone Municipality.
Countless demon hunters and elites of the Dongfang family immediately leaped from the downtown area and rushed to the suburb, swearing to capture all the bold and blatant devil huntresses!
Everything that happened was captured clearly by the hundred stealth crystal cameras floating in the stratosphere.
The hundred stealth cameras were all the products of Li Yao's lifelong knowledge. While maintaining the previous stealth and anti-detection abilities, the range of scanning, the precision, and the distance of signal transmission were all five times better than before.
With the hundred stealth crystal cameras, as well as the spies of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils and the reformists that were sent to White Stone Municipality a long time ago, Li Yao was able to grasp every detail of the whole battlefield.
The picture from the suburb, through the transmission of encrypted signals, immediately darted to the crowded central business district of White Stone Municipality.
On the thirty-sixth floor of a transparent plaza in the district, in the middle of the office of a seemingly plain business group, thousands of 3D light beams had drowned the small room. Most of the 3D light beams were displaying the pictures taken by the tremendous surveillance cameras of White Stone Municipality. The crystal processor specialists of the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils had found a way to hack the public security platform of the city and intercepted all the surveillance pictures.
Plus the secret crystal cameras of Li Yao and the Tribunal of Extraterrestrial Devils, the whole city was now naked before Li Yao.
