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.