"You're always so merciful... my brother! That's also your greatest weakness..."
Jarvis looked at his brother. Though the man had similar features to his own, the hair on both sides of his head was already streaked with grey.
"Right now! I'm the commanding officer here! And... if I truly didn't care about the civilians, I would have already requested the deployment of the Shadow Magi troops to flatten this place directly..."
Jarvis picked at his ear. "Guards! Get these irrelevant people out of here!!!"
A squad of fully armed soldiers surged in immediately, driving out the middle-aged officer and all of his subordinates.
"Finally, all the nuisances are gone... Now, let's have a nice game of hide and seek!"
Jarvis stared at the screens, his face bearing a calm so extreme it bordered on madness: "Activate full city surveillance! Shadow Magic Web, seal off all magical and teleportation permissions citywide! Scan for any abnormal spatial and energy fluctuations! Begin targeted elimination!"
"Move out!" "Move out!"
On the screens, Mole and Wolf Fang each waved a hand, and behind them, dense ranks of steel-armored soldiers immediately began carrying out the killings according to the prior assignments.
"What are you doing?"
Inside a residential building, soldiers in powered armor burst through the door and, without hesitation, opened fire on a family of three seated at their dinner table.
Bang! Bang!
In moments, a middle-aged man's head exploded, his body collapsing into a pool of blood, followed by his wife and daughter.
In the Empire, commoners could only obtain usage rights for low-level spells. The mid-tier magic network was sealed off and required specific licenses — to say nothing of high-level spells, which had always been the exclusive domain of the military and the imperial family. What's more, Jarvis had already shut down the entire magic network authorization for Ando City, rendering every piece of Swift Shadow equipment completely useless!
Without usable tools, these civilians seemed utterly powerless before the fully armed soldiers.
At the same time, wave after wave of aircraft patrolled the skies above Ando City, broadcasting warning after warning: "We are the Imperial Military! We are currently apprehending spies within the city! Innocent civilians, please remain in your homes and do not go outside! We will not harm any civilians! I repeat! We are the Imperial Military..."
Despite the sporadic gunfire, a vague unrest simmered throughout Ando City. But under the iron-fisted suppression, an eerie silence was maintained.
After all, tens of thousands of casualties were nothing to a citizenry of hundreds of millions. As long as the violence didn't reach their own doorsteps, no commoner would have the courage to directly resist the authorities.
Inside the command center, Jarvis sat on the sofa, holding a glass of red wine, watching the scenes unfold on the screens.
"Bang!" Another middle-aged man was killed inside a villa, blood flowing across the floor.
"No! Don't..." A young woman pleaded before she died, but the soldier didn't even glance at her.
A soldier's duty is to follow orders — no independent thought required. They are absolute weapons. Regardless of the situation, they must carry out their orders and suppress without hesitation.
Methodical slaughter proceeded swiftly, though occasional minor complications arose.
"Damn it! The Empire still won't let us ability users go?"
A bespectacled young man roared at the barrel of a gun. Suddenly, his entire body was engulfed in flames, transforming into a monstrous creature covered in scales with a hideous visage.
"Fire!"
Psionic-powered rounds struck its body, leaving only faint white marks on its scales.
"It's a mutant! An ability user! Call for backup immediately!"
A squad leader screamed into his communicator. Unfortunately, it was already too late.
Whoosh! Whoosh! The creature lunged forward, its figure leaving a faint dark streak across the screen.
Crack! The soldier's armor was shredded by the creature's claws, exposing white bone and fresh blood.
"Heh heh... want to kill me? Then die, all of you!!!"
The creature's mouth produced a human voice as it plunged at even greater speed into the sewers.
"Ding! Target identity confirmed! Second-rank citizen Cheng Fei! Father... Mother... Current residence:... Initiating lock-on!"
The central computer screen split off a section, displaying a large dossier. In the upper left corner was unmistakably the young man's appearance before his transformation.
"Mmm! This type of mutant likely carries hereditary traits! Mole, send someone to deal with him. Also contact external personnel — find his parents and any other blood relatives!"
Jarvis issued the command directly.
"Young man, were you having fun before?"
The street was blasted open, revealing the underground pipes and the stunned young creature.
A man in a black trench coat uniform hovered in midair, gazing down at the young creature with contempt in his eyes.
"Remnant of the Witch! Today is your day to die! Give me a little entertainment before you go..."
"Just a low-level bloodline bearer?"
Watching the young creature being mercilessly slaughtered on screen, Jarvis nodded with a blank expression.
After the technological explosion and the Empire's constant purges, these bloodline remnants had grown fewer and fewer. Those that appeared from time to time posed no real threat. The other type — those who obtained supernatural power through cultivation — had never been fully extinguished.
But both kinds of ancient remnants, before an Empire that wielded the machinery of state and the support of the Magic Web, were as weak as ants.
The slaughter in Ando City continued. Many victims were innocent civilians, though mistaken kills certainly occurred as well.
There were even unlucky ones like the young man from before — individuals with supernatural abilities who lacked proper channels or documentation and had been discovered. These people formed the underworld of every city, but this time they were all swept up in the iron-blooded purge.
It could be foreseen that after this operation, if Ando City survived, its social order would reach an exemplary level.
As the killing continued, the tens of thousands of grid squares on the screens steadily disappeared, eventually merging into several hundred large screens.
"All units, stand alert!"
Watching the target range shrink continuously, even Jarvis's expression turned serious.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
A white-collar woman in professional attire darted through street corners with astonishing speed, like an explosive female leopard.
Suddenly, an iron fence appeared at the end of her line of sight. She leaped instantly, propelling herself over five meters into the air, reached over the barrier, and vanished around the corner in a flash.
"I have to avoid the cameras and discard all high-tech equipment connected to the Magic Web and psionic energy!"
The woman's face tightened as she crushed the Swift Shadow device on her wrist...
More than ten minutes later, inside an abandoned factory, in a dark corner, speckles of blood like plum blossoms dotted the wall.
The white-collar woman had stripped off her jacket, revealing the white blouse underneath. A penetrating wound was visible on her arm.
"Mmm..." Gritting her teeth, she used subtle muscle contractions to push out a yellow metal bullet.
After extracting the bullet, the woman let out a long breath, tore a strip from her clothes to bandage the wound, her face slightly pale.
"The Empire is dead serious this time! Has the organization been exposed?"
"No! Even if our organization were exposed, it probably wouldn't warrant this level of mobilization. And the gunfire is echoing across all of Ando City... I've probably just been unlucky collateral damage... They're hunting some powerful ability user organization, aren't they?"
A bitter smile crossed the woman's face. "Even after learning martial arts and cultivating the Plum Blossom Hand to the fifth level, all I can do against the Empire's military is run... If other ability users hadn't drawn fire for me, I probably wouldn't have made it out at all... Once they tighten the encirclement, things will get even more troublesome... I need to smuggle myself out of here as soon as possible..."
The woman didn't notice that one of her hairs had turned blood-red, and behind her, the faint ghostly image of a voodoo doll was materializing!
Primary directive: Gather intelligence, conceal as much as possible! Target discovery probability too high! Abandon!
The voodoo doll's phantom quickly detached from the woman's body, seeming to merge into the darkness.
Location compromised. Attempting to leave! Spatial seal detected! Forcing breakthrough!
Faint glimmers of light flickered through the voodoo doll's pitch-black eyes.
"I found you!!!"
Inside the control room, Jarvis's face twisted with ferocity as he roared: "Concentrate fire! Attack!!!"
Blazing white light flashed, and the abandoned factory — along with the white-collar woman inside — was instantly melted into dark slag, which was then rapidly vaporized, leaving not a single trace.
Ding! Operation compromised! Switching to forced breakthrough!
The smile on the voodoo doll's face seemed to grow eerier and wider, a bright flash of light glinting through its dark eyes.
BOOM!!!
A massive energy wave collided with the subsequent laser beam, the resulting shockwave instantly destroying a quarter of Ando City.
Above the scorched, molten ground, Jarvis and the other members of the Special Operations Division hovered in midair, surrounding the voodoo doll at the center.
"Apostle Number One! We've got you!"
Jarvis flicked his fingernails, and several terrifying spells materialized nearby, their fluctuations no less potent than those of legendary spells!
"Damn it! Damn it! That lunatic Jarvis!"
On the other side, the middle-aged officer who had left the command center gazed at the quarter of Ando City that had been destroyed, along with the glow of multiple Shadow legendary spells, and finally erupted into cursing.
"I knew it... Giving him the magic network authorization was asking for trouble!"
Far away in Wanxiong City, Leilin blinked briefly, then received the report.
"Although it caused them significant damage, it was ultimately discovered and eliminated?"(