Chapter 82: Level Seven Firepower Coverage

“Level Seven firepower coverage!” Zhu Ning’s bronze Xiezhi mask glowed with solemn golden light. He looked every bit the commander.

“But if it’s Level Seven firepower coverage, Envoy Xu is still in the ruins!” The young Demon Suppression officer’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His grip slipped on the rifle handle.

The officers kept pulling their triggers at Tiger Demon and Wolf Demon. But the spirit-energy bullets with ghost-blue tracer light melted the moment they touched the demonic aura.

That was the trouble with great demons of level six and above. Once they released dense demonic aura, ordinary spirit-energy bullets could not pierce it.

“Trash!” Zhu Ning smashed the rifle butt into the officer’s face.

Beneath the bronze mask shaped like a Xiezhi, a cold smile curled. “Envoy Xu colluded with demons. Didn’t you see?”

‘Xu Zhi, oh Xu Zhi. You stole my prodigy title. I bet you never thought you would die in a place like this?’

Only the person framing you knows how innocent you are. Zhu Ning knew someone like Xu Zhi could never collude with demons. But the way Bai Ling had embraced Xu Zhi gave him the perfect chance to smear him.

Normally Xu Zhi had Ye Zi backing him. Even his master, Elder Qin, could not do anything to him. But if he died here, then even if Ye Zi was the Commander, there would be nothing she could do.

Dead men do not defend themselves.

As long as Zhu Ning insisted Xu Zhi had colluded with demons and that he was purging the sect, no one would care how many bowls of noodles Xu Zhi had eaten.

After it was done, he might even win the favor of Inspector Ai from the Inspection Bureau. Executing a Demon Suppression Envoy who colluded with demons would be a great merit.

He might even be promoted into the Inspection Bureau. The posts there were far more lucrative than a Demon Suppression Envoy’s.

“Level Seven firepower coverage authorized!” the young officer shouted. Once authorization cleared, he immediately sent the coverage coordinates to the Hetu Module.

“Firepower coverage, begin…” Before Zhu Ning finished, the rest of his command was cut off by a fist to his face.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Gu Xiyan’s fist still hung in the air. The two fox ears on her head trembled with rage. “Xu Zhi is still in there!”

“Tch, bastard!” Zhu Ning spat out bloody saliva. “Xu Zhi colluded with demons. How many times do I have to say it? Firepower coverage, begin!”

“You dare!” The sound of a pistol being chambered cut off the young officer’s command. Zhou Xuan, a logistics worker, actually aimed his gun at Zhu Ning.

“Good, good, good. I’m the highest-ranking person here now! And you dare point a gun at your commanding officer!” Zhu Ning wiped blood from his mouth with a cold smile. “Are you trying to betray the Demon Suppression Bureau?!”

He seemed certain that Zhou Xuan, a coward in his eyes, would never dare shoot.

“Bang!”

The bullet embedded in the ground three inches from his toes. The smoking muzzle aimed at the center of his brow again.

“My only commanding officer is Envoy Xu!” Zhou Xuan’s index finger tightened on the trigger, as if he could fire through Zhu Ning’s brow at any moment. “I accuse you of deliberately firing on friendly forces. That violates Article 16, Chapter 1 of the Demon Suppression Bureau regulations. According to the regulations, I can temporarily strip you of command right now!”

At this point, Zhou Xuan glanced at the officers watching coldly around them. Strictly speaking, they were all Zhu Ning’s subordinates. But faced with this wartime power grab, they only stared at each other and did nothing.

“Do you know I can strip your fire-control authorization at any time?!” Zhu Ning shouted. Zhou Xuan’s pistol suddenly beeped, and the trigger locked instantly.

This was the safety lock in the Bureau’s internal weapon system. Originally, Zhu Ning had no authority over Xu Zhi’s team’s firing authorization. But now Xu Zhi was unconscious, life or death unknown, so their command passed to Zhu Ning, the only Demon Suppression Envoy present.

In this situation, Zhu Ning could strip their firing authorization at any time.

He should have thought of it. He could have used the tablet connected to the Luoshu System to bypass the safety lock!

But he never expected Zhu Ning to be shameless enough to fire on Xu Zhi!

That tablet had also been lost on his way here.

“When this operation ends, I’ll personally send you to the Mystic Gate Council!” Zhu Ning snatched the tablet from the young officer beside him and slammed his fist onto the command send button. “Take them down!”

Unmanned attack craft crossed the clouds. Their autocannons, trailing ghost-blue light, vaporized raindrops and tore apart the thick demonic aura in an instant, plowing countless craters into the ruins.

At the center of the ruins, the barrier woven from purple lightning became riddled with holes in an instant.

Under that kind of firepower coverage, even if the two Level Seven great demons had not been torn apart, they should be barely breathing.

“Attack!”

Several Demon Suppression officers rushed toward the gap in the barrier.

****

The moment the grenade exploded, purple lightning cut through the rain. The light had not yet faded from the Bureau members’ pupils when the slanted beam behind them was cut in half.

Wolf Demon landed with hind legs bent, lingering gun smoke still on his claws.

The load-bearing beam supporting the whole building was sliced through in his hands as if it were made of paper.

The earlier firepower coverage had indeed given them trouble. The barrier covering the entire library ruins nearly shattered completely. Luckily, they were experienced and repaired it in time, surviving that round.

“Hey! You let one through, you idiot!” Tiger Demon’s tail struck an officer’s chest like a steel whip with enough force to send him flying into a half-collapsed low wall. “Young Miss’s first order. Don’t screw it up.”

Though only the two of them stood before the ruins, they were like an impassable chasm.

“That look Young Miss just had, have we seen it somewhere before?” Wolf Demon’s claws had just sliced open an officer’s chest plate. A ceramic-like crack rang out as blood sprayed. “That aura is no less than Boss’s!”

The two demons looked ruthless, drawing blood with every strike, but each move was restrained. Officers who took two moves from them were only injured, not killed.

It was not because they were considering the delicate balance between the Demon Market and the Demon Suppression Bureau. Honestly, these two brutes could not grasp the tangled complexities of factional games.

They held back simply because Xu Zhi, whom they had unilaterally decided was Young Miss’s lover, belonged to the Bureau. If they caused bloodshed and made Young Miss part from her lover on bad terms, Young Miss would vent her anger on them.

Though it had only been just over ten hours since they formally met Young Miss, since Guan Qing said she was Young Miss, the Demon Market would surely be hers to command in the future.

If they built a good relationship with Young Miss now, then when she formally inherited the position of Demon Market Lord, they would at least have the merit of early followers.

By then, their places at Young Miss’s side would be just like Sister Qi’s place beside Guan Qing now.

At the very least, they would be security captains!

“That look, was it not exactly the same as when Boss took us in?” Tiger Demon chopped out a palm and caught an incoming grenade.

The grenade exploded in his palm like a small firecracker.

It hurt a bit. Just a bit.

Loaded with cinnabar and special anti-demon fragmentation, the grenade was nothing more than a firecracker to them.

As great demons worthy of a century, their normal state alone already reached Level Seven in the Bureau’s demon classification. Dealing with officers who lacked heavy firepower was as easy as chopping vegetables.

“Exactly the same?” Wolf Demon recalled how Guan Qing had subdued them back then.

Back then, they had only occupied the mountains as the world fell into chaos, like bandit chiefs in old storybooks.

That was nearly a hundred years ago.

If Guan Qing had not been traveling and met them then, they likely would have been killed by demon exterminators during the decades of unrest that followed.

“Seems true. I said Young Miss must be Boss’s biological child!”

The officer whose chest plate had been shredded by claws slumped to the ground. Wolf Demon let out a howl that made him stumble back.

But as he retreated, a gun muzzle pressed against the back of his head.

“Go entertain our distinguished guest.” Zhu Ning jabbed the muzzle forward casually, imitating Elder Qin’s lecturing tone. “Close-quarters combat is basic training for the Demon Suppression Bureau.”

The two demons looked fine, but they were probably at their limit. To be safe, he still wanted to test them.

Testing them with his subordinates’ lives. These trash were just chips for Zhu Ning to earn merit, as many as he could want.

“Young Miss has ordered that no one may enter this place.” Tiger Demon dug at his ear with his thick little finger. “Also, you really are both stupid and rotten.”

Forcing his subordinates to die in a situation like this. Was his brain working?

Demonic power suddenly stirred a gust of wind and blew the officer aside. Afraid of killing him with that move, Tiger Demon deliberately held back, but accidentally let out a muffled grunt.

This was not because he was exhausted. It was because he had used a bit too much force and forced it back.

But in Zhu Ning’s eyes, this only confirmed that the two great demons were already at their limit. They could not even kill that officer in one strike. With his own ability, he could take their heads within three minutes.

But just as a confident smile appeared on his face, an icy cold spread out and made him shiver.

“The grenade and firepower coverage just now, was that you?” A cool girl’s voice came from the ruins behind him. Her tone did not waver, yet anger filled it, enough to send a chill through anyone who heard.

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