Returning to the Mysterious Era

"Don't act so impulsively. The Beiliu County Division doesn't have any reserves of Holy Cleansing Water. If you use both powers at once, do you really want to experience the pain of your body being jolted by its own force again?"

An elderly man with graying hair walked over, dressed in a full black suit. He was already quite advanced in age, and his steps were slow, but he still carried an air of elegance. His beard was meticulously trimmed, and his hair was slicked back, each strand neat. A silver watch chain hung from the pocket on his chest.

Cassius and Amos both turned their heads to look at the old man.

Amos opened his mouth, as if he wanted to argue, but ultimately just flicked his fingers, retracting the two hundred or so metal threads back into his hands. Cassius, on the other hand, squinted his eyes, sizing up the old man.

There wasn’t the slightest hint of a threat coming from him. He seemed to be a normal over-seventy-year-old human man who was walking slowly over.

Is this when the elder shows up after defeating the young one?

Noticing Cassius’s intense scrutiny, the old man chuckled, "No need to stare, Mr. Li Wei. I'm just an ordinary human being and have no combat ability. Currently, the strongest combat force of the Beiliu County Black Ops Agency is this boy Amos, our evolving third ace within the Black Ops Agency." The old man continued to approach the two, seemingly unafraid of Cassius launching a sudden attack.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Franz West." The old man bowed, the picture of gentlemanly grace. "Former administrator of the Federal Special Service Bureau’s 13th Division, the Black Ops Agency. I am currently the action assistant to Amos, the current administrator of the Black Ops Agency."

"The Black Ops Agency?"

Cassius flicked his wrist lightly, and the faint blood marks on his skin faded, leaving it smooth and unblemished.

"Yes," the old man Franz continued, now only two to three meters away from Cassius. "I'm sure we can have a proper conversation once we've all calmed down—just the two of us." Amos, who was standing nearby, frowned and tried to speak, but Franz silenced him with a stern glance. Clearly, these two administrators of the Black Ops Agency didn't have an ordinary relationship. At the very least, it wasn’t merely a professional connection.

Before long, Cassius and Franz were seated in the back seat of a black sedan outside the park, while Amos, still wiping the blood from his nose, grimly patrolled the area.

Inside the spacious back seat of the car, Cassius and Franz chatted for more than half an hour, and managed to clarify some previous misunderstandings.

Amos had learned about Cassius through the Shadow Organization and gathered information from the few assassins he had captured. He initially had no intention of attacking when he met Cassius earlier, but the resonance of the fragment made Amos think Cassius was a core member of the Gate Organization, which led to the ensuing intense fight.

The conversation also turned to the Black Ops Agency.

The Federal Special Service Bureau originally had only twelve divisions; the 13th Division, the Black Ops Agency, was originally not even a thing. But twenty years ago, a major chain of tragic incidents occurred in the federal capital, Florence. The incidents coincided with a holiday period when the streets were crowded, resulting in numerous, at least a hundred, deaths with hundreds more reported missing. The culprit was none other than dark creatures.

In response, the Hongli Federation decided to establish an agency capable of countering and suppressing these dark creatures. This new agency was built upon the intelligence resources of the Special Service Bureau, thus becoming the 13th Division. In reality, the two operated independently, but the Black Ops Agency shared intelligence with the Bureau.

After its establishment, the Black Ops Agency quickly developed combat capabilities, thanks to the vast resources that a large, secular nation like the Hongli Federation could mobilize. Many experts, who had originally been hidden in the civilian world and possessed special powers, joined the Black Ops Agency.

The Federation even applied its cutting-edge technology to the agency, including bio-engineered humans and mythical augmented humans. Although most of these experiments had failed, there had been a few successes. Ȑ₳𐌽ƟᛒÈś

As the Black Ops Agency saw rapid development, the movements of the various supernatural organizations across the Federation became much more restrained. Some even joined the Black Ops Agency as their subordinate forces, with one example being the Mercury Hunters, whose entanglement with the Blood Race spanned generations.

There were many other forces, both good and bad, that remained hidden. The Black Ops Agency interacted with only a fraction of these while the others continued to observe from the shadows. The Black Ops Agency's primary goal was to curb the rampant actions of dark creatures and monitor some of the more dangerous supernatural organizations.

In the nearly twenty years since its inception, the Black Ops Agency made some great strides. The number of bloody massacres caused by dark creatures across the Federation had decreased by at least sixty percent. Many supernatural organizations that could pose a threat to public safety were also kept in check.

However, this doesn’t mean it was the most powerful supernatural organization. Because of the Federation's backing, it had the best support in terms of intelligence, resources, and logistics. Sometimes, it even called the military in to cleanse an area with artillery support.

Such cases were extremely rare, though. The military only got involved when a situation had escalated beyond control and became a threat to human society.

This kind of intervention had only happened three times in twenty years.

Two incidents were related to dark creatures, while the other involved the Gate Organization. It was after that that the Black Ops Agency classified the Gate Organization as a highly dangerous supernatural organization, ranking first among the top ten, and was the only one rated as "S" class.

The Black Ops Agency had created a rough classification system for various supernatural powers using their evaluation of the strength and threat levels of most known organizations. Although somewhat simplistic, it is relatively objective and reasonable.

Class E: Comparable to a handgun. Can pose a sufficient threat to an average adult, capable of fighting at least ten people.

Class D: Comparable to a heavy machine gun. Can easily overwhelm ordinary humans, making resistance futile. If unleashed without restraint, it can kill over a hundred people.

Class C: Comparable to artillery. Capable of dealing severe damage to buildings, possessing significant destructive power and mobility.

Class B: Comparable to a rocket launcher. Can cause large-scale damage, with destructive power sweeping across a vast area. Can potentially demolish a small building, severely affecting an entire block.

Class A: Comparable to a bomber squadron. Power can impact half a city, posing serious life-threatening risks to hundreds of thousands of people.

…

…

Franz considered Cassius and Amos to be Class B, meaning they were at a level where they could blow up a building, although there was a wide range of abilities within this level. Cassius had barely entered the B Class.

This level was already exceptionally rare. The Black Ops Agency was a vast organization backed by the Hongli Federation, and even though it had been steadily growing for twenty years, the number of Class B experts could be counted on two hands.

Since Cassius had mentioned it earlier, Franz also shared some information about the world of Covert Martial Arts. It was his way of showing sincerity as this was information only an organization at the level of the federal government was privy to.

The Covert Martial Arts world represented a formidable force within the Federation. Practitioners of Covert Martial Arts possessed physical prowess and combat abilities far beyond that of ordinary people. By continuously refining their bodies through Covert Martial Arts, not only could they reach the physiological limits, they could surpass them, achieving a level utterly incomprehensible for ordinary combat techniques.

Additionally, Covert Martial Arts focused on tapping into the latent potential of humans. Compared to other supernatural abilities, it had a particularly broad foundation and a large base of practitioners.

According to the population census conducted three years ago, at least a million people out of the total two million were in or related to the realm of Covert Martial Arts. This also included a fair number of martial arts hobbyists. If they were to count all of them, the total would be even higher—potentially in the tens of millions.

Due to this vast base, there were numerous experts in the Covert Martial Arts world. The world of Covert Martial Arts was divided into northern and southern factions. For example, in the northern Covert Martial Arts realm, the most powerful individuals were known internally as combat artists. Their strength originated in the physical body but far surpassed it. Neither handguns nor heavy machine guns posed a threat to them, and even cannons might prove ineffective. Some combat artists could evade attacks, while others could face them head-on. Only explosive, high-powered thermal weapons would be able to make any kind of mark on them.

These combat artists were undoubtedly Class B.

According to the rough statistics from Black Ops Agency, the northern Covert Martial Arts world had at least thirty Class B combat artists, typically the sect masters or elders of various sects.

This was what was publicly known. Some powerful sects kept a low profile, and some Covert Martial Arts experts lived in seclusion. With these combined estimates, the northern Covert Martial Arts world likely had at least fifty Class B combat artists.

Throw in the southern Covert Martial Arts world and it was double, making it, maybe, about a hundred Class B experts in total. This was more than ten times the amount of the Black Ops Agency!

Of course, such a direct comparison wasn't entirely fair. With the Covert Martial Arts world divided into various sects, these hundred or so combat artists were spread out among them, resulting in each sect having only a few. Additionally, the Covert Martial Arts world was vast and complex, with conflicts between the northern and southern factions, disputes between different counties, and even rivalries within the same county. It was impossible for them to form a united, powerful front.

The Black Ops Agency had tried to reach out to this enormous group but made little headway. For some reason, most Covert Martial Arts sects were resistant to official forces and had little desire to cooperate.

Only a few Class C and D Covert Martial Arts practitioners had shown interest in the conditions offered by the Black Ops Agency, but their usefulness was limited. The Black Ops Agency has also attempted to obtain the Covert Martial Arts of various sects to cultivate their own forces. However, each sect kept these Covert Martial Arts techniques close to their chests, and even the government found it challenging to gain any kind of advantage.

On the rare occasion that the Black Ops Agency managed to get their hands on a rare Covert Martial Art, their attempts to cultivate talent were often plagued with problems for reasons unknown. They were unable to train true Covert Martial Arts experts; the strongest they managed to produce were mere pugilists. Furthermore, during later training stages, these practitioners often go astray and end up dying.

Cassius was the first true Covert Martial Arts practitioner at the combat artist level who was willing to sit down with the Black Ops Agency and have a proper conversation. Thus, during their earlier chat, Franz was particularly respectful and addressed Cassius as "Mr."

They discussed many topics, including the Gate Organization.

The Gate Organization's peripheral and core members could not be any more different from each other. The former was classified as a loose organization, while the latter was labeled an S-Class dangerous organization. Li Wei being a former peripheral member was not a liability for the Black Ops Agency; on the contrary, it was an advantage that the Black Ops Agency could leverage to learn more about the Gate Organization’s operations and actions in the public.

Cassius, on the other hand, mainly wanted the Black Ops Agency to investigate the trail of the dark creatures—the Dead Blood that appeared during the ruthless battle fifteen years ago. With the Federal Special Service Bureau's backing, they might be able to help Cassius follow up on these broken leads.

Moreover, the primary purpose of the Black Ops Agency was to curb the dark creatures' actions. After twenty years of development, they had branches hiding in nearly every county of the nation, constantly monitoring the movements of various forces within their territories.

They had detailed records of the frequency, number, and locations of dark creature appearances in recent years. They even dispatched commissioners to suppress and control these creatures. Some dark creatures were killed while others were captured and taken back to their branches for in-depth research and secure containment. Some special types of dark creatures were usually imprisoned and detained, such as the parasitic Shadow Demons.

Franz mentioned someone named Ole Karlsson. He was the head of the Beiliu County branch and a very capable cadre in the Black Ops Agency. Unfortunately, Ole's daughter was parasitized by some unknown dark creature and went mad every night.

Inside the black sedan, Cassius continued his conversation with Franz without missing a beat. "Mr. Franz, how many dark creatures are typically held in a branch of the Black Ops Agency?"

"The cells are specially designed for dark creatures, so they can't hold a large number. There are generally about thirty to forty cells. Under normal circumstances, the occupancy rate of these cells per branch is about one-third to one-half. For any more dark creatures, the commissioners usually opt to kill them during their missions. So, about a dozen dark creatures," Franz replied, looking at Cassius. "Mr. Li Wei, why are you asking about this?"

Cassius ignored the question and continued speaking with Franz, "Aside from research, do these detained dark creatures have any other significant uses for the Black Ops Agency?"

Franz shook his head and replied hoarsely, "Basically, no. On the contrary, these special dark creatures often pose a potential risk. There was once a branch whose negligence allowed the dark creatures to riot and escape, nearly killing half of the branch's personnel." He continued, "Only a small fraction, about one in ten, is used for research."

He turned his gaze back to Cassius, sensing the latter had something he wanted to say or perhaps a favor to ask which was precisely what he was hoping for. Securing a favor or collaboration with a Class B expert would work to his benefit.

Beside Franz, Cassius pondered for a moment. Eyes gleaming, he asked, "I have a way to kill these dark creatures. Are you willing to try it?"

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