Chapter 82: Chapter 82: Saint Venerable

The expressions of the Martial Arts Association Steward and the police chief beside him instantly turned exceedingly ugly.

"Captain Cong, this... we just need to take them back for questioning. We have to give the victims an explanation for this matter..."

"Who the f*ck are you?" Captain Cong abruptly cut him off. His gaze instantly turned piercingly cold, and a sharp, oppressive aura suddenly erupted from him.

With a metallic SHING, he drew a long blade gleaming with a faint blue luster from his waist, pointing its tip straight at the Steward. Behind him, his fierce companions stepped forward in almost perfect unison, resting their hands on the weapons at their waists. A formidable aura pressed down like a physical weight.

"Have I given you too much face?" Captain Cong’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a bone-piercing chill. "It’s the Superpower Bureau’s rule that all matters involving Superpower Users fall under our primary jurisdiction! Is it your turn to yap and complain here?"

He swayed the tip of his blade slightly, issuing a command word by word: "Let. Them. Go."

"Three..."

There was no need to count to three. The Martial Arts Association Steward’s face was livid. His chest heaved violently a few times before he finally suppressed his fury, grinding out a single sentence through clenched teeth: "We’re leaving!"

With a resentful wave of his hand, he led the Association members quickly into their cars and left without looking back. Seeing this, the police officers could only shake their heads helplessly, packing up and withdrawing as well.

Only then did Captain Cong slowly sheath his blade, acting as if nothing had just happened. He turned his gaze to the group from Yicang City, especially Ma Ba, and said lightly, "Make some time tomorrow to visit the Superpower Bureau. All of you must come."

His tone was nonchalant, yet it carried an icy chill. "If you don’t..."

His eyes turned as cold as knives. "I will kill you. Let’s go."

After speaking, he didn’t look at anyone else. He hopped onto the motorcycle, took his two subordinates, and sped off into the distance, leaving behind an uncontrollable buzz of discussion at the scene.

"That’s... it?"

"The Superpower Bureau... isn’t that too overbearing? They didn’t give the police or the Martial Arts Association any face at all."

"What did you expect? Didn’t you hear him? He’ll kill them if they don’t show up..."

Fang Chen frowned slightly as he watched the direction they had left. He turned to Company Commander Jia beside him and asked in a low voice, "Company Commander Jia, isn’t the Superpower Bureau’s method of handling things... a bit too..."

Before Company Commander Jia could speak, a voice rang out from the side. "The Superpower Bureau has always been like this."

Huai Yongge walked over at some point. He looked in the direction the Bureau members had left, his face showing neither joy nor anger, but his tone carried a hint of complexity. "I really envy them. They can act as they please and don’t have to give face to anyone."

Hearing this, Fang Chen looked at Huai Yongge, his eyes filled with doubt.

Seeing his expression, Huai Yongge explained, "Actually, this is also a way of protecting Superpower Users like you who come from ordinary families."

"Protecting?"

"Yes." Huai Yongge nodded. His gaze swept over the surrounding students, who still had lingering fears, before falling back on Fang Chen. "Do you know when the Superpower Bureau was established?"

Fang Chen thought for a moment. "In my impression, it seems to have always existed."

"It was about twenty-five or twenty-six years ago," Huai Yongge said. "It was founded by a Martial Saint from the Zhou Kingdom, whom the world respectfully addresses as the ’Saint Venerable’. After overthrowing the former Imperial Family of the Zhou Kingdom, he established the ’Superpower Management Center’ and set up branches of the Superpower Bureau in the cities of various nations across Qingzhou. The Superpower Bureau is not directly subordinate to any country. Its public claim is that it is a department belonging to the entire human race."

Fang Chen listened and asked, "Then since this Superpower Management Center isn’t a department of the Zhao Kingdom, why is the country so at ease handing the management of Superpower Users over to him? They are also in charge of our Spirit Awakening... all our data is with them, right?"

"Yes," Huai Yongge affirmed, before changing the subject. "This, actually, has to be traced back to the past. Before the Superpower Bureau appeared..." He looked at Fang Chen and asked, "Do you know what it was like for Superpower Users back then?"

Fang Chen shook his head. The history he knew didn’t contain these details.

Huai Yongge chuckled, but there was no warmth in his laughter as he explained, "At that time, Spirit Awakening was handled independently by each city, or even each academy. But... that’s where the problem lay. Every city, and even the capital, was fundamentally under the firm control of major aristocratic families and various factions. Naturally, newly awakened Superpower Users wouldn’t be let off the hook by them.

"They were already the controllers of this world; how could they allow new, uncontrollable variables to emerge? A powerful Superpower User has the absolute ability to change the existing power structure.

"Therefore, once many students finished their Spirit Awakening back then and displayed valuable superpowers, they were often forcibly taken away and controlled by these major factions."

Huai Yongge’s eyes dimmed as he spoke, seeming to fall into some unpleasant memory. "My eldest brother..." He paused, a trace of bitterness creeping into his tone. "He awakened a superpower—the Vajra Indestructible Body."

Fang Chen’s heart stirred. He had already guessed most of the ending, but he continued to listen quietly.

Huai Yongge tugged at the corners of his mouth, as if smiling, but there was no mirth in his expression. "On the day his Spirit Awakening ended, my dad was waiting right outside the grading center. He had just picked up my brother and exchanged barely two words with him... when a group of people from some unknown family directly took him away.

"Later, we finally learned through various channels..." His voice turned completely cold, carrying suppressed pain and anger. "...He had been turned into a... puppet by that family."

Fang Chen was stunned.

He had imagined his brother being taken away to serve as a guard, a Death Warrior, or even imprisoned and used as a tool, but he never expected that his humanity would be directly erased, turning him into a mindless puppet. It seemed that the world a few decades ago was far darker and bloodier than it was now.

"So," Huai Yongge’s voice pulled him back from his shock, "the emergence of the Superpower Bureau can be seen as forcibly placing a protective shell over all Superpower Users from commoner families.

"They ignore the provocations and rules of any major family or powerful faction. Anyone who dares to interfere in the affairs of the Superpower Bureau is making an enemy of the Saint Venerable."

His tone carried a hint of cold mockery. "Once, a family in a first-tier city of the Chu Kingdom refused to believe this. Several local major families banded together, wanting to test the Superpower Bureau’s bottom line.

"The result?" Huai Yongge paused, a flash of awe in his eyes. "The Saint Venerable directly descended in person with his men. Disregarding any need for evidence or trials, he... slaughtered every single one of those major families that spearheaded the provocation. Leaving no survivors, not even their livestock."

Huai Yongge continued with a cold snort, "Later, some families grew smart and started to exploit loopholes. Under the guise of maintaining law and order, they fabricated charges to frame Superpower Users from commoner backgrounds who refused to submit. Then, they would use the legal system to openly try and execute them. That way, even if they couldn’t recruit these talents, they would at least eliminate potential variables and rivals.

"When they did this filthy business one too many times, the Saint Venerable eventually caught wind of it. He issued an absolute, across-the-board mandate: no local faction, major family, or anyone else is allowed to arrest or try any Superpower User—especially those from commoner backgrounds—under any pretext!

"Otherwise, they die!

"Whether a crime was committed or not is for the Superpower Bureau to decide. If the Bureau investigates and confirms that a Superpower User harbors evil intentions and poses a severe threat, they still won’t be executed easily. Instead, they are sent directly to the front lines against the Alien Race to serve as cannon fodder.

"However, not everyone who kills a Superpower User will be punished by the Bureau. If it’s a simple private feud or revenge killing that doesn’t involve the interests of major families, they will investigate it through their own methods and just let the culprit go."

Fang Chen’s heart stirred as he remembered Zhu Hao, one of the main instigators of the dream realm incident at school last time. He had heard the people from the Martial Arts Association mention back then that if the Superpower Bureau intervened, Zhu Hao’s life would definitely be spared.

It was precisely because of this that Tian Menglian’s younger sister had taken such a massive risk to kill Zhu Hao first. And as Tian Menglian was the victim of that incident and also a Superpower User, it was perfectly justified for her family to take revenge for her. Even if the Superpower Bureau took her sister back, upon investigating and finding out it was a simple revenge killing, they wouldn’t make things difficult for her.

Fang Chen looked at Huai Yongge and sighed. "This... although it’s fighting violence with violence and the methods are extreme, it’s true that there is no method more efficient or more deterring than this. The strength of this Saint Venerable must be incredibly powerful, right?"

Huai Yongge smiled at his words. "Heh, it’s far more than just incredibly powerful."

He gazed off into the distance, as if his eyes could pierce through space to see that existence towering above all living beings.

"Let’s put it this way. The Saint Venerable... is the absolute ceiling of the human race’s combat power today."

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