For the sake of his political future, Fuyuan City's mayor resolutely decided to take the risk, wagering his subordinates' lives to capture Moros at all costs.
Upon hearing the mayor's order, the commander on site still had doubts, but he nevertheless issued the order to capture the target.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
At the commander's order, the battle officially began.
The SWAT officers gripped their assault rifles tightly, aimed at the figure ahead, and frantically pulled their triggers.
In an instant, countless bullets poured down like a torrential rain, hurtling toward Moros, who was surrounded by fireballs.
"It seems you do not value your lives."
Circle of Winter!
As Moros spoke, bone-chilling cold erupted without warning.
In an instant, every bullet flying toward him froze in midair, turning into crystalline beads of ice.
Kill them!
At the necromancer's command, the wraiths that had been hidden revealed themselves one after another and crazily pounced on the SWAT officers surrounding Moros.
"Damn it! What the hell are these things?!"
"Fire! Fire!"
"Get away! Don't come any closer!"
"..."
The SWAT officers screamed in terror and poured out firepower frantically, trying to drive back the approaching wraiths.
But assault rifle bullets were utterly useless against the wraiths. Apart from giving the SWAT officers some psychological comfort, they could not inflict any real damage.
In less than half a minute, the wraiths easily tore apart every SWAT officer surrounding Moros.
Even the Fuyuan City police officers far behind the temporary barricade of police cars failed to escape disaster.
Amid the slaughter, wails rose and fell as they became bloody flowers blooming across the ground.
Having witnessed their colleagues' horrific deaths, the three helicopters circling overhead began to climb in panic.
However, it was already too late.
Compared with ghosts before their upgrade, wraiths were much faster.
Ghosts moved only as fast as civilian helicopters, while wraiths could rival attack helicopters.
Combined with their ability to pass freely through ordinary armor, the wraiths quickly caught up to the three police helicopters struggling to gain altitude.
As the pilots were brutally torn apart by the wraiths, the three police helicopters began to lose control, swaying wildly from side to side.
Before long, they collided with one another, turning into three massive fireballs that crashed to the ground.
"Overestimating yourselves!"
Ignoring the severed limbs scattered across the entire street, Moros uttered those words and began reading the information contained in the councillor's extracted soul.
He wanted to know exactly how many people had had a hand in what happened back then.
Moros lightly touched the Magic Crystal containing the councillor's soul and began reading the memories within.
"Councillor Hu, Mayor Rang, Minister Kober..."
As name after name surfaced, Moros's expression grew increasingly grim, and the rage in his heart burned ever hotter.
He would not spare a single person who had participated in the Y City incident six years ago!
When the final name surfaced in his mind, Moros turned to the other important information contained within the councillor's soul.
The first thing presented before him was a list of the councillor's family members.
"Hmph! You still want to resist at a time like this? Ridiculous!"
Sensing the councillor's soul struggling, Moros sneered, a cold, cruel curve appearing at the corner of his lips.
He stared at the Magic Crystal holding the councillor's soul, listening to the wails coming from within.
"Just watch. I will find every last one of them and let your family reunite with you."
Moros spoke slowly, his voice full of determination and coldness.
Those words were like sharp blades stabbing viciously into the councillor's soul, making it struggle even more frantically.
"Don't worry. A family should be together, nice and neat. Hehehe..."
With a cruel smile on his face, Moros opened a Demiplane passage and led the wraiths back to his Demiplane territory.
Behind him, more than a hundred skeleton soldiers broke free from the restraints of flesh and marched heavily through the Demiplane passage one after another.
Only after the last skeleton soldier had completely left Earth did the Demiplane passage slowly close.
Aftermath and Execution
Moros left Fuyuan City without a second thought, but the consequences he left behind lingered like a shadow and would not fade anytime soon.
To say nothing else, the street filled with the corpses of hundreds of SWAT officers and police officers was enough to give Fuyuan City's bureaucrats a headache.
The limbs torn from human bodies by the wraiths lay miserably scattered across the street, a horrifying sight to behold.
The blood had already congealed, mingling with shattered police cars and fallen weapons to create a chilling scene.
After weighing the pros and cons, Fuyuan City's mayor negotiated with representatives of several families controlling the metropolitan area where the city was located.
They discussed, argued, and finally reached a unified decision.
With those families' support, the mayor decisively gave the order.
"Contact the health department immediately and have them send people to deal with these bodies. At the same time, inform the news department to release an official statement and calm the citizens."
The mayor's orders were swiftly relayed.
The health department dispatched a large number of personnel to the street to clear away the remains.
These sanitation workers wore protective suits, masks, and gloves, trying to lessen the psychological shock of the cleanup.
However, when they saw the mutilated, blood-soaked corpses with their own eyes, the overwhelming nausea nearly made them vomit.
Even so, for the meager wages that supported their families, they could only suppress their nausea and discomfort and continue cleaning the chunks of flesh and blood from the street.
Meanwhile, Fuyuan City's news department also acted swiftly.
They released an official statement characterizing the incident as an exceptionally vile terrorist attack, assuring the public that the government would spare no effort in tracking down the true culprit and obtaining justice for the victims.
The news department also called on citizens to remain calm and not panic, promising that the government would take every necessary measure to protect their safety.
In addition, at the will of the true rulers of the urban cluster where Fuyuan City was located, media outlets from all sides joined the effort to guide public opinion.
Through various reports and commentary, they successfully shifted people's attention away from the massacre, gradually covering up everything that had happened in Fuyuan City.
Through these measures, Fuyuan City gradually regained its superficial calm.
At the very least, Eden, who was signing a contract with an entertainment company in the city, knew nothing beyond the terrorist attack presented to the public.
Moros did not pay much attention to everything that happened in Fuyuan City after he left.
His objective was very clear: find the other members of the councillor's family.
After obtaining their exact locations from the councillor's soul, Moros rode a Spectral Dragon and swiftly went after them.
His actions were swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.
Thanks to his formidable efficiency and the Spectral Dragon's flight speed, comparable to that of a second-generation jet fighter, Moros successfully cornered the vast majority of the councillor's family members.
At that moment, the councillor's soul, imprisoned inside the Magic Crystal, witnessed with its own eyes the end of the family it had devoted its entire life to.
Although a small number of ordinary family members escaped this calamity, under Moros's pursuit, the days they could continue living were already numbered.
Faced with Moros's pursuit, the councillor's family did not simply sit and wait for death.
They gathered the family's private armed forces and attempted to resist this terrifying power with force.
However, before the absolute gap in strength, their resistance inevitably ended in failure.
Amid a piercing shriek that no living creature could possibly make, the private army built at enormous expense by the councillor's family, along with the family members they protected, all became corpses strewn across the ground.
Level Five Dark Magic: Curse of the Underworld!
Under this terrifyingly powerful Battle Spell, no living being within the spell's range could escape, and all of them died.
After this battle, the councillor's family was completely broken.
Having lost the protection of the family's private army, the surviving family members either chose to conceal their identities and seek a sliver of survival from Moros's pursuit, or appealed to other councillors and even the Mu Continent government for help, hoping they would extend a hand and join forces against this terrifying power.
In the main hall of the parliament building in the capital of the Mu Continent, a member of the councillor's family passionately condemned Moros's actions, trying to arouse the other councillors' sympathy and support.
"That Collapse Energy user has violated the law..."
"This uncontrolled power has brought enormous harm to society..."
"For the sake of maintaining order on the Mu Continent..."
"..."
His words were full of sincerity and resolve, every word ringing out with force as his impassioned voice echoed through the parliamentary hall.
To some extent, he truly did manage to stir the resonance of the other councillors.
The councillors in the parliament building all deeply despised an existence like Moros.
However, when it came to taking real action, the councillors all chose to protect themselves.
In their eyes, dividing up the benefits occupied by the councillor's family was more important than dealing with Moros, a potentially destabilizing factor.
Moros had already demonstrated astonishing strength and ruthless methods through the assassination in Fuyuan City.
Through their respective intelligence networks, the councillors had already grasped a general understanding of Moros.
They knew about Moros's pursuit of the councillor's family members and understood just how dangerous he was.
Unless they could kill him in one strike, these powerful councillors had no desire to follow in the councillor's footsteps.
Therefore, no councillor was willing to provoke such an existence lightly.
A "madman" who would slaughter an entire family at the slightest disagreement—especially one who truly possessed the power to do so.
That deterrence alone was enough to keep people calm.
After all, when others think you have nuclear weapons, you had better actually have them.
"You all..."
Seeing that the councillors had no intention of supporting him, the member of the councillor's family wanted to continue persuading them.
But before he could finish speaking, a translucent claw pierced him from behind and directly tore out his heart.
The scene unfolded so suddenly that before anyone else in the hall could react, it was already over.
Before everyone's eyes, this member of the councillor's family was directly killed by a wraith in the main hall of the parliament building, the heart of the Mu Continent.
What shocked the councillors even more was that they, the noble lords of the council, were also present.
Facing the cackling wraith, the councillors were utterly terrified.
They cried out helplessly and screamed shrilly. Some stood frozen and powerless, completely at a loss.
Desperate to flee that horrific place as quickly as possible, they shoved and trampled one another, trying to escape the main hall at all costs.
Although the wraith did not kill another person in the parliament building, the councillors' panic and chaos still caused the casualties from this incident to unexpectedly exceed double digits.
Settling Old Grudges
Moros's use of wraiths for this killing in the parliament building thoroughly taught the rulers of the Mu Continent a lesson.
Although Moros himself never appeared, the unique and terrifying existence of the wraiths had fully revealed the mastermind behind the assassination.
Yet faced with such a clear identity of the assassin, the councillors of the Mu Continent all chose to turn a blind eye.
They had no choice. Moros had already proven through his actions that the Mu Continent councillors' security measures were nothing but decorations.
He could ignore the parliament building's security measures and easily kill any councillor.
For councillors who cherished their lives, this was an enormous deterrent.
Before you continue