Miliya Derong’s fate took a dramatic turn after being convinced by her sister to attend the Wind-Extinguishing Zhongsi Academy, and then being selected for the advanced class.
She had never cared much for what she considered to be mere ideological cultivation, only getting involved to appease her sister.
However, at the Zhongsi Academy, she pondered many things.
After graduating from the advanced class, she was chosen by the Alliance Supreme Court.
At the moment, the political system of the Alliance can be roughly divided into three parts: the Alliance Army, which includes the military government sector, the Alliance General Staff Department, various group armies, brigade-sized units, with the Governor-General directly controlling all military departments.
The second part is the Alliance Government, with the Prime Minister as the head and accountable to the Governor-General. It directly governs the various provinces and has direct departments for civil affairs, production, development, commerce, education, and so on.
The third is the Alliance Supreme Court, with Lambert Hodgson serving as Judge Hodgson and responsible to the Governor-General. It oversees the Legislative Council, the Executive Council, the Disciplinary Council. The Demon Hunter Squad, a newly established organization, is part of the Alliance Tribunal.
The Tribunal, an armed force that is independent of the three councils of the Supreme Court, is responsible for executing major events.
The Tribunal can be understood as the Alliance’s secret service organization. Demon Hunters have the authority—granted by the new “Alliance Secret Enforcement Law”—to carry out secret arrests, interrogations, and executions without going through the “three councils.”
Initially, after graduating from Zhongsi Academy, Miss Derong was placed into the Anti-Corruption Bureau under the Disciplinary Council, and then, more recently, when the Tribunal was established and they were recruiting Demon Hunters, she applied and was selected.
After undergoing Demon Hunter training, Miliya Derong now carries a pistol and a short knife as part of her daily equipment, and her squad is also equipped with grenade launchers, chainsaw swords, and exoskeleton suits, ready to take down fortified targets when necessary.
Moreover, every Demon Hunter masters a little bit of… unique abilities after completing training.
For example, Miliya Derong can make her eyes glow, causing creatures gazed upon by her to panic and feel dizzy; tests have shown that some physically weak animals can even die of heart rupture. Her comrades have various powers too, like lie detection and inducing fear… all kinds, and while not particularly strong, they are somewhat practical.
This ability seems to be called Spiritual Energy, but the Governor-General, having met them, also said that compared to full-fledged practitioners of Spiritual Energy, their powers are incomplete, with only a single function and not adaptable for flexible use, and the intensity is not too strong.
But that was enough for Miliya Derong, who in her more than twenty years of life, had only fantasized as a child that she might possess extraordinary abilities.
Besides combat skills and Spiritual Energy-related special abilities, there is also a considerable amount of knowledge in areas such as investigation, tracking, analysis, features of heresy, and other academic content.
After the formation of the Demon Hunter Squad, they were split into two teams: one headed west to the distant Western Desert, and even further west across the continent to gather intelligence.
Derong’s seven-person team, on the other hand, patrolled within the Alliance territory, investigating internal cases of corruption.
During their inspections in the Beiqing Valley Region, they encountered many cases.
Although they have the authority to arrest, judge, and execute secretly, Judge Hodgson had also told them before departing not to wield this power unnecessarily or in non-urgent situations. The Alliance’s normal system is capable of addressing issues, and in most cases, they just need to pass the information they gather to the relevant government authority for handling.
Typically, their role is to supplement the investigative work that the Alliance’s normal system fails to cover.
Only when the Alliance’s system has become so corrupt that supplemental investigation cannot achieve their goals would they need to invoke their special authority.
This time, their patrol in Beiqing Valley Province followed the normal procedure.
In the Beiqing Valley Region, the kinds of incidents that befell retired veterans like Priya and his family were not isolated but occurred on a large scale. Certainly, not every case was as deplorable, but the presence of parasites and corrupt elements exploiting farmers on various farmsteads was not uncommon.
Along the way, they couldn’t possibly arrest so many people; they just took down some evidence and made a list of names.
They had originally planned to spend a month or two to complete a full circuit and then directly send the related intelligence, lists, and evidence to headquarters for the Discipline Committee and to the Beiqing Valley Provincial government. Under the oversight of the Disciplinary Council, they would thoroughly clean up the outrageous grassroots management situation in Beiqing Valley Province.
However, when they reached Microthermal Farmstead, they came across the case of retired veteran Priya’s family being massacred, acquiring the critical piece of evidence, this diary.
At this point, the Demon Hunter Squad couldn’t hold back any longer.
Up to then, it had been mostly cases of corruption, oppression, bodily harm, and acts of violence. There were murders, but those were relatively rare; not to mention, this current case involved a massacre targeting veterans who the Alliance always insisted on treating preferentially.
This was a serious breach. Stay updated through empire
The Demon Hunters were acutely aware of how angry the Governor-General would be if the news of this incident reached his ears.