Achieving Demon Godhood from Unlocking Talents

「One week later.」

The April weather was growing warmer, and a fiery sun blazed high in the sky.

The magnificent, towering walls of the city stood like giants, holding back the dust of the wilderness and the panic seeping from the buffer zone.

Rows of buildings stood packed closely together, spreading inward from the high walls to form a bustling district. Most of the passersby had shed their heavy winter coats for lighter jackets or simple sweatshirts.

"Did you hear? The Beast Tide outside has been terrifying lately. It seems a lot of Wilderness Hunters and transport convoys have gone missing."

"That’s not all. I heard the City Guard Army has sent out a lot of troops to garrison outside the walls and build a bunch of temporary fortifications. I also heard the people in the buffer zone are making a fuss, demanding to be let into the city. They should take a good look at who they are, trying to come in here and squeeze us for living space..."

"Exactly. If the City Lord hadn’t been kind enough to tacitly allow them to gather outside the walls, they would’ve been slaughtered by Mutant Beasts and Wilderness Warlords long ago. And now they have the nerve to stir up trouble."

Muted discussions like these could be heard all over the district.

In the cafés beneath bustling high-rises, on the public benches in the square, or inside the crowded cars of the tram...

The gloom of the Beast Tide overshadowed many other affairs within the city, with news reports updating the public on the latest situation in the wilderness every day.

For a while, even news about the Rebels and Wilderness Warlords seemed to fade from the public eye, whether by design or by chance.

He silently listened to the whispers around him.

Dressed in a black sweatshirt, Lu Chao sat alone in a corner of the square, his back against a planter, gazing at the large screen on the mall across from him.

[Red Maple Daily: It has been reported that multiple violent incidents have recently broken out in the buffer zone. Instigators led a charge on the city gates, clashing with the garrison and resulting in a stampede that injured hundreds...]

[The City Lord’s Mansion has announced that it is leading a coalition of corporate groups, including the Jinggang Chamber of Commerce and Ganghe Machinery, to provide material aid to the buffer zone... The City Guard garrison will not easily abandon its temporary fortifications within the buffer zone...]

The news headlines flashed before his eyes. Lu Chao had deliberately altered his appearance; his face now looked plain, and he had a sturdy build.

’Buffer zone...’

He murmured softly, sensing that the situation was escalating with increasing speed.

As the most unique area of Red Maple Shelter City, the buffer zone was shunned by most of those living inside the city walls.

On a normal day, things were relatively peaceful. Even with its motley crew of inhabitants, there were still certain rules and lines that weren’t crossed.

But now, with the eruption of the Beast Tide, the order there had all but disintegrated.

Some wanted to use it as the first line of defense against the Beast Tide—a source of extra manpower to reduce City Guard Army casualties. Others wanted to abandon it entirely, falling back to the city’s high walls as the main fortress.

The thought crossed his mind, but Lu Chao ultimately shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it.

’Let the higher-ups handle it. The City Lord’s Mansion and the United Committee will have their own ways of dealing with this.’

By contrast, his eyes glinted as he looked toward a glass skyscraper at the end of the street.

The four words of the Jinggang Chamber of Commerce blazed in neon at the top of the building.

Its floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the sunlight, rising layer upon layer like a sea of blue-green glass that made one instinctively squint.

It had been a week.

He had spent that time making numerous plans for the so-called bounty mission. Outside of his daily duties with the Superpower Bureau, he had simply been waiting patiently for the right opportunity.

And now, based on the situation in the buffer zone and intelligence he’d recently gathered, things were about to change for the Jinggang Chamber of Commerce.

Just as the thought occurred to him, cries of surprise erupted from the crowd in the square. He looked up, following their gaze.

"Look!"

"It’s the Jinggang Chamber of Commerce’s convoy."

A convoy of more than a dozen vehicles was emerging from the glass building’s underground garage, a formidable procession.

Most were bulletproof-modified Sharp Light sedans, accompanied by several light commercial vans and medium-sized trucks that appeared to be carrying daily supplies.

Heavily armed security guards in black suits sat inside the vehicles, equipped with bulletproof vests and communication earpieces, looking highly trained.

The vehicles were painted a uniform orange-yellow, emblazoned with an emblem shaped like a ringed gold coin—the exclusive logo of the Tan family and the Jinggang Chamber of Commerce.

’So, he’s finally decided to show his face.’

Lu Chao instantly expanded his Life Sensing and keenly detected a familiar aura within the convoy.

Memories of the past flashed through his mind: the malicious interference he faced when he killed Ma Kui in the buffer zone, the condescending arrogance of one of the city’s founding families.

He remembered being framed when he broke through to the Superpower Level, the insidious plot to cripple him. He recalled the time he went on a rescue mission into the wilderness, only to have his location leaked, leading to an ambush by Wilderness Warlords.

Until now, the Tan family’s power had always held him back, preventing him from acting directly to kill Tan Yue.

But now...

’Hm?’ Suddenly, Lu Chao’s eyes shifted as he glanced toward a nearby intersection.

His Life Sensing ability was like a radar, sweeping over every living being within a five-hundred-meter radius.

The high-rises and the ground, the pedestrians on either side of the crosswalk, the traffic lights and stopped cars at the intersection, the shops and people inside the surrounding buildings...

To an ordinary person, it was all a perfectly normal scene.

In his mind’s eye, however, the entire area resolved into a three-dimensional image, with every green fluctuation of a Life Magnetic Field clearly visible within it.

’Two Superpower Levels?’

His gaze sharpened. Lu Chao looked first toward a roadside café near the intersection, then to the rooftop of a hundred-meter-tall skyscraper.

The auras of two individuals at the Peak of Limit-Breaking were deliberately concealed; even some Exploration Level experts would have struggled to notice them.

But to him, they stood out as clearly as fireflies in the dark.

In that instant, Lu Chao’s expression shifted. He was surprised to find that one of the Superpower-Level Life Magnetic Fields felt vaguely familiar.