.The specific establishment time of the Iron Commandment cannot be verified. Its predecessor can be traced back to the Holy City of Jerusalem in the early 12th century. The earliest members were only nine people. The original intention of its establishment was to protect pilgrims from all over Europe from bandits. attack.
By the end of the twelfth century, the scale of this organization was unprecedentedly large. It owned more than 9,000 properties in Europe, including many well-known churches and castles. It had tens of thousands of members and could tax the people or plunder directly. Even the nobles at that time were very knowledgeable and generous in donating gold and silver; they stood on the royal power and took orders directly from the Pope. This was the most powerful religious military force in Europe at that time - the Templars.
But this excessive expansion of power and wealth became the ultimate thorn in the heart of this organization.
France, October 13, 1307, Friday, Black Friday. The day the Templars fell.
A shrewd king is enough to handle this matter. The reason is simple. At that time, it was difficult for the ruler of any country to tolerate an organization that owned thousands of castles and huge wealth in his kingdom, while he himself Unable to get involved.
Seven years later, the remnants of the Knights were in exile across Europe, and most of their members had died during interrogations or been burned at the stake. Their last grand leader, Molay, cursed the then bishop and king on the stake: within a year, the two would die in "eternal judgment."
In less than a year, the pope and the king died one after another. The causes of death were sudden illness and mysterious deaths while hunting.
All these feuds seem to be over, but the Templar fire has never been extinguished.
It is rumored that Molay had secretly passed the position to his nephew, the young Earl Bourne, before Black Friday, and asked him to swear in front of God that in order to save the Knights Templar in the future, he would keep some treasures to "Doomsday". Those treasures were hidden in the giant pillars of the former Grand Master's tomb. They were later smuggled out by the "Pure Architect" organization controlled by the Earl and moved elsewhere. Only through the Templars' own Sets of mysterious symbols and secret religious rituals can be found and retrieved.
Until seven centuries later, no one could decipher the secrets of those symbols, and the treasure became a historical mystery.
In 2000, the era began after the empire unified the planet.
In that chaotic era when the world was first established, countless resistance organizations appeared and were ruthlessly destroyed. In the end, only a few survived deep in the darkness. One of them was the Steel Commandment.
They are the inheritance of the Templars. They merged and rewritten the teachings of the Catholic and Orthodox churches and established their own Holy See and laws. The grand commander who leads the entire regiment also serves as the pope, passing on the faith and military spirit.
Today, the empire's rule has lasted for a century. The Steel Commandment is already the largest resistance organization on the planet. It is one of the very few organizations that can fight the military power of the empire on a frontal battlefield. It exists like the Second Dynasty in Europe. Even if you want to eradicate them, it will be useless, because people can be killed, but faith cannot be killed.
Therefore, HL has the largest number of branches in Europe in the world, and its overall combat strength is second only to its headquarters in Tiandu.
Among the criminals with superpowers who walk in the dark world, no one dares to mess with the members of the Iron Discipline. Everyone knows that once they form a quarrel with them, they will be hunted to the ends of the earth in the name of judgment until they achieve their goals.
But the Blood Owl will not consider similar issues. For him, the Steel Commandment, HL, no matter what the position of the person who falls into his hands is just experimental material.
No matter how much he looks like a professional fighter or a good swimmer, Blood Owl is an out-and-out scientist. In fact, he has an Ivy League degree, although he used someone else's identity when he studied there, and the student he pretended to be He and his whole family also became experimental subjects.
For many years, Blood Owl has been pursuing a way to "cure" himself. At this stage, there are two ways to achieve this ultimate goal. First, his research is successful; second, the human race around the world is destroyed.
Therefore, no matter which angle you look at it, Blood Owl is steadily moving towards his ideal.
After dealing with the last high priest, he spent half a day searching the underground reflection city of Iron Commandment, confirming that there were no more survivors here, and then began the design and layout work.
This underground maze is composed of passages and rooms. Each passage looks the same. It is surrounded by thick metal walls. There is a glowing light path above the head that extends parallel to the passage. It is difficult to walk in any section of it. Feel different from other places. The rooms will only appear underground in some landmark buildings. Apart from being more spacious than the passages and having more lighting channels on the ceiling, they do not have any extra features. The size and appearance of each room are the same. The exact same rectangle can accommodate about forty people. There are no tables, chairs or items. It is just an "empty" iron box. Just like the passage, even if you stand inside, you can't tell what exactly you are in. Which room is it.
This design can prevent external intrusion very well, because as long as outsiders enter these passages, they cannot even confirm their location and will soon be surrounded and captured by members of the Iron Discipline.
Through these rooms and passages, one can move quickly under the city, reach a designated location in a short time, and disappear from the ground at any time through a secret entrance. This underground labyrinth is where members of the Iron Discipline of Venice pass messages and escape to each other. The most powerful hardware when it comes to hunting. Now, it fell into the hands of the blood owl. This place made him very satisfied. He had always longed for a place where he could store enough experimental equipment without being disturbed by enthusiastic neighbors. With a water depth of two meters and shoal sand of nearly 20 meters, even if he was at this depth, The sound of the concert below will not be transmitted to the ground.
And the most exciting thing is the threat made by the senior priest before his death, which indicates that the other party will send more powerful members of the organization to eliminate him. Will there be strong people? The blood owl was looking forward to it.
Speaking of ability levels, no one knows when this set of evaluation levels began to circulate. It seems to have existed in that mysterious world unknown to ordinary people since ancient times.
In that era when there were many countries, the "governments" of various countries concealed the existence of superpowers, cybernetics, mutants and other groups and cultivated them as their own weapons. In this era of unification, the empire has never disclosed this power to the general public. But they have developed a relatively standardized system for more accurate classification.
In fact, this system is very simple. From paper level to god level, you only need to refer to two types of data, "time" and "quantity". For example, a paper-level person can kill twenty ordinary people in one hour, then a parallel-level person can kill two hundred people in one hour, or kill twenty people in just ten minutes. .
This assumption is based on the real premise that those people will resist or run away. The shorter the time and the greater the number of people, the higher the level. If you kill one million people in one second, you will naturally be a god. Of course, the significance of level determination is that one must use one's own strength to accomplish this, and people such as bomber pilots cannot be counted.
In the evaluation system used by the empire, "time" can roughly represent the highest destructive power, so esper users with better time are generally inclined to attack "sexuality"; while "quantity" represents the ability of the esper. ability to sustain destruction and its own ability to survive.
Of course, sometimes there will be surprises in this set of levels, such as transforming people. Such ability users generally have no special abilities themselves and rely on weaponized bodies to fight. Although they can meet the requirements in terms of level assessment, if a pair of When encountering superpowers of the same level, especially those with offensive abilities, the one who loses will definitely be the reformer.
However, overall, this system is relatively accurate and widely applicable to all humans on this planet, because so far, there have not been many people on the earth who have reached the level of "gods" or superpowers. A person who can reach the fourth level of "fierce" is considered a peerless master.
Blood Owl is such a master, and he is only in his early thirties, so there is every possibility of further improvement. All he needs is more prey and experiments...
At noon the day after the murder at the Bronze Parrot Bar, the Blood Owl appeared in Venice again. He walked on the road with such swagger, not worrying that his eye-catching image would attract the attention of passers-by.
In fact, this phenomenon is very strange. The more afraid a criminal is of being caught, the more he will exude a sinister aura. However, people like Blood Owl can disappear into the sea of people. Even if someone takes a second look at him, It's just because of his tall image.
People can't imagine that a murderer who just committed a murder in a public place last night would still dare to stroll down the street as if nothing had happened. This is in line with common sense and habitual thinking.
At 1 o'clock in the afternoon, in a restaurant, Blood Owl sat in front of a double portion of fresh fish, shrimp and crabs and devoured his meal. He even ordered two portions of tiramisu.
Soon after, an Asian man wearing small round sunglasses and a long ponytail walked into the restaurant. This man was sneaky and had a deer-like head and mouse eyes. He covered his chin and face with the collar of his windbreaker. As soon as he entered, he skillfully After looking at all the possible escape routes, and then looking at every man and woman in his sight to make sure there was no note, he sat down opposite the blood owl.
"Mr. Chilios, it's me." He asked the question, his eyes still flickering around.
The blood owl replied: "I also ordered a meal for you, but because you were late, I ate your share too."
"I was only five minutes late. You even ate the desserts. The dishes here are served one after another..."
"Stop talking nonsense, did you get everything I asked for?"
"Hey... listen, man, after I left the bar last night, what you did almost shocked the whole town. Maybe the police found out through the surveillance video that I talked to you, and now I'm in trouble too. …”
The blood owl interrupted the other party: "Mr. Zuo Dao, do you want to increase the price?"
Zuo Dao wanted to increase the price. Before the blood owl asked this question, he was still thinking about it. But at this moment, as soon as he made eye contact with the other party, Zuo Dao immediately gave up: "Don't dare, don't dare... I am no longer a middleman in this business." My God, that has always been well-known..."
"Your Excellency is a very famous person. You don't need to explain anything anymore. Just tell me when the things will arrive."
Zuo Dao's eyes rolled twice under his sunglasses: "I have found a buyer for your painting. It is a private collector, from the royal family. The background is strong enough. I dare to buy anything. I will pay within two days. I will wait for his money to arrive." On the account, as agreed before, I will take 10% of the net profit from selling the paintings, and the remaining 90% will be used to buy the equipment you want. I have contacted all the sellers on the black market. The medical equipment will arrive on the same day, and the chemicals are also easy to obtain. , but torture tools are more difficult to obtain. They have to go to adult-use... um... I mean to get some supplies from suppliers in other cities. As for computer equipment, it is a little more expensive to get it in stock, but it is not difficult to get it.
As for the last remaining money, you said before that you wanted laundered cash. This poor man has helped you mediate with some big guys nearby. They said that you have to withdraw 15% of the money before laundering it. There’s no need to discuss it. Do you think it’s okay? If not, I will give you the account directly. "
The blood owl didn't think much. He finished the last bit of food on the plate, stood up and said, "We'll meet here at the usual time in three days." After that, he threw two large-denomination bills on the table and walked away.
Zuo Dao watched through the window as the Blood Owl gradually left his sight. Then, he looked around, put the two bills into his arms at lightning speed, and then cleared his throat: "Waiter, pay the bill!" he said. As he spoke, he took out a credit card that was heavily in debt from his wallet...