ALL NOVEL 432. CIPD
Shen flew through the maze of buildings and elevated streets with a frown. The deeper you went into Cylek's underbelly, the less people cared about proper lighting. Anything enchanted and not adequately secured was stolen unless it was in gang territory, and even then, most gangs liked to have some dark places for some specific business.
Simple darkness, without anti-perception enchantments, couldn't hinder an Overlord's sense, but it might throw a Conceptualizer for a loop, depending on their abilities. The target audience of the less prestigious streets were said weaklings. The province-wide city-state had five million Overlords, but it also had over twenty million Conceptualizers and another fifty million weaker people.
If Alicia was here, Shen guessed she would properly define it as a fuckton of people.
That density was one of the things Shen liked about Cylek. His Allvision couldn't see further than for levels up or down outside buildings and, at most, two levels when inside. He was forced to be on edge every second, and without any passive Law senses. Just flying around was good training for his senses and his psyche.
He didn't go all the way down to the deepest levels. Instead, he stopped three street levels above the ground, which was considered the baseline level for Overlords. Anything below was for weaklings. The two underground levels, none of which were as wide or populated as the rest of the city, were considered undignified to even think about.
Shen had a few things to say about a few of the "undignified" things he witnessed there once, but he would wait until he mastered his Laws.
Cylek's baseline Overlord street level was quite tall. The deeper in the city you went, the closer the next level was. On the third street level, where he was, apartment buildings had up to ten mortal-tall floors. Yet, the city had another nine street levels above that one, each taller than the next. That's how massive Cylek was.
He slowed down as he reached the third street level. It was filled with cultivators, a few of which were Overlords like him. Only the strongest of the Overlords dared to fly around, as it meant making themselves easier to target than in the crowd.
Shen's frown worsened when he saw the smoke in the distance. He had arrived on that street level a bit away from his goal to avoid the most
obvious traps. He still didn't land, but he tensed and became even more aware of his surroundings.
Cylek was a Spiritual Nexus, meaning the qi in the entire region confluenced there for reasons unknown. That gave birth to many mystic realms, or pocket dimensions, filled with wonders. Shen half suspected one of the reasons the cyberpunk pioneers had elected to go cyberpunk was to distract outsiders from how sweet that spot was. Moreover, wannabe conquerors would have to destroy the entire place, which was hard to overwatch, to protect every resource point. The street maze was intentional.
It was possible to conquer all of Cylek, eliminate the people, and level the "geography," but the Overlord Realm's peak forces had yet to consider it worth the effort. It was best to play Cylek's game by influencing the local forces in an eternal tug of war. Not to mention that Shen was pretty sure the place was nowadays the primary experimental hub for the entire Shaft's research into cyberware; many influencing powers with a stake in it would have something to say about losing the city.
It was a brilliant plan, really. Shen hadn't known about the mystic realms at first, but he did know he had visited no other city or kingdom where mystic realms were shared between different forces as much as in Cylek.
All that was to say that the first dojo he and E'livia conquered in the city was on one of the ugly sides of the Third Street Level, away from both
the city center and the city outskirts, far from any important commercial businesses or resource points. They had gone for it both to avoid annoying other forces and because it would be easier to protect a place no one cared about. So, learning the place had been burned to the ground had come as quite a surprise.
Shen was forced to land when he approached. The local peacekeepers had cordoned off Shen's dojo and nearby buildings. The boundary was demarked by floating screens floating mid-air, flashing the words "NO TRESPASSING" and "CIPD," shorts for "Cilek's Investigation and Punishing Department."
Every CIPD officer was a Conceptualizer or stronger. The Conceptualizers wore defensive gear resembling riot armor, made of what they called plasteel, a Conceptualizer-tier material with the same malleability as plastic and much, much more resistant to shock, piercing, cutting, and the elements than Conceptualizer-tier metal. It was expensive, but those were innate characteristics. Plasteel armor was cheaper to produce and buy in bulk than cheaper but enchanted materials.
The three human Overlords, however, wore clothes made of silkeel, an Overlord-tier material that was even more resistant than plasteel and as malleable as silk. The strongest Overlord, clearly in charge, wore a fancy black and gray suit, and the other two wore martial arts robes. No clothing was pure silkeel, but they were all inlaid with it. Unlike the Conceptualizers, their clothes were enchanted for extra protection.
Every CIPD officer had the words etched to their clothing somewhere. The Conceptualizers had it in their riot gear. The guys in martial robes had it writen on their chest, evidencing the robes weren't actually theirs. Only the suit-wearing Overlord had a pin placed over his suit.
Shen could fight them if he wanted, but the CIPD was publicly backed by nothing less than ten Demi-Dominators. Only three would really fight for it if it came to it, and probably not to the death, but it meant bypassing their authority required money or connections.
Shen used the latter. His status wasn't good enough to fly in, so he showed respect by landing. However, he didn't slow down as he approached the three Overlords looking at the burning building—and the corpses within. Nor did he stop as he passed by them and crouched before one corpse.
He could tell even from afar that none of the nineteen dead people belonged to the dojo. Up close, he could see the tiniest details of the corpses and, more importantly, the enchanted plasteel cuffs holding them firmly. Those cuffs could stop anyone without mastered Laws or a domain from using their qi.
"Corpos?" Shen asked about the background of the dead people.
"Shanglong," the lead Overlord replied. "One is the son of some mid-level executive."
So, that's why the CIPD sent three Overlords to this place. The CIPD was considered heavily corporation-biased, but it kept neutral when it came
to gangs and only deployed against them when gang wars became too ugly. Deaths were okay, but the powers-that-be didn't want a complete bloodbath. The CIPD was the only one willing to do that dirty peacekeeping work—and for free! That was the main reason every Demi-Dominator respected them to a point and hadn't banded to replace them with a force of their own.
They didn't care about finding the culprits behind the actual deaths. They worked for free—at least to the powers-that-be—and there was only so far they would go in an investigation. They cared about getting repayment for the victim, with an additional fee for their trouble.
In other words, they were here for money.
Normally, Shanglong Corporation should've sent their own people with the CIPD to strong-arm Shen. They hadn't, meaning they considered this matter too small to piss E'livia over it. They officially accepted the fact he had been set up and just wanted to get paid for the trouble of hiring and training new people to replace the dead ones. Whether Shen was the culprit was irrelevant. If someone had set him up, it was his job to seek retribution. For now, he only had to pay Shanglong their due for the deaths of their employees and wait until the family members who cared enough sent assassins for him.
"How much?" he asked.
"Shanglong asked for three Conceptualizer-tier artifacts," the lead Overlord informed, leaving unsaid that they expected another for the hard job of sending the money to the corporation.
"There are nineteen Overlord-tier artifacts here," Shen nodded to the cuffs.
"Already property of CIPD."
That was expected. One of the ways the CIPD funded itself was by stealing officially unowned items from suspects and crime scenes. If Shen claimed ownership of the enchanted cuffs, he would be admitting to having killed those people. Then, he wouldn't have to pay just for being weak enough that someone could set him up. No; he would have to pay for going against teh Shanglong Corporation, who had two Demi-Dominators in their ranks.
Shen tsked and glanced at the two Overlords in martial arts robes. "First time I see three CIPD members without cyberware. I can give you some feedback on your martial arts."
Shen called things cyberware, but they were officially named spiritual biologic replacements or simply body implants. He found the name as lame as plasteel and silkeel, though, and refused to use it. They looked high-tech. Cyberware, it was for him. And he was strong enough to force people to translate him instead of adapting to the local lazy naming schemes.
Well, cyberware was kind of lazy, too, but it sounded better.
"We were told not to accept such payment this time," the lead Overlord replied.
Shen raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
"That is so."
Shen gave the leader a once-over. Tall, black-skinned, bald, with white tattoos on his face. He had never seen that CIPD employee before. This matter was relevant enough that someone with some influence in CIPD wanted to see Shen struggle a little. They would use it to test him.
A test meant a challenge. This was no random arson or even a rival gang act. They knew who had done it and expected similar things to happen again. They expected Shen to be forced into a corner or reveal more of himself and his means. That included revealing how deep his pockets went.
Four Conceptualizer-tier artifacts wen't much for a Lawful Dominator, much less someone building a gang, but they also weren't irrevelant. If he had to provide it dozens of times, he would have to hire less people or have less well-protected goons.
"I need a day," Shen replied, mostly to test the waters.
"We were ordered to charge a fee for any delays," the leader replied.
So, the CIPD wanted to test him so much that they were willing to push things a little. Interesting. Even if this specific act wasn't enacted by a rival gang, there was a gang or a corporation behind all this—one that would keep coming for him, meaning the CIPD would rather not risk not collecting. That also meant they believed he might die before paying them.
Shen frowned but pulled a black card out of his spatial ring. The leader smiled and pulled a debit card reader from his spatial artifact. Paying with money came with an added fee because item prices fluctuated so much, and sometimes, you couldn't purchase items even if you had the money. Wars, for instance, meant people hoarded what they had or sold it for exorbitant prices.
And a war was coming, or so the CIPD had just told him. Shen was betting that extra fee that he already couldn't find Conceptualizer-tier artifacts for the price he was paying. Unfortunately, he couldn't be everywhere. He would need to equip his troops so they could stall the enemy until he arrived, whenever and wherever they attacked next.
He looked back at the corpses as the two Overlords in martial arts robes started collecting the cuffs. He didn't care about those people, but his dojo's people were nowhere to be found. That was a slap to his face.
He had to find what had happened, and he had to find it quickly.
He released his domain and commanded Reality to rewind Time for all Light in the area.
The world seemed to start moving backward.