The First Order

The Public Order Division at Stronghold 61 was very troubled recently. As the Wang Consortium’s strongholds had always been very safe, their public order divisions only needed to capture criminals based on the recommendations of the artificial intelligence. Therefore, the public order divisions at the various strongholds were usually not that busy.In the beginning, they did not really trust this so-called artificial intelligence that much. But later on, everyone realized it could even deduce suspects based on footage from surveillance cameras. Just this point alone made it a really powerful technology.

For example, if someone had escaped from the scene of a hit and run, the artificial intelligence could determine the criminal’s height and behavioral traits based on the angle of the vehicle’s turn in the surveillance footage. That was because the view in the car would be different for people of different heights.

Gradually, the public order divisions became used to the artificial intelligence replacing their investigative duties. All they needed to be responsible for was the arrest of the criminals.

After that, the criminals in the Wang Consortium’s strongholds started being arrested and sentenced for their crimes. During the time the artificial intelligence was first introduced, the Wang Consortium’s prison became so full they were unable to hold any more prisoners.

It was initially decided they would expand the size of the prison. However, the Wang Consortium’s higher-ups directly ordered the Law Division to mete out harsher punishments to the criminals. More than 2,000 prisoners were sentenced to death as a result, and over a 1,000 were sent to perform labor at purpose-built factories outside the stronghold overnight.

Once the criminals were sent to those places, they were not going to return. That eased the pressure of overpopulation in the prison.

During that time, everybody was deterred from committing more crimes. After all, those who stole anything over a 1,000 yuan or got involved in street fights would be sentenced to death, so who would still dare to commit crimes?

However, the Public Order Division at Stronghold 61 was starting to get busy again recently. There were a lot of people reporting their guard dogs had suddenly gone missing, and this was not just one or two cases but over a dozen of them. The Public Order Division immediately wondered if a dognapper had entered the stronghold?

The Wang Consortium had set a target of a 100% rate of solved crimes for the Public Order Division. As long as someone reported a case, they would have to solve it. Otherwise, there would be no year-end bonus for the Public Order Division staff.

The Public Order Division immediately dispatched some people to several dog meat shops in the stronghold to investigate the crimes and even checked the footage from the surveillance cameras outside the dog meat shops. However, they found nothing suspicious.

Moreover, it was extremely unusual as the artificial intelligence did not even provide them with any information this time.

As such, the Public Order Division activated their K9 unit. But when they were going down a street, a police dog suddenly broke free from its leash for some reason and ran away. Then that police dog went missing as well.

This irritated the Public Order Division a lot as the police chief slammed tables in the office and roared angrily at officers. The Public Order Division immediately sent more manpower to carry out a blanket search at the place where the police dog had broken free from its leash. They even went down into the sewers to search.

A Public Order Division squad was walking in the dirty and smelly water down in the sewers. Someone complained, “Why should we be the ones sent into the sewers? They should’ve just deployed the auxiliary police to check it out.”

Someone nearby said, “Quit complaining. You were the one who lost the K9, so consider this your punishment. It won’t be so bad if you can find the criminal, or else be prepared to lose your job.”

Suddenly, the person speaking noticed the person at the front of the squad had stopped in his tracks, and his body was even trembling.

Someone asked, “What’s the matter?”

The person at the front trembled and said, “Everyone… look!”

Everyone turned on their flashlights and looked ahead. They were surprised to see that the sewer in front of them was piled full of skeletal remains of animals. There were bones everywhere!

Those skeletal remains were piled into a small hill. While most of them were rat bones, there were also some cat and dog bones.

“No wonder we didn’t see a single rat while we were down here!” someone said with a tingling sensation in his scalp.

At this moment, they heard the sound of the dirty water rippling behind them. With chills running up their spines, they looked back and saw nothing at all.

“There aren’t any monsters in the sewers, right?”

When those words were uttered, everyone in this Public Order Division squad fled outside.

Without encountering any monsters that threatened to devour them like they had imagined, this group of people got back safely aboveground.

That afternoon, the Public Order Division deployed even more men to carry out an investigation of the entire sewage system. As a result, they discovered nine areas where white bones were piled up in the sewers. They even found the missing police dog in one of the spots, although it had not turned to bone yet. However, it had been strangled to death.

Immediately, a rumor started spreading throughout the stronghold: A monster might have entered the stronghold and could be hiding in the sewers.

This incident caused everyone in the stronghold to feel really worried. Whenever the stronghold residents were out on the streets, they would deliberately avoid walking near manhole covers, afraid that something would pull them down into the sewers.

This was a serious matter. As such, even the Wang Consortium’s higher-ups were alarmed. Wang Shengzhi even specially sent a supernatural being over to the stronghold, but nothing came of the investigation.

At this moment, the Public Order Division was holding an internal meeting to discuss this matter. Without getting into a discussion of whether there would be any arrests, they would first have to determine what could possibly be responsible for this.

“After the skeletal remains were examined, we found no human skeletons among them. This means that whatever was responsible for this does not eat humans.” A man wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses said, “I think it might be some mutated creature that lives in the sewers. However, we don’t really need to be afraid since it doesn’t eat humans. It could be that it’s smaller than humans, so it fears us instead.”

But at this moment, someone barged in from outside and said, “Bad news! Someone from the Public Order Division has gone missing after the search in the sewers!”

…

At the bottom of East Lake, a school of fish had gathered near the collapsed tunnel in the dark waters and were greedily feeding on the blood seeping out of the caved-in rocks.

No one had expected that the hundreds of people who died in the tunnel would end up as nutrients for the fish in East Lake. This was especially true for the blood of supernatural beings whose scent sent the fish into a frenzy.

At the bottom of the ruined lake, dense shoals of fish, turtles, water snakes, frogs, crabs, and freshwater shrimp were swimming among the rocks.

A human tragedy had become a feast for the creatures at the bottom of the lake. However, it was still very difficult for them to reach the human corpses that were buried under the ruins.

All of a sudden, swarms of fish scattered in panic. A huge creature was approaching in the darkness. When it opened its mouth, a great number of fish were sucked into its mouth. The fish in East Lake were so frightened by this new arrival of an overlord that they did not dare to get near it, yet they were also reluctant to leave.

The huge creature swam to the bottom of the lake where it shoved aside a part of the tunnel’s ruins with its body and revealed the human corpses underneath.

The bottom of the lake turned turbid as a tremendous amount of silt got stirred up inside the lake.

However, the swarms of fish started swimming forward in a frenzy. Meanwhile, that huge creature calmly started picking its food without a hurry. It was as though it only chose supernatural beings to eat.

On the shore of East Lake, the staff from Stronghold 73’s Public Order Division had already set up a blockade to prohibit stronghold residents from approaching. So no one noticed undercurrents were crazily surging up from the bottom of the lake.

After that huge creature had its fill, it quietly remained at the bottom of the lake and waited for its next meal.

In this moment of silence, no one knew the flesh and blood of superhumans had become the key that opened the door to the world of a new biological order.

It was a much more dangerous and mysterious world.