"What has Jayce been doing all these years? How did he even become a councilor? Professor Heimerdinger never taught him how to be a slave master!"
Viktor slammed the documents about indentured workers onto the table. He was furious and deeply disappointed in Jayce.
The transformation of his former partner into someone who could enable such cruelty was a betrayal that cut deeper than any blade.
"Jayce? He's been obsessed with Hextech these years. Things like the Hexgates across regions, he built all of that himself. He's brought unimaginable wealth to Piltover. And let's not forget the Hextech revolver, Hextech gunblade, Hextech rocket belt, Hextech turrets, Hextech sniper rifles, and Hextech defense armor."
Cipher enumerated each invention with the precision of someone cataloging weapons of war rather than marvels of progress.
"These Hextech weapons have been sold in bulk to Noxus, massively boosting the Noxian military's strength. Oh, and I've heard he is also researching Hextech ultimate combat units, like Hextech flying dragons and Hextech mecha T-Rexes."
He was adding fuel to the fire, eagerly slandering Jayce with a mixture of truth and embellishment that made the accusations sting more effectively.
The golden boy of Piltover, reduced to an arms dealer... What an irony.
But in truth, the issue of indentured workers couldn't entirely be blamed on Jayce. He barely had time to leave the Piltover Academy, pouring all his focus into his lab work with the single-minded obsession of a man trying to solve the world's problems through technology alone. After all, he had been constantly manipulated by Piltover's elites. The moment he showed the slightest resistance, a flood of tearful, pitiful Piltovans would kneel at the Academy's gate, begging for the great Councilor Talis to help the weak and helpless citizens.
"The honest merchants of Piltover have once again been torn apart by evil forces. Their businesses destroyed, corpses fed to who knows what. This person lost their father, that one lost their mother. Life is unbearable! They desperately need the Academy's technological strength to protect them!"
They'd heap up these sob stories, making them sound even better than operas. Some could even rival K-dramas, of course, without the unnecessary slow motions and backstories. Well, there were still some unneeded sad backstories...
Those elites were shameless to the extreme.
They'd even carry coffins to beg Jayce, complete with corpses and actors with incredible acting skills who could weep on command and deliver heart-wrenching monologues about dead loved ones.
Jayce had never experienced such scenes before. He was completely taken in by their performance, boiling with anger, ready to transform into an avenging angel armed with the power of progress itself.
Fortunately, he didn't have Heimerdinger's centuries of accumulated power and knowledge, or Piltover would've ignored Swain entirely and charged into Zaun riding mechanical T-Rexes while breathing Hextech fire.
Originally, Mel should've warned him about such manipulation. But even she believed Piltover needed self-defense capabilities, to avoid falling into the hands of shady people like her mother and the various warlords circling like vultures.
Still, she was cautious in her own way. When Jayce started copying Zaun's model and building a defense system for Piltover, she advised him to reserve the highest access privileges for herself.
Was this a good decision? Only time would tell...
However, Zaun's defense system was a fusion of otherworldly tech, shimmer, and Hextech, technologies that couldn't be obtained without, well, Cipher, and required expertise that Piltover simply didn't possess. Even with Jayce bringing the entire Academy on board and the elites backing him with enormous funds that could have fed small nations, the results were only mediocre at best.
Currently, Piltover's defense system only covered the wealthy districts, the Hextech factories, teleportation gates, Academy, Council Hall, and a few other key locations where the elite actually lived and worked.
Ordinary citizens and small business owners had no right to enjoy the system's protection, relegated to the status of acceptable casualties in any conflict.
Class warfare disguised as technological progress. How fitting for Piltover, right?
"Alright, let's put Jayce aside for now. You called all of us back today, there must be another reason."
Silco took a sip of wine and shifted the topic.
Piltover's indentured labor system wasn't a recent development. It had been going on for years, each month growing more entrenched and profitable. Even dead indentured workers could be sold for profit to organ traders, proving the industry chain was already well established and thoroughly integrated into the economy.
If Cipher had wanted to deal with it purely on humanitarian grounds, he would've done so long ago. There was no way he'd wait this long while people suffered. If he called everyone back now, the real reason definitely wasn't just indentured labor.
That was just the bait, the emotional hook to get everyone properly outraged before revealing the real game.
"Fine. Our big backer is about to lose the war and be removed from office. Camille will definitely seize the opportunity to strike Zaun. So, I'm going to strike first. Tomorrow is Progress Day, right? I plan to expose the indentured labor issue in front of everyone, let them fall into chaos on their own first," He said while dropping ice beads into his whiskey.
He occasionally enjoyed a glass of strong liquor to relieve stress and fatigue, but whiskey with ice just tasted terrible, like most things worth doing, it required sacrificing immediate pleasure for strategic advantage.
"How is that possible? How could he possibly lose?"
Silco widened his eyes slightly in shock.
He had personally interacted with Swain and knew that man never made mistakes. Swain could often predict the outcome of a battle even before the first sword was drawn, reading the flow of politics and warfare like a master chess player seeing twenty moves ahead.
How could someone like that lose? It defied everything he thought he understood about power and competence.
Compared to Silco, Viktor, Sevika, and Vander reacted much more calmly. They were just curious as to why this Grand General was suddenly falling from power. After all, they had never dealt with him directly and didn't fully understand what he was capable of, to them, he was more legend than man.
"It's not that strange. Someone's been stabbing him in the back this whole time. The fact he's held out this long in Ionia already shows how shrewd and tough he is. Any other general would've died a lot of times by now."
Cipher shook his head and handed everyone a new document.
"Is the Noxian emperor out of his mind? Who manages military logistics like this?"
Sevika, cigarette dangling from her lips, angrily cursed Darkwill without reservation. Even she could see something was off from the military report, and her expertise lay in direct violence rather than grand strategy.
The Noxian Emperor of Immortal Bastion had been using all kinds of excuses to reassign Swain's troops with the systematic precision of someone dismantling a clock.
At first, it was about replacing Swain's elite forces with undisciplined rabble, ostensibly for "cross-training" and "military integration." Later, they didn't even bother pretending, the troop transfers were outright blatant, justified by increasingly thin excuses about "imperial necessities."
A supreme commander of the eastern front who didn't even control a full legion? And none of those troops were loyalists. It was all cobbled-together, half-dead veterans and sickly recruits who'd never seen real combat. Even a fool could see someone wanted Swain dead, and they were willing to sacrifice entire military campaigns to make it happen.
"This is the reason I called all of you back. There's a hidden force within Noxus manipulating Darkwill, turning him into a puppet. They want to use him to kill Swain."
Cipher shrugged and continued, "Camille is part of that faction. Once Swain goes down, she will definitely come for us."
"So, you plan to destabilize Piltover from the inside first. But… about Swain…" Silco rubbed his temples. His thinking was the opposite, he wanted to divert resources to help Swain. Because once Swain fell, Zaun would lose its Noxian protector and be left exposed to enemies who'd been waiting years for exactly this opportunity. And Camille would then use Noxus's military to crack down on Zaun with the full authority of imperial backing behind her actions.
She wouldn't even need to go to war directly. Just by cutting off Zaun's trade routes, she could crush them in months. Zaun was entirely dependent on imports for food, once that supply line was gone, they'd be helpless, reduced to starvation and surrender. In a short time, it was almost impossible for Zaun to find another reliable backer with both the power and willingness to stand against Noxian pressure.
As for Darius, despite having decent personal relations, he couldn't be relied upon for this kind of support. He was too busy in the Freljord fighting barbarians and managing his own military campaigns. Basically, he was too far away to help in time, even if he wanted to.
And Ambessa? Not even worth mentioning as a potential ally.
If Swain himself had already stumbled, she definitely wasn't a match for Camille's political maneuvering and resources.
"We don't need to worry about Swain's side. Our only job is to stir up trouble, make as much noise as possible and draw attention."
Cipher took a sip of his drink and chuckled. Whiskey with ice was still terrible.
Anyway, Swain had already made detailed preparations, he didn't need Zaun's direct military support. All Zaun needed to do was cause chaos and confusion on a scale that couldn't be ignored.
The bigger, the better. Ideally, they'd attract the attention of the Black Rose, and even that schemer herself, pulling all their focus onto Piltover and Zaun.