Limitless Detective
Episode 1 — The Black Ledger
The multiverse wasn't kind.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't balanced. It wasn't even sane.
It was a screaming kaleidoscope of galaxies stitched together by chaos—worlds without laws, cities where blood dripped like rain, dimensions where murder was worship.
Nobody wanted to solve crimes anymore. Nobody wanted to see them. Justice had become a myth, a bedtime story told to keep children calm in the dark.
But Zane wasn't calm. He hadn't been calm for years.
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The Detective
At twenty years old, Zane stood in the gutter of Vorenth Prime—a rusted cybernetic sprawl where flesh and steel melted into one another, and the streets smelled like blood mixed with smoke.
He wore a black coat that dragged through the rain, his hood pulled low. His eyes were dead pools of steel-gray, staring without a flicker of humanity. People who met his gaze swore they saw nothing looking back.
He never smiled. Never joked. Never tried to be human.
Because the truth was simple: he wasn't anymore.
Etched into his chest, pulsing faintly through the fabric of his coat, burned a sigil—the Black Ledger, a living scar, seared into him the night he died.
It wasn't a memory Zane cared to revisit often. But it was where his powers began.
⸻
The Origin
He had been seventeen then. Young, reckless, leading a ragtag crew of street detectives who thought they could bring order to a single sector of the multiverse.
They had tracked a killer—an assassin who collected the hearts of children—to the Archive of Judgment, a temple at the edge of existence where the last remnants of law were stored.
They were outmatched. One by one, his crew was slaughtered in the shadow of that towering spire, until Zane stood alone. Broken. Bleeding. Furious.
He charged anyway.
He didn't win.
The assassin stabbed him through the chest and left him to die against the black stone of the Archive's deepest vault. His blood ran across a chained book, an ancient relic bound in the flesh of judges and criminals alike.
The Black Ledger.
It had whispered to him. Not with kindness, but with demand.
"Sign your name, and I will turn your corpse into a detective. Sign your name, and I will bind you to every unsolved case across every world. Solve them, one by one. Deliver them breathing. With every page turned, you will grow stronger."
Zane signed. Not because he wanted to live. But because he wanted to keep fighting.
When he stood again, the Ledger was burned into his chest, glowing like a furnace. He wasn't human anymore. He was an arrest machine—a detective forged from law itself.
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Level 1
Three years later, Zane was in the alley of Vorenth Prime, staring at another body strung up on hooks. The corpse's skin had been carved away in spirals, the organs arranged in twisted patterns.
Most people vomited at the sight. Zane didn't even blink.
The Ledger pulsed.
[Level: 1]
[Strength: Low]
[Agility: Low]
[Insight: Developing]
[Ability: Brute Force Apprehension / Case Induction]
[Protocol: Arrest Alive. Any Method.]
Threads of red light unfurled from the body, crisscrossing the alley. Zane's Detective's Eye activated. Footprints glowed on the ground. Blood particles mapped the killer's route. Ritual symbols floated like burning graffiti only he could see.
The Ledger flipped a page in his chest.
[Prediction: Next Strike — District 7. Timeframe: 2 Hours.]
Zane cracked his knuckles. "Messy," he muttered, voice low, bored. "But predictable."
⸻
The Hunt
District 7 was a basin of broken factories, half-drowned in black water. Neon signs flickered weakly in the fog. Zane leaned against a wall, waiting, hood dripping rain down his coat.
The Ledger burned cold in his chest. His ribs felt like they were filled with steel. He didn't fidget. He didn't blink. He just waited.
And then—he saw him.
The killer. A tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a butcher's coat, face hidden by a mask stitched from human skin. He dragged a bound victim by the ankles, humming tunelessly, heading for a rusted crane.
Zane stepped forward. His boots splashed in the puddles.
"You're late," he said.
The killer froze. The humming stopped. "Who the hell—?"
"Your arrest," Zane interrupted, flat. "Fight or surrender. Doesn't matter. You're coming with me."
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The Clash
The killer chose violence.
He swung his hooked blade in a silver arc, aiming to rip Zane's throat open.
Zane didn't dodge. He caught the wrist mid-swing. His other hand slammed into the man's chest like a hammer. Bone cracked. The killer staggered.
Zane headbutted him. Once. Twice. Blood sprayed across the mask.
The killer screeched, thrashing, trying to stab again. Zane twisted his arm until tendons snapped like guitar strings. The blade clattered to the ground.
Then Zane drove the man into the wall, pressing his forearm against the throat. His dead eyes bore into the killer's frantic ones.
"You think you're clever because you cut up civilians," Zane said, calm as winter. "But you're not clever. You're pathetic."
The killer choked, clawing at Zane's arm. But Zane's strength—raw, brutal—kept him pinned.
"You don't get to die," Zane whispered. "You get to rot."
He cuffed the man's shattered wrists, dragging him to the ground like a broken animal.
The victim whimpered from the floor. Zane glanced at him once, then back at the killer.
"Run," he told the victim. The man scrambled away into the night.
The Arrest
Bailiff drones descended from the sky, mechanical wings glowing blue. Their monotone voices filled the air.
"Subject Captured. Mission Complete."
Zane shoved the killer toward them. His cuffs clicked into the drone restraints.
"Take him," Zane muttered, lighting a cigarette, smoke curling into the fog.
The drones lifted the killer away, screaming into the night.
Zane exhaled smoke, the ember glowing faintly against the rain.
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The System
The Black Ledger pulsed.
[Case Solved.]
[Arrest Completed.]
[+1 Level Acquired.]
Power surged through Zane's veins. His muscles hardened. His reflexes sharpened. His mind accelerated, making connections at blistering speed.
[Level: 2]
[Strength: Moderate]
[Agility: Moderate]
[Insight: Enhanced]
Zane flexed his hand, feeling the bones realign stronger than before. His stare grew colder.
⸻
Epilogue
The multiverse whispered.
A new detective had arrived. A man who didn't kill. A man who didn't smile. A man who only arrested—by any means necessary.
Brutal. Cold. Relentless.
And with every arrest, he would only grow stronger.
The Limitless Detective had begun his climb.