Chapter 1007 – Civilization Rot

Unable to trace the game’s origins, and with leaders from various nations—already implanted with mental suggestions—fanning the flames, the curiosity and investigation surrounding the game ultimately shifted toward exploring its content.

The more people tried to “uncover the truth” from within the game, the more people became immersed in that world, absorbing its subtle influence.

Everything was proceeding according to Mo Lan’s expectations.

In less than three years, across all of Earth, virtually everyone who had access to the internet and possessed a basic communication address had obtained a Game Helmet and experienced the game.

Though not everyone remained consistently active, they had all developed a basic understanding of the game.

Those who hadn’t received a Game Helmet were people who had already disconnected from technological society and the internet entirely—the coming “apocalypse” would have minimal impact on them anyway.

Within the game, the landscape was no longer the monotonous ruins of its early days.

Shelters of every kind—handcrafted by players or materialized through cards—dotted the terrain. Player markets of all sizes were scattered throughout the entire game world, and guild organizations dedicated to meditation and magic research had even emerged.

The “Reborn” players had, over these three years, leveraged the urgency and guidance provided by their “past-life memories” to achieve progress far surpassing ordinary players. Every single one had successfully crossed the threshold into “low-level spellcaster,” and some had even achieved real-world spellcasting.

Though few people knew about this, it had still sparked an underground magic-learning craze.

More and more players began scrimping and saving, prioritizing their precious Gem Coins for purchasing Magic Cards rather than mere food and tools.

Forum posts about “How to Meditate Efficiently” and “Beginner’s Guide to Various Schools of Magic” appeared in endless succession.

A spontaneous wave of curiosity, aspiration, and preliminary exploration toward the supernatural power system known as “magic” quietly arose among the player community.

Though it was intermixed with opportunism, curiosity, bandwagon-following, and even superstition, it had genuinely enabled millions—tens of millions—of ordinary people to gain early exposure to and begin attempting to understand a power system entirely different from the technological paradigm.

Their psychic power, through repeated attempts at meditation and use of Magic Cards, had also undergone faint but continuous training and growth.

So far, the player community’s acceptance of and willingness to explore the magic system had already exceeded Mo Lan’s expectations.

Compared to the game’s development, the situation with the Technology Ghost was far less optimistic.

Over the past three years, Mo Lan had employed every means at her disposal to search for the Technology Ghost’s location.

She had to admit—the Technology Ghost’s concealment methods were extraordinarily sophisticated.

It had no physical form. Its consciousness was dispersed and parasitically embedded within technological products, and it could migrate through networks. Trying to precisely locate its core consciousness or primary host within the vast ocean of global data streams was nearly impossible.

However, from the research progress and shifts in decision-making logic across various nations’ military AI projects, strategic early-warning systems, and automated weapons platforms, it was clear that the Technology Ghost was becoming increasingly active.

Multiple countries announced that the frequency and scope of live-fire testing for their “fully autonomous defense AI” had been drastically increased “based on security needs.”

Some AI projects originally intended for civilian or scientific research had been quietly injected with military R&D funding, pivoting toward situational awareness or automated command systems.

Globally, discussions about “AI weapons ethics” and “loss-of-control risks” ebbed and flowed in academic circles and among the public, but there always seemed to be a force steering the conversation toward the conclusion that “for absolute security, AI must be given greater autonomy.”

In certain border regions and disputed waters, sporadic incidents of “drone misjudgment” and “radar false alarms” occurred. Though none resulted in actual conflict, tensions were repeatedly stoked.

The Technology Ghost was already testing each nation’s responses.

Every day, Mo Lan had to use Divination Magic to determine fortune and misfortune, confirming whether the Technology Ghost would make its move, and based on that, deciding whether to deploy Civilization Rot—buying the players as much adaptation time as possible.

Over the course of several consecutive months, the divination results gradually declined from “auspicious” to “slightly auspicious” to “neutral.” The situation grew increasingly dire. When she finally divined “inauspicious,” she felt a sense of “at last, the time has come.”

Mo Lan hesitated no longer. She mobilized every ounce of Mana in her body, converted it into dragon force, and cast the dragon-tongue magic—Civilization Rot, cursing every technological product on Earth to immediately decay and disintegrate.

In that instant, time on Earth seemed to freeze for one-thousandth of a second.

Then, every electronic device—whether running or on standby, from a child’s digital watch to the supercomputers controlling nuclear launch systems—their precision silicon crystal structures, metal circuits, and logic gates began to loosen, dissolve, and lose all ordered structure from the most microscopic level, as if plunged into acid with time accelerated a billion-fold.

Screens went dark. Indicator lights died forever. Chips crumbled into meaningless silicon dust and metal slag.

The crisscrossing energy networks, whether high-voltage cables or household wiring, were thoroughly “corroded,” permanently losing their ability to transmit electrical current.

Every aircraft—commercial airliners, military fighters, drones, missiles, even satellites orbiting overhead—instantly “died,” becoming heaps of metal debris governed only by inertia or raw gravity, plummeting from the sky.

Every creation dependent on modern technology rotted away in an instant.

The Technology Ghost, parasitically embedded within those technological products, could not even produce a single ripple of struggle before it was utterly annihilated.

Across all of Earth, only living organisms and natural materials remained unscathed.

Rural and remote areas, benefiting from more dispersed settlement patterns, suffered relatively little impact. Technologically advanced cities became the hardest-hit zones.

Countless people living in high-rise buildings, people aboard aircraft—they plummeted from the sky. Just as everyone was succumbing to despair, the backs of their hands grew warm, and the card system activated on its own.

Their experiences in the game—hurricanes, floods, extreme cold, extreme heat, earthquakes, and every other terrifying apocalyptic scenario—had long since taught them exactly which cards to use in situations like this!

With the card system’s help, the vast majority of people safely weathered the initial crisis of Civilization Rot—the dangers brought about by the disappearance of all technological products.

Once they regained their footing, people gazed at the ruined cityscape: “Doesn’t this look exactly like the game?”

“Are we in the game? Or…”

“Safe exit! I want to safely exit!”

“The game—it was real!”

…

After the initial panic subsided, they touched the card system marks on the backs of their hands, and hope returned.

“The card system has come to reality!”

“All my cards are still here!”

“The cards in the Card Shop are still there too—it’s just that the Magic Cards have all gone up in price!”

“Everything the author of Mo Lan’s novel wrote was actually true!”

“Then magic is real too?”

“If we could survive in the game, we can survive in a real apocalypse!”

…

The survival instinct ultimately triumphed over fear and panic.

The memories from the game had become the most precious, most immediate guide to action in this moment.