Chaos in Chang'an

A small tributary of the Dragon Vein has become overloaded.

The Dragon Vein is a vast energy source that runs through the entire territory of the Tang Kingdom. It is the energy source for the Nexus of All Realms and is also responsible for supplying energy to all institutions in Chang'an.

An overloaded tributary can cause a once-in-a-century phenomenon in Chang'an.

That is... a power outage.

In a neighborhood of Chang'an, on the main street where the Three Lives Ancient Mirror was located, it suddenly flickered.

Immediately afterwards, the streetlights went out.

Road signs, automated navigation systems, and all sorts of common public Law Treasure, including houses, furniture, traffic lights, roadside billboards, and so on, suddenly went out.

This can be described as a scene that Chang'an has never seen in a century.

In just a moment, the entire street, stretching for seven or eight miles, went dark.

However, the impact of overloaded tributaries of the Dragon Vein extends far beyond this.

Soon, people in this area discovered that their devices had lost signal.

Because the Nexus of All Realms have also come to a standstill in this place!

The alarm blared!

The power outage then began to spread to other areas!

One street, two streets, three streets!

The massive blackout has begun to spread! This time it's not just affecting streets, but also entire areas.

In less than five minutes, the power outage area had expanded to a radius of 246 miles. Within this area, all public magical Law Treasure stopped working, and the Nexus of All Realms failed!

It's complete chaos!

Chang'an's roads are densely packed like a ball of yarn, with incredibly complex traffic rules, countless one-way streets, not to mention the specific flight routes in the air.

Therefore, whether it is an aircraft or a vehicle, they all rely heavily on the Nexus of All Realms and terminals for navigation, and the automatic navigation system is an indispensable part of Chang'an.

But in that instant, everything came to a standstill!

Vehicles collided with each other, aircraft lost guidance, car crashes and plane crashes occurred, and aircraft kept hitting those magnificent buildings.

These buildings originally had automatic defense mechanisms that would deflect incoming objects upon impact, ensuring peace on both sides. However, now they are all out of energy, and all the shared magical Law Treasure have become ineffective!

Apart from a few privately owned magical Law Treasure, Chang'an is in complete chaos in this area!

About six minutes later, the officials of the Municipal Affairs Bureau and the Emergency Management Bureau had received a large number of notifications and distress signals and responded quickly.

Ten minutes into the massive power outage, the Nexus of All Realms suddenly and forcibly restarted! A colossal force pierced through space and abruptly descended upon this chaotic region.

However, instead of powering the area, they activated and maintained the terminals of the official rescue personnel.

Immediately afterwards, countless figures rose up from within the Inner City.

Like a dense rain, in an instant, more than a thousand seventh-rank reserve teams were activated and rushed towards the area of power outage!

They were granted a dedicated road by the Nexus of All Realms, and aerial traffic was temporarily halted to allow them to travel.

People were everywhere, and everyone had their own place. Countless seventh-rank experts burst forth, raining down like timely rain, and in a very short time, they landed in the area where Chang'an was at a standstill.

Then, there are the gods.

But then they saw countless low-level deities, and even the great gods who governed the Chang'an area, all mobilized!

Those residents who were able to help themselves also began to help themselves.

In Chang'an, the use of Technique Method and Divine Ability was not allowed at will; official permission was required to use them.

Now, a large number of licenses have been issued simultaneously, and the Nexus of All Realms have been forcibly restarted, prioritizing the supply of terminals in this area for startup.

Just now, a flying machine crashed hard into a tall building. Although it had lost its power, it was still Law Treasure. The flying machine scraped against the wall, and the family on it looked terrified and kept shouting.

At this moment, a golden figure descended, using Divine Ability to quickly stabilize the aircraft and allow it to fall slowly.

"Thank you, Street God! Thank you, Street God!" The family quickly thanked the golden figure, feeling somewhat relieved.

The Street God, who is in charge of the streets, also participated in the rescue.

"Don't move around after you land. It's dangerous here. I still need to rescue others. Goodbye." Street God laboriously and slowly placed the aircraft on the ground, then rushed off to the next location.

He was merely a ninth-rank deity with limited abilities.

The others, those at the eighth and seventh ranks, progressed even faster.

But then a water god emerged from the river, manipulating the water vapor to form water columns, and worked with the emergency response team to quickly extinguish the fire caused by the explosion.

Looking up at the sky, several seventh-rank cultivators were working together to set up a grand formation. In the blink of an eye, they had spread out the whirlwind formation. Those falling from the sky were suddenly lifted up by the wind, and although their aircraft crashed, their lives were saved.

On the other side, two seventh-rank officials joined forces. One marked a person, and the other used his teleportation technique to bring everyone to his side.

The area is more than 200 li in radius, which is quite a distance. Given the population density of Chang'an, probably more than a million people were affected by the disaster.

However, the current rescue efforts have kept the casualties in the hundreds, with only a few hundred people dying or being injured due to the lack of timely rescue.

At the beginning of life, people are selfish and seek their own interests. When there are public benefits but no one promotes them, and public harms but no one eliminates them, the world is in danger. Human Path governs all things, and when everyone is selfless, public affairs are promoted and public harms are eliminated, then private interests are satisfied and private harms are eliminated.

Since the beginning of this world, people have been selfish and self-interested. No one has done anything that would benefit everyone, and no one has dealt with anything that would harm everyone. That's why the world has become increasingly worse.

A simple prisoner's dilemma has become an unsolvable problem. On a broader societal scale, how many instances exist where the public interest is sacrificed for personal gain? And how many more have driven a nation's fate to its demise for their own selfish interests?

If Human Path can reshape the world, and if everyone is selfless, then everyone's self-interest will be fully satisfied.

As for the existence of 'non-humans', that is not within the scope of Human Path considerations; those things are merely resources.

Human Path does not consider the thoughts of pigs, dogs, cattle, and sheep; what it pursues is a utopian world for all those with a sense of public duty.

This is how all of this manifests in the outside world.

Furthermore, in addition to these grassroots rescue personnel, higher-ranking personnel have already penetrated deep into the underground of Chang'an.

The directors of the Municipal Affairs Department and the Emergency Management Department, two officials of the Principal Fifth Rank or lower, have already taken the lead in diving underground to investigate the root cause of the Dragon Vein fluctuations and the shutdown of the Nexus of All Realms.

As the Director of the Municipal Affairs Bureau traversed underground in Chang'an, he said, "This matter is strange. The tributary of the Dragon Vein can supply two third-grade magic Law Treasures. It is impossible for it to be overloaded. There must be an external force at play. What could have infiltrated the tributary without so many High Officials noticing?"

"There is probably a traitor in Chang'an, and one of high rank. The fact that such a high-ranking traitor would be exposed for such a trivial matter suggests that there may be something else going on," the Emergency Management Director said.

They had discussed it many times on the way, and they all felt that something was wrong with the whole thing.

For a tributary of Dragon Vein to become overloaded, it would require several Rank 3 Law Treasures to unleash their full power.

A person who can manipulate several third-grade Law Treasures must not be of low rank himself, and naturally, he would not hold a low position in the Tang Kingdom.

Is this kind of traitor exposed just because of this little bit of chaos?

It's not worth it.

Although this riot is very large, so large that it is very likely that a high-ranking official of the second rank will personally intervene, and since this is the first large-scale disturbance since the reconstruction of Chang'an, it will inevitably be broadcast throughout the country and used as a typical example to rectify the situation.

Their official positions are probably nearing their end; this inspection is merely a final act of duty.

However, the "big" here refers to its symbolic significance.

In terms of the extent of the damage, it was indeed not much. Several hundred seventh-rank cultivators were mobilized, some Law Treasures below the seventh rank were lost, some building eaves were damaged, and the number of dead and injured was only a few hundred.

The biggest loss wasn't even these, but the fact that the Nexus of All Realms forcibly restarted here, managing to restore communication to all terminals without the power of the Dragon Veins. The cost of this was actually greater than all the losses mentioned earlier.

How could anyone do something like this?

The two of them, filled with questions, talked and explored together.

However, they soon discovered something useful.

After some investigation, they discovered the source of all the disturbances beneath the city.

"The Three Lives Ancient Mirror is extracting the tributaries of the Dragon Vein, and it's still ongoing," the Municipal Affairs Director frowned.

The Three Lives Ancient Mirror is just an ordinary third-grade magic Law Treasure. It is usually activated once a month to help people observe their weaknesses. How could it possibly draw the overload of the Dragon Vein tributary?

"The Three Lives Ancient Mirror? Wait, let me check the data," the Emergency Management Director said immediately.

The Emergency Response Division has the authority to view certain confidential documents at critical moments, and this is clearly very critical now.

The documents and information about the Three Lives Ancient Mirror were quickly retrieved and then carefully read by him.

"The Three Lives Ancient Mirror was just requested by the Imperial Academy for use in examinations. The last time it was used was twenty-five days ago, Ranger General Zhang Neisi to observe his own weaknesses, and the time before that was three months ago," the Emergency Management Director immediately said to the Municipal Management Director beside him.

It's common for these items to be used for the Imperial Academy exams; there's nothing special about it. Law Treasure are meant to be used; what's the point of leaving them unused? To breed offspring?

Before each major exam, the Imperial Academy would apply for a whole bunch of random things to arrange suitable exam rooms for the students, ensuring that everyone could perform to their full potential.

"And now? Is the exam still going on? How is that student doing?" the municipal director asked immediately.

"I don't know, but we've found the root cause. Let's go up and see if we can cut off the passage and force the Three Lives Ancient Mirror to stop," the Emergency Management Director said.

As they talked, the two quickly headed upstairs.

They didn't dare to cut off the power source directly, fearing that the Three Lives Ancient Mirror might suffer some unforeseen consequences.

After all, it is a third-grade magic Law Treasure. Although it has not developed sentience for some reason and is still just a tool, even if it is just a tool, if something goes wrong with this thing, it will be on a large scale of destruction, so we must be careful.

Then, they followed the trail and arrived at the temple.

The people in the temple had already evacuated. This was the first place where the Dragon Vein was overloaded, and the accident happened the fastest. The practitioners inside had already evacuated everyone.

Only an old monk stood outside the door, waiting anxiously.

The two directors arrived at the door of the house where the Three Lives Ancient Mirror was located in less than ten seconds. They happened to see an old monk standing at the entrance of the courtyard, sweating profusely, as if waiting for something.

"Monk, what's going on here? Why don't you go to avoid the disaster?" The head of the emergency response department immediately stepped forward and asked.

The old monk breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that someone had finally arrived, and quickly said, "Finally, someone has come! There are still two people in this room who haven't come out yet. I really dared not leave them, so I've been waiting here for the rescuers to arrive!"

The Director of Municipal Affairs immediately said, "Don't rush, tell us slowly, what happened, please tell us in detail?"

As they were talking, they both realized it.

The door to the room containing the Three Lives Ancient Mirror seemed to be suppressed by something strange.

A special force twisted and clumped together, mixing the universe and the light of time, and firmly sealing the room!

The sealing force seemed extremely strong, but it did not overflow, so they could not distinguish its grade.

Seeing this, the old monk quickly told him everything.

It turned out that just ten minutes after Li Qi entered the exam room, suddenly the space here froze, and soon even the cosmic light was compressed into a ball!

After that, the old monk wanted to report, but as soon as he took out the terminal, the surrounding dragon Dragon Veins were overloaded, the terminal signal was interrupted, and then a series of power outages and public Law Treasure malfunctioned, causing chaos.

He organized the tourists in the temple to leave quickly and take refuge, but thinking that there was still a student from the Imperial Academy and an examiner inside the room, he dared not leave. So he stood guard at the door, waiting for someone to come and rescue him.

After listening to the old monk's description, the two directors looked at each other in bewilderment, then quickly reported the matter to their superiors, ordered the old monk to leave, and dispersed the surrounding crowd.

Soon, only the two of them remained in the courtyard.

The two fifth-rank officials, needless to say or exchange any more words, each unleashed their Divine Ability Technique Method!

First, seal off the area within a five-mile radius; no one is allowed to enter!

Then set up a barrier, locking everything in from the inside out, not allowing anything to pass through, not even the wind.

Next, the two prepared their defenses, summoned their magical Law Treasure to protect their lives, and then carefully touched the chaotic forces that had coalesced and blocked the outside world.

Upon first contact, they discovered that this thing seemed to be preventing anything from getting close!

Upon further examination, the two were immediately horrified!

The Emergency Response Director exclaimed, "This... this is at least a third-rank force! The two of us can't handle this! Call for backup!"

This chaotic power seems to be the outward manifestation of the Three Lives Ancient Mirror's origin!

This thing is out of control, but it is still drawing power from the outside world, seemingly trying frantically to break through some limitation, but it can't do it and can only keep looping, even to the point of overload.

This means that this third-grade Law Treasure is about to explode!

We must quickly summon the high-ranking officials to handle this!