The Chain Reaction Caused by the Video

Chongshan City CBD, 27th floor of the Hengxin Building.

Files were scattered across the floor, and several desks had been overturned, blocking the fire exit in a haphazard pile. Dark red claw marks and a few dark green scales still clung to the surfaces.

Wang Lei curled up under his workstation near the window, his fingers trembling as he typed and deleted messages on his phone screen.

He had lost count of how many times he had tried to send a distress signal.

His WeChat was filled with dense red notification dots. The last message in his family group chat remained a line from his mother four hours ago: "Son, hide well, whatever you do, don't come out."

The howling outside drifted near and far, each sound causing his heart to skip a beat.

"It's useless... the police aren't coming... and the military..."

The bitter voice of his close friend Zhang Tong came from the neighboring cubicle. He was hugging his knees, staring hollowly at a patch of blackened blood on the floor.

A colleague who had tried to rush out to find his family had originally been lying there.

Of course, by now, he was already sleeping in the utility room along with the others.

"We have to try... what if..."

Wang Lei stopped halfway, unable to continue.

What "what if" could there possibly be? Although scavenging this massive office floor provided enough food and water for the two of them to survive for a few months, what would that change?

It would only mean dying a little later.

Perhaps even more painfully.

Just then, a message with an extremely eye-catching headline popped up.

[Doomsday Survival Tutorial: Learn this, and kill monsters until they dare not approach! — Source Energy teaching from the front lines of Hongfu Tower in Helu City].

The message was sent by a friend in another city, with only two words in the attachment: "Watch this!"

As soon as Wang Lei saw the gaming section icon on the video thumbnail, his instinct was to swipe it away.

Who had the heart to post gaming videos at a time like this?

But the words "survival" and "front lines" hooked him.

He hesitated and tapped it open.

After a brief load, the chaotic hotel, the hideous dark green monsters, the whistling shadow of a club, the dull thud of shattering bones... As the monster turned into fly ash, a figure wearing damaged armor and covered in blood picked up a glowing crystal under the wary gazes of more monsters, dragging a dripping club as they walked away steadily...

Wang Lei sat up straight with a jolt, not even noticing when his head hit the desk with a "thud," his eyes locked onto the screen.

"Source Energy... Guidance Technique... crystal..." he muttered the keywords from the video. A jolt went through him, and he grabbed Zhang Tong's arm. "Old Zhang! Old Zhang! Look at this, you have to look at this!"

Zhang Tong was startled and turned his head impatiently. "What is it now?"

"Look!"

Wang Lei practically shoved the phone into his face.

"If we can find a way to kill one of these monsters, we might be able to survive!"

A few minutes later, the two men were huddled in front of the small phone screen, their chests heaving, their eyes burning with a rekindled, desperate light.

"There's no need to find a way... the... the Guidance Technique he mentioned..." Zhang Tong suddenly looked up, his voice cracking with excitement. "I have it... in my head too!"

"What?!" Wang Lei was stunned.

"Just this morning, a monster rushed in from the other side, and I got it stuck in the door frame. I... I swung a dumbbell and smashed its head in!"

Zhang Tong spoke incoherently, pointing to a blood-stained gym dumbbell in the corner. "Then it turned to ash and dropped a crystal. I wanted to see if it was a real crystal, so I squeezed it, and a bunch of messy stuff just appeared in my brain—it's called the Basic Source Energy Guidance Technique! But the thing is, with such complicated content, I was just waiting to die, so I didn't have the heart to study it carefully and didn't think much of it."

The two men looked at each other, both seeing the surprise of a narrow escape from death in the other's eyes.

Su Province, the athlete's lounge under the stands of the Foreign Language School gymnasium.

The iron door was wedged shut from the inside with several lockers, and a faint chewing sound could be heard from outside.

James Wilson, a tall American English teacher, leaned against the cold metal cabinet, gasping for air.

His expensive suit was covered in dust and dark green slime. There was a deep, bone-exposed claw mark on his arm, crudely bandaged with a torn flag, still seeping blood.

Beside him, the PE teacher Liu Wei was in worse shape, leaning against a bench with a pale face.

On the floor lay a fire axe, next to a pool of blood and a small pile of ash.

That was where the corpse of an Abyssal Wolf had been.

Its skull had been nearly split open by the fire axe.

The two of them had worked together; James had attracted its attention from the front, while Liu Wei had seized the chance to land a heavy blow from behind.

Of course, Liu Wei had paid the price; he had been struck by the Abyssal Wolf's bony tail, and a rib was likely broken.

"God bless us..." James muttered, trying to dispel his fear with humor. "Teacher Liu, your kung fu is very impressive."

Liu Wei managed a bitter smile and said nothing.

James pulled out his phone; the screen was shattered, but it still worked.

The signal bars flickered weakly. He frantically sent messages to his wife and friends back in Deke State, reporting that he was safe and asking about the situation, even though most of the messages failed to send.

Suddenly, a video link popped up in a student group. The title was in Xia Country, and although his reading and writing skills in the language weren't great, he recognized the keywords: "teaching," "monster," and "Source Energy."

He clicked on it instinctively.

The screen shook, the battle was intense yet brief, and the youth wearing armor...

He was so powerful that he didn't even seem human!

When the youth began to explain the profound "Source Energy Guidance Technique," especially when he mentioned "sensing the vortex at the center of the brow" and the "tingling sensation like the warm winter sun," James's eyes widened sharply.

He turned his head abruptly to look at Liu Wei, his breathing becoming rapid.

"Liu! Look! Look at this!"

He excitedly handed over his phone. "This! This is what in your head!"

Liu Wei endured the pain and leaned in to look.

A few minutes later, an astonishing brilliance erupted in the eyes of this sturdy physical education teacher, as if he had forgotten the excruciating pain in his body.

"Yes... yes, that's the feeling! What he said... I actually understood a little bit of it!" Liu Wei's voice trembled with excitement. "He... how did he do it? How long has it even been?"

"Genius..." James muttered. He didn't hesitate to forward the video link to everyone in his contacts he could still reach, including his relatives on the other side of the ocean.

"They need to see this! Everyone needs to see this!"

Imperial Capital, West Mountain, deep underground.

Inside the national Crisis Response Center, codenamed "Dragon Abyss," the atmosphere was so heavy it felt like it could drip water.

On the massive circular screen, divided into countless sections, were satellite heat maps of major cities across the country, fragmented surveillance footage of key areas, and constantly scrolling updates on casualty briefings and the status of military units.

Wherever one looked, large areas were marked in red, indicating communication interruptions and lost contact.

Sporadic firefights flickered, but there were far more green friendly markers being rapidly extinguished.

"The vanguard of the 71st Group Army encountered giant biological units on the outskirts of Xu City. They suffered heavy losses and have retreated to construct a temporary defensive line!"

"The communications team reports that the damage rate to ground base stations exceeds sixty percent, and some satellites have already lost contact!"

"The energy team reports that over seventy percent of power plants have completely ceased operation, and backup power is expected to last less than twenty-four hours."

Bad news came one after another, and each report made everyone's expression grow a shade darker.

"What are you panicking about!"

An old man slammed his hand against the console.

"The most important thing now is to stabilize the existing defensive lines, consolidate our forces as much as possible, and at the same time, figure out the weaknesses of these monsters! What about the Academy of Sciences? How is the analysis going?"

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses nearby quickly bowed to report: "Commander, the team with the fastest progress is Professor Jiang Weihua's team. They have preliminarily confirmed that those crystals contain an unknown energy structure. The internal information flow is extremely complex; it is a brand-new storage method, and the difficulty of cracking it is immense."

"As for the information recorded in the Gray Crystal, Academician Jiang says the current decryption progress is about... 10.7 percent. It is mainly basic energy attribute analysis. Regarding the core part of the so-called 'Guidance Technique,' no breakthrough progress has been made yet."

Ten percent...

Li Zhenguo's heart sank.

Time—time was the thing they lacked the most right now!

Just then, a middle-aged officer walked hurriedly through the busy crowd and came straight to Li Zhenguo. His expression was somewhat strange, a mix of excitement and disbelief.

"Report!"

"Speak!"

Li Zhenguo's brows were tightly locked; any report at this time was unlikely to be good news.

"Commander, the Network Supervision Bureau and the Third Bureau of the General Staff have simultaneously detected that a video is spreading virally across the remaining civilian network and some military backup channels. The popularity index is extremely high. The content... the content is about how to use the Source Energy Guidance Technique, how to use the Source Energy Crystal obtained after killing monsters to cultivate, and it includes detailed practical demonstrations and instructional explanations!"

The middle-aged officer spoke at a very fast pace, but his words were very clear.

As soon as he finished speaking, an old man nearby immediately changed color. "Nonsense! What time is it, and there are still people making such fake videos to confuse the public! Register it immediately, treat it like those videos spreading rumors and evil ideologies, trace the source, and shut it down!"

"Wait." Li Zhenguo raised a hand abruptly, stopping him. Instead, he stared at the middle-aged officer and asked in a deep voice: "Since you've come to us to report this, I assume you already have a conclusion?"

"Yes, Commander. The source is a civilian Moyin account in Helu City, and the publisher is named 'A Yu Loves Playing'."

The middle-aged officer's expression was very solemn. "The technical department has preliminarily analyzed the combat footage. The lighting, sound, and the physical engine simulation of the monster's reactions are extremely high-quality, and we have already ruled out the possibility of it being synthesized. As for the teaching part... the content of the explanation has a high degree of consistency with the fragments of information regarding the difficulties of the Guidance Technique that we have obtained from multiple channels. It is even... more systematic and intuitive."

He paused and added: "The protagonist of the video claims to be a student who just graduated from high school, named Lin Yi."