The Ripple Effects of a Video

Chongshan City CBD, 27th floor of Hengxin Building.

Files were scattered across the floor. Several desks had been shoved over, crookedly blocking the fire exit. Dark red claw marks and a few dark green scales still clung to them.

Wang Lei was curled up beneath a workstation by the window, his fingers trembling as he typed and deleted messages on his phone.

He had lost count of how many times he'd tried to send a plea for help.

WeChat was full of red notification dots. The last message in the Loving Family group was from his mother, four hours ago: "Son, hide and don't come out, no matter what."

The howls outside came and went, each one making his heart stop.

"There's no use. The police aren't coming, and neither is the military..."

His friend Zhang Tong spoke bitterly from the next workstation. He hugged his knees, staring blankly at a pool of blood that had already turned black.

A coworker had been lying there. He'd tried to rush out and find his family.

Of course, by now, he was in the storage room with the others.

"We have to try. What if..."

Wang Lei trailed off.

What could possibly happen? They could scavenge this enormous office floor for enough food and water to last the two of them for months, but so what?

They'd only die a little later.

Maybe more painfully, too.

Just then, a notification popped up with an incredibly eye-catching title.

[Apocalypse Survival Guide: Learn This and Slay Monsters Until They're Afraid to Approach!—Source Energy Tutorial from the Front Lines at Hongfu Restaurant in Helu City]

The message came from a friend in another city. There was just a two-word note: "Watch this!"

At the sight of the gaming platform logo on the video thumbnail, Wang Lei instinctively tried to swipe it away.

Who had time to send gaming videos at a moment like this?

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

After a moment's hesitation, he tapped it open.

After a brief loading screen, he saw a chaotic hotel, hideous dark green monsters, and the whoosh of a staff in motion. There was a dull crack as bones broke, and the monsters disintegrated into ash. A figure in battered armor, drenched in blood, picked up a glowing crystal under the wary gazes of even more monsters, then calmly walked away, dragging a bloodied staff behind him.

Wang Lei sat bolt upright. His head banged against the underside of the desk with a thud, but he didn't even notice. His eyes were fixed on the screen.

"Source Energy... Guidance Technique... crystal..." he murmured, repeating the keywords from the video. Then he jolted and grabbed Zhang Tong's arm. "Lao Zhang! Lao Zhang! Look at this! You've got to see this!"

Zhang Tong jumped and turned around impatiently. "What is it now?"

"Just look!"

Wang Lei nearly shoved the phone in his face.

"If we can find a way to kill a monster, we can survive, right?"

A few minutes later, the two men huddled over the tiny phone screen, their chests heaving. A fierce light, like a flame reignited from cold ashes, burned in their eyes.

"No need to think of a way to get one. That Guidance Technique he mentioned..." Zhang Tong jerked his head up, his voice cracking with excitement. "I've got it in my head too!"

"What?!" Wang Lei stared at him in shock.

"This morning, a monster charged in from the other side. I got it stuck in the doorway, then... then I smashed its head in with a dumbbell!"

Zhang Tong spoke incoherently, pointing to a bloodstained exercise 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 picked it up and squeezed it. Then a bunch of weird stuff appeared in my head. It was called the Basic Source Energy Guidance Technique! But it was so complicated, and we were all waiting to die. Who had the mind to study it carefully? So I didn't think much of it."

The two men looked at each other. They saw the joy of finding a way out of a desperate situation in each other's eyes.

--

Su Province, beneath the bleachers of the foreign languages school gymnasium, in the athletes' lounge.

Several changing-room lockers had been jammed against the inside of the steel door to hold it shut. Faint chewing sounds came from outside.

James Wilson, a tall American English teacher, leaned against a cold metal locker, panting heavily.

His expensive suit was covered in dust and dark green slime. A deep claw wound on his arm had been hastily bandaged with a strip torn from a flag, but it was still bleeding.

Nearby, the situation was even worse for Liu Wei, the PE teacher. He sat propped against a bench, his face pale.

A fire axe lay on the floor beside a pool of blood and a small pile of ash.

An Abyss Wolf's corpse had been there.

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

The two of them had worked together. James had drawn its attention while Liu Wei seized the chance to strike hard from behind.

Of course, Liu Wei had paid a price. The Abyss Wolf had lashed him with its bony tail, and he might have broken a rib.

"God bless us," James murmured, trying to dispel his fear with humor. "Teacher Liu, you're very good at kung fu."

Liu Wei forced a wry smile but said nothing.

James pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked, but it still worked.

The signal bars flickered weakly. He frantically sent messages to his wife in Deke State and to his friends, telling them he was safe and asking how they were. Most of the messages failed to send.

Suddenly, a video link appeared in a student group chat. The title was in Xia Kingdom's language. James wasn't good at reading or writing it, but he could make out the keywords "tutorial," "monster," and "Source Energy."

He tapped it without thinking.

The footage was shaky. The battle was fierce but brief. The boy in armor...

He was so powerful he hardly seemed human!

When the boy began explaining the profound "Source Energy Guidance Technique," especially when he mentioned "sensing the vortex between the brows" and "a tingling sensation like the warm winter sun," James' eyes widened.

He turned sharply to Liu Wei, his breathing suddenly quickening.

"Liu! Look! Look at this!"

He excitedly held out the phone. "This! This is what's in your head!"

Liu Wei leaned over to look, trying to ignore the pain.

A few minutes later, an astonishing gleam lit the sturdy PE teacher's eyes, as if he had forgotten the agony in his body.

"Yes, yes, that's exactly how it feels! I actually understood a little of what he said!" Liu Wei's voice trembled with excitement. "How... how did he do that? It's only been a little while!"

"Genius," James murmured. Without hesitation, he forwarded the video link to everyone in his contacts he could still reach, including his relatives across 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 water might drip from the air.

The enormous circular screen was divided into countless sections. It displayed satellite heat maps of major cities across the country, fragmented footage from surveillance cameras in key areas, constantly updated casualty reports, and status reports from military units.

Everywhere they looked, vast areas were marked in red, indicating communications were down and contact had been lost.

A few scattered firefights flickered on the screen, but more and more green friendly-force markers were vanishing in quick succession.

"The vanguard of the 71st Group Army encountered a giant biological unit on the outskirts of Xu City and suffered heavy losses. They've withdrawn to establish a temporary defensive line!"

"The communications team reports that more than sixty percent of ground base stations have been destroyed. Contact with some satellites has also been lost!"

"Energy team report: more than seventy percent of power plants have completely stopped operating. Backup power is expected to last less than twenty-four hours."

One piece of bad news followed another, each report further darkening the faces around them.

"What are you panicking for?!"

An old man slammed his hand down on the console.

"The most important thing now is to stabilize our existing defensive lines, gather as many forces as possible, and figure out these monsters' weaknesses! What about the Academy of Sciences? How is their analysis going?"

A bespectacled middle-aged man hurriedly bowed and reported, "Chief, Professor Jiang Weihua's team is making the fastest progress. They've confirmed that the crystals contain an unknown energy structure. The information flow inside is extremely complex, and it uses an entirely new form of storage. Deciphering it is extremely difficult."

"As for the information recorded in the gray crystals, Academician Jiang says they've currently decoded around... 10.7 percent. So far, they've mostly analyzed the most basic energy properties. They haven't made any breakthroughs on the core of this so-called 'Guidance Technique.'"

Ten percent...

Li Zhenguo's heart sank.

Time. What they needed most right now was time!

Just then, a middle-aged military officer hurried through the bustling crowd and went straight to Li Zhenguo. His expression was strange, a mix of excitement and disbelief.

"Report!"

"Go ahead!"

Li Zhenguo furrowed his brow. Any report at a time like this was unlikely to be good news.

"Chief, the Network Supervision Bureau and the Third Bureau of the General Staff have both detected a video spreading like wildfire across the remaining civilian networks and some military backup channels. Its popularity is extremely high. The content... the content is about how to use the Source Energy Guidance Technique and cultivate with the Source Energy Crystals obtained from killing monsters. It also includes detailed combat demonstrations and instructional commentary!"

The middle-aged officer spoke extremely quickly, but his words were clear.

As soon as he finished, an old man beside them flew into a rage. "Nonsense! At a time like this, someone's making fake videos to sow confusion! Register it immediately and handle it like those videos spreading rumors and sectarian ideas. Trace the source and shut it down!"

"Wait." Li Zhenguo abruptly raised a hand to stop him. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the middle-aged officer and asked in a low voice, "Since you've brought this to us, I assume you've already reached a conclusion?"

"Yes, Chief. It came from a civilian Moyin account in Helu City. The poster's name is 'A-Yu Loves Playing.'"

The middle-aged officer's expression was grave. "The technical department made an initial analysis of the battle footage, the lighting on the scene, the sounds, and the monsters' reactions. The physics simulation would be extremely difficult. They've mostly ruled out the possibility that it was fabricated. As for the tutorial... its explanations closely match fragments of information about the Guidance Technique that we've obtained through several channels. In fact, it's more systematic and intuitive."

He paused, then added, "The main character in the video says he's a recent high school graduate named Lin Yi."

Ah~ Give these seedlings a little water~ Ah~