Chapter 1 Things Are Bad, But There's Still a Chance

Aim slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, calmed down, and ended the spell he was casting.

In the next second, the New York Brain-Eating Worm citizens in front of him suddenly regained consciousness, looking at Aim with some confusion.

Other pedestrians not far away also suddenly realized that there was a group of people gathered here for some inexplicable reason, casting curious and doubtful glances.

Aim ignored the strange gazes around him, lightly stepped on the ground, and his figure floated up like a feather, suspended in mid-air.

Buzz——

An invisible and intangible force spread and diffused outward from him as the center.

The outer glass of the tall buildings around Times Square shattered abruptly and uniformly, splashing out countless glass shards.

The Brain-Eating Worm citizens who passed by screamed and dodged, but some worm-people were still hit by the falling glass, falling to the roadside in a bloody mess.

The cars that were hit by the glass shards exploded with sharp alarms one after another.

Aim didn't care about these things. He ignored the terrified screams in his ears, ignored the panicked glances cast at him, closed his eyes, and silently released his power.

His power system is unique within the entire FBI, and even in the entire Americas.

Its name is, [Electronic Ghost].

This power system allows his will to travel freely, carried by electromagnetic waves.

Electromagnetic waves are oscillating particle waves derived and emitted in space by in-phase and mutually perpendicular electric and magnetic fields. They are electromagnetic fields that propagate in the form of waves and do not rely on media for propagation.

When he turned on the Electronic Ghost state, Aim felt as if he had transcended the human body.

Wires were his blood vessels, radio waves were his brain nerves,

Personal computers and servers were his neurons,

Ubiquitous personal mobile phones and surveillance cameras were his eyes...

Pa pa pa pa.

Street lamps along the street intermittently burst out with electric sparks.

In the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan, countless traders stood up from their seats, dumbfounded as they watched the trading hall lights flash rapidly.

In a small cubicle, a manager who was fawning over a major client on a landline phone suddenly discovered that the phone was malfunctioning and constantly emitting static. Just as he was about to stand up and curse, he was stunned to discover through the one-way transparent floor-to-ceiling window that the entire stock exchange had shut down, and all personal computers and even large screens were black.

"This, this..."

The manager felt the blood rush to his brain. NASDAQ is the financial heart of the United States and even the world. Even a moment of shutdown would lead to extremely heavy consequences.

New York City had a major blackout in the 1970s—a thunderbolt first struck a substation in southern Buchanan, tripping the main transformer, and then, like a surgical strike, successively struck a 345kv transmission line and a substation in Yonkers County, eventually causing all of New York to plunge into darkness, triggering large-scale destruction and looting.

At that time, the Brain-Eating Worm population was still in the mammoth corpses in Siberia, but as the Brain-Eating Worm people completely replaced humans, they also absorbed the memories and wealth of human civilization.

They understood how to provide independent, uninterrupted generator sets for those important companies and institutions that could not shut down.

The sky was clear and cloudless at this time, so how could there be a sudden blackout?

Just as everyone was panicking and at a loss,

The chaotic current suddenly calmed down.

In mid-air, Aim slowly opened his eyes.

I have seen everything.

The [Electronic Ghost] form he activated not only instantly seized control of all civilian networks in Manhattan, but also invaded and occupied those internal networks that were physically insulated from the outside world through ubiquitous radio waves.

For example, the New York City management network, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the internal networks of major banks in New York, New York law enforcement agencies (including but not limited to state police, prison guards, procuratorates, FBI), Wall Street, the United Nations headquarters...

At this moment, as long as he wanted to,

He could cause countless subway trains to collide with each other,

He could instantly zero out bank deposits,

He could stop the stock market or send it soaring,

He could make all the planes dizzy and plunge into the sea.

He could open all the prison doors and watch a fight between prison guards and prisoners through surveillance cameras.

He could turn a street vagrant who was not worth a penny into a billionaire in an instant,

He could make a bloated rich man who owned countless companies lose everything in an instant,

He could sneak into everyone's mobile phone, peek into their lives and privacy, know their loves and hates accurately, and even discover obscure secrets they didn't even know themselves.

Marriage, love, promotion, finances, drug overdose, exams, hit-and-run, silent driving, smuggling contraband, secretly taking pictures of classmates, disseminating pirated media files, community volunteers, parents' divorce...

Countless lives were spread out in front of Aim like books through computers and mobile phones.

Aim's heroic and handsome facial features twitched slightly.

The power of [Electronic Ghost] is too powerful. Even the FBI, where he has worked for more than ten years, dares not trust him and only dares to let him use it in script missions or in virtual worlds.

This was the first time he had fully released his abilities in a realistic simulation environment so close to the real world.

Not enough.

Aim took another deep breath, using Manhattan as a springboard, spreading to New York City, New York State, the American East Coast, and even the entire United States.

If there were software that could accurately depict the network signal map of the entire United States,

Then you could clearly see such a scene on that map—countless golden threads, starting from the American East Coast, stretching and spreading westward, like bacteria in a petri dish.

Those golden threads, capturing territory along the way, seizing control of data centers one after another,

Brutally and fiercely crossed the entire Midwest, reaching the West Coast and dyeing the entire United States into a brilliant gold.

"Put down your weapons!"

A shout mixed with panic and helplessness came from below.

Aim lowered his head indifferently and saw four police cars parked haphazardly at the intersection below the street.

More than a dozen NCpd officers in uniforms were hiding behind the car doors, holding their pistols in a standard posture, pointing at Aim floating in mid-air.

Seeing the suspect looking down, a seemingly young and immature NCpd officer shouted in a panic, "Suspect, please put down your weapons immediately! Don't move!"

Put down my weapons? Do I have any deadly weapons in my hand?

Don't move? Shouldn't you let me come down from mid-air immediately?

Aim blinked. In the [Electronic Ghost] state, his thinking speed was faster than ever before. Although he was limited by his human body and limited spiritual power,

He could not use all computers and data processing centers as his own, commanding them as if they were his arms,

But the network conditions in Manhattan alone were enough for him to use his mind in a thousand ways, dividing thousands of minds to quickly think about all the problems he faced.

There was no need to pay attention to the insects on the ground, and there was no need to pay attention to the few explosion-proof vehicles that had been dispatched from key institutions such as NASDAQ, fully loaded with armed personnel.

The technological level of this world is not much different from the real world before the arrival of the Killing Field Game. Ordinary worm-people cannot break the invisible barrier around him with conventional weapons alone.

Now, it's time to let the mortals know of my existence.

He gently flicked his right little finger, and immediately fifty of the thousand divine thoughts retrieved thousands of computer viruses from the database in his mind and投放them into the international network.

Dozens of seconds later, all the hacker talents hired by various intelligence and security departments in the United States were dumbfounded as they looked at the screens on their personal computers.

The thing they could not understand happened. The newly appeared computer virus had unprecedented aggressiveness and diffusion capabilities, and almost immediately spread to the World Wide Web, affecting global network key nodes thousands of miles away.

The computer viruses that Aim投 threw were far superior to this era. Although the power of [Electronic Ghost] was limited by himself and could not spread too far, it was limited to the entire American East Coast and a small part of the American West Coast,

But this was enough for him to use the two places as a springboard to remotely interfere with the network conditions in East Asia, Central Asia, Europe and other places.

Hello, world.

The corner of Aim's mouth rose imperceptibly. He gently flicked his left index finger, and in the next instant,

A blue, artificially created human face with a high degree of affinity in theory appeared on hundreds of millions of electronic screens around the world.

"Hello, Brain-Eating Worm Civilization."

The blue male face opened his mouth and made a gentle, soft sound, affecting the world, "Citizens of the world, from now on, please do not panic, do not hesitate.

Workers working in factories, please shut down the machines according to the regulations and leave the factory;

Drivers of railway trains, please stop the vehicles you are driving;

Pilots of civil aviation aircraft, please go to the nearest airport to land immediately—don't worry about the plane going out of control or the airport being blocked, just do what the voice tells you in the headset.

Workers, white-collar workers, students, farmers, please end your production and labor now, stay in the buildings you are in, do not panic, do not run, do not make noise.

Do what I say, and no one will be hurt."

The blue face paused for a few seconds, seeming to really be waiting for the world's civilians to calm down,

And Aim himself separated another hundred divine thoughts to control the President's exclusive encrypted channel in the White House in Washington.

In the next moment, the video conference screen automatically appeared on the large screen TV on the wall of the President's office—the faces of the heads of ten countries were divided into ten frames and arranged on the TV screen.

Some of them didn't even know they were being filmed—Aim's divine thoughts invaded the surveillance cameras in their offices and made sounds through the personal mobile phones carried by the security personnel, prompting them to look at the nearest TV screen.

Driven by Aim's will, such a high-level, extremely hasty and non-standard global summit was temporarily held.

"I'm sorry to meet you all in this situation."

Without giving any time to breathe, a faint blue face floated above the video conference, his voice calm and his expression gentle.

If the scene were changed, it would definitely be suitable for major automobile companies to use as a short promotional video to introduce new car driving systems.

Aim's face waited quietly for a few seconds, but no one asked his purpose or his intentions.

The faces of all the leaders looked solemn and serious—they had already realized the seriousness of the current situation through the reports of their subordinates.

"Okay, I'm Aim. I believe you all know that I control 3,051 active nuclear warheads in the United States, including 1,210 strategic warheads, 951 non-strategic warheads, and 890 spare warheads.

These warheads come from the American 'Trinity' and Power programs, including but not limited to the land-based 'Minuteman' 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the sea-based 14 Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines, and the air-based B-52h and B-2A strategic bombers.

And this number is still increasing as I deepen my control over the American network.

Thank you to the United States for its years of construction of American military bases in various countries around the world, as well as its investment in aircraft carrier formations and submarine formations.

At this moment, if I want to, I can use various platforms to投 throw nuclear warheads to every corner of the world.

Moscow, Tokyo, Mumbai, London, Paris, oh, yes, and New York and Washington...

Admittedly, the missile interception systems in the hands of various countries are still beyond my control,

But I can fire a full 3,051 bullets, and as long as the defending countries hit one or two in key cities, it will cause a large-scale collapse of social order."

"You have already caused a large-scale collapse."

A white-skinned leader said with a tense face, "Your Excellency, who exactly are you? What do you want to get from us?"

If someone had said thirty minutes ago that a nuclear war apocalypse launched by aliens was about to break out, the leaders in the video conference would definitely have regarded him as a madman.

But now they can't help but believe it—the confidential internal networks in Moscow, Paris, Tokyo and other regions are under a crazy virus attack, and the secure networks of some key military facilities are gradually being lost.

This is definitely not something that terrorists or even the United States can do.

It can only be explained as... a power beyond understanding.

"Me?"

Aim's face frowned for a second, then smiled and said, "You can understand me as a prophet guarding the world, a messenger sounding the alarm, and a protector of civilization."

"Protector?"

One of the leaders pursed his lips and said nothing.

However, Aim seemed to see what he was thinking and said directly, "Are you questioning whether I stole the nuclear warheads to trigger a nuclear apocalypse?

Hehe, you are wrong. The real apocalypse is on its way.

Compared to him, I am just an insignificant prelude."

The screen flashed and immediately showed a scene of a modern city.

It was an exceptionally prosperous coastal city, with the height of the buildings in the city averaging over 500 meters, and some even reaching over 800 meters.

Moreover, extremely majestic steel walls stood on the city's coast, filled with unheard-of heavy firepower weapons, and humanoid upright mechs walked, with a technological level far higher than modern ones.

The entire city seemed like a military camp.

It was definitely not any modern city in this world.

However, what shocked the leaders even more was that the city was under attack.

Raging white mycelium grew continuously from the ground, from the rivers, and from the buildings, driving away the fleeing civilians in a panic,

Directly submerging all obstacles along the way.

Street lights, vehicles, street signs...

The ocean of white mycelium flooded the entire city, and some mechs brought heavy machine guns and flamethrowers, trying to stop the ocean of white mycelium, but to no avail.

Even defoliants in skull-patterned bottles, and napalm bombs投 thrown by bombers, could not slow down the white mycelium by a single bit.

The entire city was covered with a thick layer of white fluff,

And the white mycelium was still not satisfied, creating mycelial towers one after another, constantly喷 spraying dandelion-like mycelial spores, continuing to spread towards the land, sky, and ocean.

The last video was a picture of white mycelium growing in major cities around the world, and in the center of the picture, Li Ang, wearing a white coat.

"In addition to this, there is another scene of Titans that has not been played.

As you can see,"

Aim's voice sounded at the right time, "I am not your apocalypse, he is."