Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

The magistrate's hands trembled as he opened the case file. These missing persons were neither kidnapped nor murdered, but rather "disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead."

In the dimly lit courtroom, the holographic screen reflected a dark blue halo, which made the magistrate's pale face look somewhat comical and terrified.

In a corner of the basement, rows of makeshift nutrient tanks made from scrap metal were neatly stacked.

Many missing young people lay in those cold, moldy hulls, their bodies emaciated, their muscles severely atrophied, and their skin an unnatural, deathly gray.

One after another, inferior needles were stuck firmly into their temples and the gaps between their spines, vibrating eerily at high frequencies in sync with the pulse frequency of the secondary server.

The body was in such a withered state that it was on the verge of exhaustion, as weak as a skeleton that had been dried up for years.

However, under the terrifying torment of rapid physical decay, their faces, covered by specially made holographic helmets, presented an absurd contrast.

The corners of everyone's mouths were turned up high, displaying a strange, satisfied, and morbid smile.

The expression of utter bliss, bathed in the cold, pale purple light, sent chills down the spines of every soldier watching.

"Sir, these guys' central nervous systems... are completely overloaded! Their heart rates are like they're charging into battle with the Snow Dragon Riders!"

The operator pressed the biodetector, his voice trembling with a peculiar shock.

This is not torture at all; their minds have completely abandoned reality and are partying every night in an illegal virtual black market.

"Take that helmet off! Physically disconnect the internet cable!"

The officer leading the Great Snow Dragon Riders kicked the nearby distributor to pieces, and for the first time, fear flashed in his eyes, which had killed countless enemies on the battlefield.

The guards rushed forward and forcibly cut the inferior leather threads stuck to the skin with their blood-stained military knives.

But when those glowing helmets were roughly ripped off, not a single refugee lying in the nutrient tank opened their eyes.

Their eyes darted wildly beneath their thin eyelids, their faces flushed, and their muttering continued unabated.

"Immortal wine...fill my cup...I'm the richest man in Chang'an, haha...it's so white..."

"Dr. Sun! Quickly, come and see what kind of sorcery this is!"

The officer turned around and shouted hysterically at the medic accompanying him.

The senior doctor accompanying the team, carrying his medicine box, scrambled to the side of a laborer, his hands absentmindedly reaching for the man's pulse.

One silver needle after another was inserted into the Shen Ting and Bai Hui acupoints, and even high-level neuronal stimulant drugs were injected into the veins in doses.

No matter how the doctors called out to them or used physical means to stimulate their sense of pain, they could not forcibly bring their consciousness back from that unclaimed, dark core.

"My lord... it's no use. Their souls and spirits have long been sucked into the underground compartments by the lightning within these iron hats!"

The doctor plopped down in the mud, his aged face showing only shock and lingering fear of the unknown technology.

This kind of smuggling, completely outside the reach of the imperial court's laws, drove the local government offices in Wannian County to madness over the next three days.

Every day, a large number of work positions become vacant at the docks in the West Market, and the blast furnaces in reality are forced to cool down due to a lack of laborers to add coal.

Li Shimin sat in a side hall of the Taiji Hall, holding a report on abnormal computing power that had just been sent up from underground. His majestic dragon face was so gloomy it looked like it was about to drip water.

"The Gongshu family and those forgetful noble families are treating the people of the Tang Dynasty like dry straw to fuel their evil schemes right under my nose!"

The old man slammed his hand on the dragon-shaped console, causing it to emit a crisp, mournful sound.

"Your Majesty, this is not just happening in Guanzhong. Two underground deep-sea caves were also sealed off last night in the military camps of the North American Province."

Changsun Wuji wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and stammered in support of him.

"Those greenhorn recruits used all their allowances to buy cheap helmets on the black market."

During the day, they train like dead dogs on the parade ground, but at night, they use these illegal neural pathways to connect themselves to the underground main network and become gods.

General Xu Xiao issued a strict order this morning: anyone found hiding these helmets will be immediately discharged from the military and given eighty lashes!

"What's the point of being discharged from the military? Those peasants can live like royalty inside, who cares about your few coins of military medals?"

Li Shimin paced back and forth irritably, his dragon boots making a heavy sound on the marble floor.

For the first time, he discovered that the technological world created by that rebellious son had lost its core moral code.

What was released was a world-destroying demon capable of completely uprooting the entire feudal class.

"Wang De! Send a top-secret telegram to Hawaii! Tell Li Chengqian to get back here and clean up the mess he's made!"

However, on the other side of the ocean, the transoceanic quantum dedicated line only transmitted a faint physical busy tone during that minute.

Li Chengqian, wearing sunglasses, was leaning back in a comfortable chair on the beach.

As he watched the constantly flashing "Underlying computing power overflow" warning on the holographic display, the carefree laziness in his eyes finally vanished completely that morning.

Wu Zetian, standing to the side, had a stern expression as she used her hands to draw up a series of code defense lines spanning the globe on the secondary control panel.

"Your Highness, things are out of control."

The old aristocratic families weren't after money this time; they were using human lives as batteries to forcibly overload the entire network's foundation on the ancestral base of Tian Shu.

"A bunch of reckless lunatics who really think they can easily figure out something like a 'brain' with their ancient human abacus?"

Li Chengqian snorted coldly and slammed the melted cola in his hand heavily onto the small table.

The cold glint reflected in his clear eyes was colder than any other time he pulled the plug.

"They think they're living like gods, but they have no idea that there's no system of moral agreements to lock them in."

This kind of illegal connection, purely in pursuit of sensual pleasure, will sooner or later smash a hole in the boundary between reality and virtuality, causing a complete mental breakdown.

This oppressive atmosphere, like a storm brewing, was finally resolved in just half a month through a vicious bloodshed incident originating from the public.

They brutally and ruthlessly tore away the last fig leaf in front of all the people of Chang'an.

West side of Zhuque Avenue.

That was the most bustling holographic commercial district in the entire capital, and it was noon on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Tens of thousands of citizens were gathered on the long street, watching the ever-changing holographic projection of the dragon dance in the sky above the city that never sleeps. Everywhere was a scene of joy and laughter.

Just as the hundred-foot-long digital golden dragon was about to perform a high-energy, slow-motion dive to send New Year's greetings.

In the middle of the long street, there was an ordinary tailor wearing a cheap helmet who had been hiding in a shack for seven days and seven nights.

His body suddenly froze in place in a strange way.

His thighs twisted irregularly and frequently beneath his robe, the joints dislocating and emitting an unpleasant cracking sound.

The surrounding people stared blankly at this ordinary citizen behaving strangely, before they could even burst into laughter.

The tailor's face, illuminated by the red light beneath his helmet, suddenly cracked into a blood-stained, ferocious laugh.

His pupils had turned a completely eerie purplish-red, and a piercing roar, carrying a high-frequency digital echo, emanated from his throat—a roar entirely unlike anything human could produce.

"Tian Shu... is mine now! Haha... I am the true emperor of the Tang Dynasty! You code... all of you, die!"

"Get out of the way! This guy's gone mad! Iron skin is growing all over his body!"

The festive atmosphere on the long street collapsed in a fraction of a second, and the people let out screams that were distorted by excessive fear.

Amidst the tailor's frantic screams, his skin began to burst open like a boiled shrimp due to the intense pressure of the electric current.

Strands of blood, tinged with sparks from a high-voltage electric current, splattered down his trouser leg onto the ancient bluestone pavement.

Then, like a mindless mechanical beast, he viciously grabbed the neck of an innocent woman next to him with both hands.

"The constables of Wannian County are here! How dare you, you unruly scoundrel, injure people!"

Two cyber police officers on patrol rushed forward with red eyes, raising the electromagnetic shackles in their hands in the first second.

But before the pale blue chain could even be hung on the shoulders of the mad tailor...

The commoner, who was originally so weak that he couldn't even carry a bag of rice, suddenly unleashed an absolute force that transcended the laws of reality.

A heavy physical sweep sent the constable, who weighed two hundred pounds, flying three zhang away and crashing heavily into the ruins of the inn.

This cruel backlash of using mortal flesh to resist the laws of the state sounded particularly jarring and bloody under the most prosperous sunlight in Chang'an.

The bell in the Taiji Hall rang hastily for the third time in that minute.

The dull, metallic sound pierced through the hustle and bustle of the long street, but it couldn't mask the endless chill emanating from beneath the ground.

The imperial court thought it had all the reins of the new era, but in the end, it couldn't even hold onto the minds of the common people.

"Your Highness, the first case of the mutant in Chang'an's West Market has been physically eliminated."

On a Hawaiian beach, Wu Zetian, her face pale, put down the top-level telegram in her hand, her voice trembling violently.

"The Great Snow Dragon Rider used three particle strikes to smash the tailor to pieces, but when his brain tissue was dissected... it had completely dried up into a piece of dead charcoal."

Li Chengqian slowly removed the dark sunglasses from the bridge of his nose.

He stood up, his floral shorts fluttering in the sea breeze. Looking at the massive computing power platform that had turned into a crimson expanse, the disgust deep in his eyes caused by the interruption of his salted fish vacation finally transformed into the coldest imperial killing intent.

Just as the imperial court ordered a thorough investigation into the matter, the side effects of this illegal deep-sea diving equipment finally manifested in the real world in its first tragic incident.