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

The dark golden light screen froze on the holographic terminal.

Several lines of distorted Roman error messages crawled across the screen like worms.

Li Shimin hadn't reacted yet.

A sharp, high-frequency whistling sound suddenly erupted from the terminal.

The sound doesn't go through the ears.

It directly penetrates the brain through the neural pathways shown in the retinal scan.

Li Shimin grunted.

His eyes lost focus, and his body froze on the spot.

He was still holding the confirmation button in his hand.

Changsun Wuji and Cheng Yaojin, who were standing to the side, were the same.

The three people's necks were stiff as if they had a stiff neck.

The Tang Dynasty royal family's special terminal bracelet on my wrist began to vibrate wildly.

A series of glaring red lights popped up.

That's a malicious liquidation alert.

Because Fang Xuanling was standing at the back, he stepped back half a step after pressing his fingerprint.

He evaded the forced direct connection of neural pathways.

Virtual world. The Third Continent.

Li Shimin felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, followed by a violent feeling of weightlessness.

When I opened my eyes again.

The soft Persian carpet underfoot was gone.

Instead, there was scorching, coarse yellow sand.

The air was filled with a strong smell of blood and sweat.

It was so hot and humid that it was hard to breathe.

"Where am I...?"

Li Shimin shook his dizzy head and looked around.

A huge, circular wall surrounded them in the middle.

The towering stands were deserted, with only the gloomy sky pressing down overhead.

In the very center of the sky, a giant countdown funnel floats.

Next to the funnel is the figure of 20 billion Datang credit points.

The numbers are plummeting at a rate of tens of millions per second.

"Your Majesty! Be careful!"

A loud, piercing roar came from the side.

Li Shimin turned his head.

Cheng Yaojin was somehow dressed in a tattered Snow Dragon Cavalry Armor.

He didn't even have a knife in his hand.

They were scrambling and crawling towards him.

Changsun Wuji lay prone in a sand pile not far away.

The sage's hat on his head had long since fallen off somewhere.

It was sticking its butt out and burrowing into the sand.

Cheng Yaojing ran two steps.

A virtual Roman gladiator, two meters tall, emerged from the shadows.

Gladiators have no faces.

The face was a constantly changing mass of dark green code.

The gladiator dragged a whip that emitted a blue light.

That's not a whip.

It is woven from pure, disruptive protocol code.

The whip left a charred trail in the sand.

Snapped!

The gladiator flicked his wrist.

The code whip struck out in mid-air, creating a sonic boom.

He slapped Cheng Yaojin hard on the back.

"Aww—"

Cheng Yaojin let out a bloodcurdling scream, like a pig being slaughtered.

The black iron armor on his back was ripped open.

The virtual pain sensation was amplified to 100% by the Trojan program.

Although it's virtual damage.

But the nerve signals will be transmitted to the physical body without fail.

"Damn it! My back is broken!"

Cheng Yaojin rolled over in the sand, wincing in pain.

He grabbed the gladiator's leg and bit him.

Teeth.

My mouth was filled with a harsh, metallic taste.

The gladiator kicked him away.

They turned their attention to Li Shimin.

Li Shimin panicked.

He touched his waist; the Emperor's Sword hadn't been brought in.

"How dare you! I am the Emperor of the Great Tang Dynasty!"

He took two steps back, his heel tripping on a rock and nearly falling.

The gladiators completely ignored him.

He raised the code whip and lashed out.

The real world. The Hall of Two Elements.

"His Majesty!"

Fang Xuanling looked at the three people in front of him who were as stiff as wooden statues, and was so anxious that he was covered in sweat.

Cheng Yaojin's body was trembling violently.

Although there was no damage to the back of his court robe.

However, large patches of redness had already seeped out beneath the skin.

That's caused by the rupture of capillaries due to nerve pain.

Li Shimin's face was deathly pale, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat.

His breathing was rapid, like a bellows.

"Internet down...yes, internet down!"

Fang Xuanling, who was usually a very composed person, was now completely panicked.

He lay down on the ground and reached out to pull the main power cord that was connected to the wall.

"Don't move!"

A cold shout came from the palace gate.

Wu Zetian walked in quickly, wearing flat soft shoes.

She held a tablet in her hand, her face so gloomy it could drip water.

Two fully armed technicians from the Cyberspace Administration of China followed behind him.

"Lord Fang, pull it out now."

Wu Meiniang grabbed Fang Xuanling's wrist and pulled him away.

"His Majesty's cerebral blood vessels will burst on the spot."

Fang Xuanling collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.

"Chief Steward Wu, what... what's going on?"

"They were perfectly fine just a moment ago, how did they suddenly become possessed?"

Wu Zetian glanced at the dark gold light screen on the holographic screen.

The progress bar indicating "Transaction clearing" was still flashing at the edge of the screen.

"This is not possession."

Wu Zetian gritted her teeth, suppressing her anger.

"This is the most vicious 'Roman Colosseum' high-frequency Trojan horse of foreign capital."

"Specifically targeting the dual strangulation of the subconscious and the underlying financial vault."

Her fingers flew across the tablet, bringing up the underlying logs.

"The Third Continent is by no means a value depression."

"That was bait they deliberately showed them."

"His Majesty's massive investment of 20 billion has just been put into the system, triggering the underlying agreements."

"The other party directly traced back to the source, locking their consciousness in a virtual sandbox."

Fang Xuanling didn't quite understand these technical terms.

But he understood the words "two hundred billion" and "locked up".

"Then quickly send someone in to rescue the emperor!"

Fang Xuanling was so anxious that he kept slapping his thigh.

"Where are the Great Snow Dragon Riders? Summon Xu Xiao!"

"It's no use."

Wu Meiniang rubbed her temples in frustration.

"General Xu's men only know how to kill real-world mechs."

"The other party has written the protocol into the code."

"If an external force forcibly breaches the sandbox, the hostages and funds inside will be instantly destroyed."

"They're now like dogs trapped inside a cage."

Wu Meiniang looked at Li Shimin's trembling eyelids and sighed.

The retired emperor is a classic example of forgetting the pain once the wound has healed.

The powerful families had just been dealt with, and now he's gone to the international arena to get himself killed.

Inside the virtual arena.

Snapped!

Another whip cracked.

Li Shimin scrambled away to avoid it.

The whip lashed the sand where he had just been standing, creating a small crater.

A few grains of scalding sand splashed on his face, stinging him.

"Cheng Zhijie! Where the hell have you been?!"

Li Shimin launched into a tirade, completely losing his composure.

Cheng Yaojin crawled out of the sand pile, clutching his back.

"Your Majesty, I can't hold on any longer!"

"That bastard's whip hurts more than a real knife when it hits you."

The gladiator rotated his wrist.

The whip coiled around Li Shimin's ankle like a venomous snake.

In a panic, Li Shimin grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at the gladiator's face.

The sand passed through the gladiator's virtual body, but to no avail.

"Protect the Emperor! Wuji!"

Li Shimin looked around.

Changsun Wuji peeked half his head out from behind the broken wall a dozen meters away.

"Your Majesty, I am a civil official and not skilled in hand-to-hand combat."

He clutched his ceremonial cap, his voice trembling.

"Hold on a little longer, perhaps His Highness the Crown Prince will come to our rescue soon."

"dream!"

Li Shimin was cornered by the gladiators against the high wall.

There was no way to retreat.

He was panting heavily as he looked at the code monster that was closing in on him.

A chill ran down my spine.

Two hundred billion.

The numbers in the sky have almost disappeared by half.

Once the money is deducted, their consciousness will be directly formatted.

"That rebellious son Chengqian just said he'd turn off his phone and go to sleep."

Li Shimin gritted his teeth.

"He wouldn't answer the phone even if the sky were to fall!"

The gladiator raised his whip.

Blue light is in full bloom.

He slapped Li Shimin straight in the face.

The real world.

Wu Zetian stared at the countdown that kept flashing on the screen.

There are 45 minutes left before the funds are completely liquidated.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

The only sound in the main hall was the beeping of the wristband alarm.

"Chief Steward Wu, please think of a way!" Fang Xuanling tugged at Wu Meiniang's sleeve.

Wu Meiniang opened her eyes and shook off Fang Xuanling's hand.

She walked toward the control panel.

"What other options are there?"

Her voice conveyed a deep sense of helplessness.

She accessed the highest communication channel of the Tian Shu system.

I entered that security-encrypted garbled code that leads directly to the basement of Hawaii.

If you can't decrypt this Trojan within ten minutes.

This foreign exchange reserve of the Tang Dynasty's national treasury will be drained.

The emperor and the two dukes will also become idiots.

Wu Zetian's finger hovered over the send button.

She remembered the Coke that Li Chengqian had sprayed on the screen earlier.

And then there was that roar of "Cut the fiber optic cable!"

Her head started to hurt even more.

But there was no other choice.

clack.

Wu Zetian pressed the Enter key.

Despite the immense risk of emptying the national treasury, they reluctantly sent the telegram to Hawaii again.