Chapter 156: Internet Era
by xennovelIf today marks the beginning of the multiverse’s Twilight of the Gods, then surely the gods would agree!
With the Underworld God’s madness, countless portal black holes open in the skies of innumerable planes and cities, like a giant beast with a gaping maw, greedily drooling and scattering leaflets everywhere, frantically harvesting Source Essence!
No! Those aren’t leaflets, they’re soldiers conjured from paper, they’re lethal bullets, they’re scythes of Source Essence!
What frustrates the gods even more is that just as the Underworld God departs, the Internet God arrives.
Endless flyers, whether handwritten or printed, crude or exquisite, swarmed over the gods’ preaching areas, greedily absorbing their Wells of Origin.
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Clar Plane, Vaas Town.
A boy clad in patched clothes watches the gallant Judgement Office cavalry ride through the streets on unicorns, his eyes clearly glimmering.
He envies them for being able to eat their fill, for wearing cool and mighty armor, for riding powerful unicorns.
“I wish I could be like them.”
The boy muses.
Yet, deep down, he knows that in this lifetime, he could never do it.
Because he doesn’t even know where to start.
“What is this?”
Suddenly, the boy’s gaze is drawn to a piece of paper fluttering downward, crammed with text.
He casually picks up the paper.
Skimming through it, most of the text is beyond his comprehension.
However, turning it over, he finally sees a line he recognizes.
“Great being from Azure Star, you are the master of language and writing, the pioneer of the Internet. Under your protection, I shall interconnect with all beings and things.”
As the boy chanted, a virtual screen lit up in front of him.
The influx of information into his mind struck the boy like lightning, leaving him numb.
“Oh my God! What is this?”
“Internet?”
With a chorus of exclamations, numerous virtual screens lit up throughout the town.
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In a solitary Magic Tower deep within Misty Forest of Gren Plane, a hysterical laughter suddenly echoed.
The laughter was so hearty and unrestrained!
“Sixteen years! Sixteen years and I’ve finally deduced it! I succeeded! Hahaha…”
A skinny magician shouted maniacally in the alchemy room, surrounded by piles of notebooks and magical materials.
He had painstakingly stayed in the forest for sixteen years to verify a magical conjecture, and now he succeeded.
One can imagine that his magical prowess is bound to make great leaps forward!
A hundred years later, he will be remembered in history!
“Hmm, what’s this?”
In front of the magician, an image magic unfolded silently, showing countless papers drifting down from the skies over cities.
This was an image transmitted by magical puppets he had dispatched to the city to purchase living supplies.
As a virtual screen unfolded before him, the magician’s pupils shrank, his lips quivered, and he fell into despair.
“Abyss Formula? Why is it identical to the result I deduced? How can this be?!!!”
The magician was shattered.
His sixteen-year research turned out to be publicly known in other planes!!! “No—”
The immense shock caused the magician to roar to the heavens in utter anguish.
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“Do you see? The gods are nothing more than parasites draining our Source Essence. As long as we stop worshipping them, the gods are nothing!”
“Now we have the Internet, we have the Dark Web, we can learn magic and Battle Qi, and we will overthrow the Cult of Divine Worship!”
In a secret bandit hideout deep in the hills, farmers unable to bear the Cult of Divine Worship’s taxes gathered.
Their leader stood at the top, with a large virtual screen unfurled, speaking passionately. The people below echoed his sentiments.
These ‘bandits’ who held out in the mountains finally saw hope for resistance!
“Down with the Cult of Divine Worship!”
“We will eventually defeat those damned evil gods!”
“Long live the Internet!”
“Long live the Dark Web!”
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In a forest, a Kobold tribe held a grand sacrificial ceremony!
Atop a wooden pyramid altar, a young Kobold girl lay, surrounded by fruits, prey, and skulls.
Led by the Kobold Elder Priest, countless Kobolds gathered around, bowing and paying tribute! “Great Internet God, thank you for your merciful and majestic gaze upon the Naal Tribe. The Naal Tribe will forever worship you!”
The Kobold Elder shouted!
Above him, a massive virtual screen shimmered, displaying Kobold cuneiform—Internet.
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“Kill them all! Anyone seen using Internet Divine Magic or Dark Web Divine Magic, kill them all and hang their bodies on the city walls to show those plebeians: magic is noble and untouchable by anyone!”
Within the towering Magic Tower, the Mage Lord roared in anger because the monopoly on knowledge that sustained his rule was broken by the gods.
But his roars could no longer be heard outside the Magic Tower.
Even as his minions ravaged every corner of the city and countryside, frantically destroying raining leaflets and seizing wealth, it was meaningless.
Because the subjects were fleeing.
They now had the Internet and the Dark Web, where they could learn magic and Battle Qi to arm and protect themselves.
They no longer needed the magician’s protection! In fact, not just the subjects?
Even the magician’s followers fled opportunistically, no longer needing to serve the bloodthirsty old mage.
Because they now had channels to learn magic.
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The flying leaflets engulfed the multiverse.
Countless intelligent beings curiously logged onto the Internet or the Dark Web.
The bizarre and colorful online world shocked all intelligent beings to the core, shattering their worldview.
In this world where superstructure and substructure were severely divided, many intelligent beings from planes didn’t even know the concept of ‘planes.’
In ‘their’ worldview:
The world was the Village before their eyes;
Was the county town in the distance;
Was the lofty nobles;
Were the magicians, godlike in stature.
“They” never thought the world could be so grand, vast, exciting, mesmerizing, and breathtakingly thrilling! It is infinite power and knowledge; it is music everyone can enjoy; it is communication, discussion, even arguments and banter across countless planes;
It is the magic-charged Kewell Empire of the Azaea Continent;
It is experiencing various world sceneries and wealth-gathering from the comfort of home through [Conquest Sub-Dimension], follower of the Underworld God.
Faced with the leaflets distributed by the Underworld God and Internet God, the multiverse’s gods faced a catastrophic collapse in their preaching areas almost instantly!
The foundation of the gods’ rule was shaken!
This is a dimensional attack!
This is popular enlightenment!
This is a knowledge explosion!
This is intellectual deception!
This is the collapse of faith!
This is…the Twilight of the Gods.
The gods were roaring! They frantically massed their legions, unleashing every power to attempt to completely suppress the Internet and even the Dark Web.
Yet, faced with the intangible enemy and the loss of public support, even the strongest army could do nothing but watch in dismay, utterly ineffective! That day, the leaflets scattered like machine gods, brutally severing the epoch of the gods and thrusting the multiverse into a new era.
—This is the new era after the ‘Titan Age’ and ‘Gods Age’! It is known as: the Internet Era.