Chapter 49: The Rain of Fallen Gods
The explosion of the Eye of Providence was not silent. Though space is a vacuum, the sheer magnitude of the energy release created a [Spatial Shockwave] that rattled the atmosphere of the planet below. To the millions of refugees standing in the ruins of Aethelgard, the sky seemed to shatter into a trillion golden shards. It was a rain of celestial debris—the "Blood" of the machine god falling back to the earth.
Zhou Fan and Ling Er plummeted through the upper thermosphere, encased in a shimmering [Aero-Braking Bubble] created by the last remnants of the satellite's gravity generators. Inside the bubble, they were shielded from the 3,000°C heat of re-entry, but the friction made the air around them glow a violent crimson.
"Brace yourself!" Zhou Fan shouted over the roar of the burning air. He held Ling Er tightly, his tactical suit creaking under the atmospheric pressure. "We're going to hit the 'Lower Cloud Layer' in ten seconds!"
As they breached the clouds, the city of Aethelgard came into view. It was a dark, silent labyrinth of steel, no longer illuminated by the false glow of the Collective's propaganda. The "Logic Bomb" Zhou Fan had sent into the satellite had caused a [Global System Blackout]. The power grid was dead. The Enforcer Drones were lifeless statues of carbon fiber.
With a final, heavy thud, their gravity bubble collapsed, and they slammed into the rooftop of the Cradle Facility. The reinforced concrete cracked under the impact, but Zhou Fan's suit absorbed the kinetic energy, though his internal displays flashed a grim "Critical Damage: 92%".
The Dawn of the First Day
Zhou Fan stood up, his breath coming in white puffs in the cold morning air. Beside him, Ling Er leaned against a jagged piece of metal, looking out at the horizon. For the first time, the dark smog of the city was being pushed back by a pale, natural dawn. The sun—the Real Sun—was rising.
Below them, in the streets of Sector 7, the refugees were stepping out of the shadows. They weren't praying to the Dao or looking for spiritual Qi. They were touching the cold walls, feeling the grit of the dirt, and looking at each other with eyes that no longer reflected a simulation.
"We did it," Ling Er whispered, her voice trembling. "They're free."
"They're awake," Zhou Fan corrected, his voice heavy with the weight of the future. "But freedom is a Resource we have yet to secure. We've destroyed the brain, but the 'Collective' is a multi-system organism. Somewhere in the 5th Dimension, the Designers are currently 'Re-compiling' their strategy."
The Message in the Static
Suddenly, the holographic projectors scattered across the city—the ones that used to show the High Designers' faces—flickered back to life. But they didn't show a face. They showed a Visual Glitch: a series of jagged, pulsating lines that formed a "Skull" made of binary code.
A voice, distorted and deep, resonated from every speaker in the city. It wasn't the Arbitrator. It was something older.
"Lead Developer 7749. You have performed a 'Force Quit' on our experiment. You have cost us trillions in lost computational energy. Do not think your 'Logic Bomb' has reached us. We are the Architects of the Void. We do not live within the code you can hack."
The holographic skull grinned. "We are sending the [Physicality Protocol]. If you love the 'Real World' so much, we shall let you die in it. The first 'World-Eater' has been launched. Arrival: 48 hours."
The screens went black. The silence that followed was even more terrifying than the threat.
Zhou Fan turned to the crowd of refugees below, his violet eyes glowing with a cold, renewed determination. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, metallic disk—the last backup of the Missing Ledger.
"They're sending a 'World-Eater'," Zhou Fan said to the leaders of the awakened sects who were climbing up the roof. "A physical weapon designed to consume the matter of this planet. We have 48 hours to turn this graveyard of a city into a [Planetary Defense Cannon]."
He looked at Ling Er. "You said you wanted to build a world. Well, we're going to build a weapon first. Tell everyone to start harvesting the scrap metal. We're going to 'Program' the very crust of this planet to fight back."