The main servers of the union had the ability to control the entire communication system worldwide. One could control everything connected to communication lines by controlling the main server.
The regional servers are programmed only to receive orders from the main server; even those with physical access to the regional servers cannot fix it without authorization from the main server, which unlocks their secure encryptions known only by the union’s chief technical minister.
As for why things were designed like this, it's easy to understand. The union could protect one building in the capital much easier than many regional servers. By concentrating all control in the main server, they only needed to control one building to secure the entire communication server.
They never anticipated someone being able to break in.
Because of this design, if the main server is breached in any way and begins spreading information the union dislikes, the only way to fix it, aside from physically cutting communication lines, is to take control of the main server back; one cannot fix anything using regional servers.
…
The man in the white coat, the one Alex captured, screamed. “I can't access the server without approval from the minister! Please! Let me go! Please!” he begged.
Alex sighed and snapped.
Bang!
The scientist exploded into a mist of blood.
Alex III disappeared, and in the next moment, he appeared with a man in a black suit in his right hand. He was caught by the leg and was being dragged to the ground.
“The code!” Alex III asked calmly but impatiently. As a grand vampire millions of years old, it was ridiculous that a code stopped him for so long.
“Yes, okay! Please, I'm going to enter the code as you want!” the minister, whose clothes were still as clean as ever despite being dragged on the ground, said. The suit was normal; it's just that the ground in the main server was too clean.
Bringing the ‘minister’ to the main control room’s monitor, Alex ordered, ”Enter the code!”
The man nodded, ran to the monitor, and started typing.
It was a massive touch screen, so there wasn’t any physical keyboard.
After a while …
A loud siren rang throughout the building, and massive iron doors came out, closing the way out from the control room.
The man in the suit smirked and said, ”You are trapped! You have two choices: one is to die, the other is to surrender and have a chance to live.”
Alex III looked at the man with astonishment; he never thought a minister could be so dumb.
“A headache!” Alex sighed deeply; something so easy was getting difficult.
Not having the mood to play along, he disappeared, and in the next moment, he threw all ministers and the president of the union into the control room.
“Mr. President!” the chief technical minister ran to a young woman. She wasn't truly young, but her body was. Body replacement surgery became possible again after the World Union calmed the world down.
Before the unification, it was lost for a long time due to technological regression as a result of the war.
Technology usually advances, but not always; there are many examples of civilizations regressing.
“Enter the code,” Alex III said impatiently. Seeing the whole government present, the chief technical minister gave up any resistance and entered the code.
The system was unlocked; now, using this monitor, it's possible to manipulate the entire communication system of the union.
Alex smiled; now, the only thing left was wishing for something.
“Spread the rumor that I am an ancient god that can do anything I want!” he ordered.
The chief technical was troubled; he knew programming, but spreading such a rumor requires the cooperation of many scientists and a delicate plan.
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“For now, just spread the news of an ancient god from the other dream world infiltrating! Remind everyone to stay in their houses and await the next instructions!” Alex III said.
Having control of the main server makes it easy to spread rumors.
As he speaks, the vampires on Alex’s side are already spreading the same rumor there, too.
The chief technical minister didn’t dare complain and started coding. It was not that hard, as Alex only asked him to send a message.
…
Mateo was the husband of Ella. He was a stay-at-home husband, while Ella was the working wife.
This kind of arrangement was not unusual; some families decided one parent must take care of the children while the other worked.
In the past, the parent working used to be the man, but now, it is usually the woman in relationships. It is just culture; at this point in history, a working husband looks a bit weird, while a working wife is the norm for those who decide to split their duties.
There are other types of couples; those that choose to both must work and place the child in nursing houses.
Couples who could not give birth to children, like those of the same sex, are more likely to spend more of their time with children they adopt, as they want to strengthen ties they have with children they didn’t give birth to.
The union was generally open-minded and didn’t restrict the citizens on social issues.
They did, however, restrict them in other areas.
For one, everyone must watch the 9:00 pm news by law to ‘be informed of the important matters going on.’
It was propaganda, pure and simple.
Rarely does government-run news turn out anything but propaganda; even private-run news is propaganda.
According to the union’s laws, private entities who want to broadcast must receive guidance from the chief media minister, who is responsible for ‘fact-checking’ truth from false.
Anything the chief deems fact is okay to report on, while anything the minister regards as doubtful or disinformation cannot be reported on. The chief media minister is the de facto ministry of truth.
Also, nobody can broadcast anything at 9:00 pm, as that slot is exclusive to the government's channel.
Nowadays, most TV channels run online, as nobody watches TV anymore.
Mateo, as he is used to, turned on the TV; Ella was at work, and she watched the news in her workplace.
“We still have 5 minutes!” Mateo started to hurry. He brought three children: the oldest, seven, a boy; the middle one was five years old, while the youngest was only one year old.
Helping them sit on the chair, he woke up little Scarlett, who was only one year old; even a one-year-old child must watch or at least listen to the news.
According to the chief media minister, for children under 7, even listening is enough, but Mateo doesn't want to risk being sued, so he even made sure everyone watched the news.
Cameras are everywhere, even in the house and the bathroom.
There is a law that baths cannot have too much steam as to obstruct the camera’s view.
Of course, all data recorded by the camera is completely safe, according to the chief privacy minister; he personally makes sure that only people with integrity watch them to ensure compliance with the union’s laws.
“Start programming!” the TV sounded.
But, unlike every night before, this time, the usual beautiful woman who reported the news didn’t appear; instead, a text appeared that read:
“An ancient god from the medieval dream world has infiltrated our world; please stay wherever you are and wait for our instructions!” Reading this, Mateo was terrified; Ella was in her workplace, so she might be in danger.
Picking up the phone, he called, but he only got a robotic woman’s voice repeating what he had read on the TV.
He picked up his phone and discovered it was locked and only displayed the text.
“This is serious!” he began to panic but didn’t dare to do anything rash; the higher-ups would definitely find a way.
He just has to trust them.
…
On Alex's dream world side, the vampires came out and started calming things down that had gotten chaotic after the ruling dynasty, the candles, suddenly disappeared.
The power vacuum left by their sudden disappearance was terrifying enough that if left undisturbed, it could have caused the death of more than a billion.
But, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the perspective, the vampires came and took over all government buildings and institutions, which began praising Alex III as an ancient god.
They held massive celebrations and many ceremonies all over the world and killed anyone who dared to voice any doubt about Alex III.
Their power was so overwhelming that it was not really that hard to believe that Alex was an ancient god capable of anything.
…
After a month, Alex III looked at himself in the mirror and laughed.
“Successful! I can do anything now!” he laughed loudly.
He thought it might now be impossible to realize any dream due to the 40% missing part of Alex's dream world, but fortunately, it was not the case.
He willed, and Rob appeared before him.
“Alex! I have been waiting for you!” he said angrily.
But Alex snapped before Rob could say anything else.
Bang!
Rob exploded!
It was so massive that the entire world, except Alex, was baked and destroyed in a heartbeat.
After all, Rob was equivalent to millions of nuclear bombs.
Fortunately for everyone, Alex brought Rob to a subworld, not the main world, so only a subworld was destroyed.
Alex III frowned; he could tell that Rob hadn’t truly died.
“It seems I still cannot kill Rob!” he felt his power was not invincible even after becoming an ancient god theoretically capable of anything.
Rob was removed from one subworld and still exists everywhere else; just now, Alex tried to kill the main Rob in a subworld to kill him in both the real world and subworlds, but it didn’t work.
One of Rob from the subworlds parallel to the real world in the same timeline was automatically transferred to the main world to fill the vacancy left by the real Rob’s death.
“Sigh!” he felt ashamed; he couldn’t really get very powerful relying on the dream world; after all, the maximum power is the power of the world itself.
While relying on a world, one is limited by its ceiling.
“I have to find an independent way and stop relying on the world for strength,” he thought.
He didn’t know that having this perspective was a big breakthrough. Being independent of their home world is the way of immortals, true immortals.