Chapter 337: The World Held Its Breath

More than a week had passed since Liam left South Korea. More than two since Macau. And almost three since he began this vacation.And in those three weeks, he had lived more freely than he ever had in his entire life. He had gone everywhere.

Japan, where he spent nearly a week wandering through shrines, neon streets, rooftops, and quiet lakesides.

Africa, where he stood before the roaring walls of Victoria Falls until the mist drenched his face.

Antarctica, where silence was so absolute that his own breathing felt loud.

The Himalayas, where he climbed Mt. Everest without ropes or oxygen and found himself staring at dried bones and tattered flags fluttering in the wind.

Europe, where he walked through ancient alleys in the early morning when the world still slept.

South America, where he followed the massive spread of the Amazon canopy and watched the river glow under moonlight.

Everywhere he went, the world felt larger... and yet somehow smaller. More alive... and yet simpler.

It was fun, exciting and adventurous.

And above all, it was freeing.

Even the dangerous places—the ones that would kill any normal human—were nothing more than interesting terrain for him.

The frostbite on Everest? Couldn’t touch him. The oxygen depletion? Meaningless. Sub-zero winds? Irrelevant.

Yet despite his power, he took his time. He enjoyed it and he lived in the moment.

And now, after circling the globe in the most chaotic, fulfilling vacation imaginable, Liam ended his journey in the Grand Canyon.

He was seated near the edge, legs dangling over a vast emptiness, wind brushing through his hair as he stared into the breathtaking orange-and-gold expanse. The canyon stretched endlessly beneath him, carved by time, wind, and silent battles between water and stone.

Up here, the world felt ancient. Old enough to have seen civilizations rise and collapse.

It was the perfect place to end a vacation.

It was also the perfect place to watch the world panic.

Lucy had informed him earlier that the starship will be ready tomorrow.

Which meant he could begin his interstellar travel whenever he wished.

But before that? Tonight would be fun.

Because tonight was the night 1,000 Lucid units would be released to the world. And Earth... was about to explode.

A faint breeze crossed the canyon rim. Liam leaned back on his palms, laughing softly to himself.

"Tonight’s going to be entertaining."

And he wasn’t wrong.

***

Across continents, oceans, borders, and time zones, the entire planet was holding its breath.

Every government, every corporation, every intelligence agency, every billionaire, every tech mogul—everyone who had failed to get Lucid last time—was lined up behind screens.

More than an hour ago, people had already cleared their schedules.

Meetings cancelled. Dinners abandoned. Flights delayed. Dorm rooms locked. Office lights on. War rooms activated.

Because Nova Technologies had finally spoken with a single message that was posted an hour ago on the official Platform account:

"An announcement will be posted when the purchase link becomes available. A countdown will begin 10 minutes prior."

That was it. There was no marketing or hype video. And yet the entire world felt like it was on fire.

People were refreshing the page every ten seconds. Others spammed F5 like their lives depended on it.

Some had set up three devices: laptop, phone, tablet.

Some had gone insane and built clicking macros. Some were praying and some were sweating.

Some were muttering things like:

"Please—not network lag. Anything but lag."

A few desperate souls were lighting incense sticks and whispering "gaming RNG prayers."

A college student in Canada kept slapping his router singing, "Don’t fail me now, baby."

This was even worst for the ordinary people, as they are aware of the insane competition they will be facing.

As if facing off against each other wasn’t enough, they are also facing off a group of teams that that each government, companies and organisations has set up. They can only hope that they will be able to snatch one for themselves.

Actually, as Liam had already instructed Lucy to ensure no governments, corporations, black ops teams, or organizations got a unit.

Lucy had marked every suspicious IP, every VPN cluster, every proxy node, every bot net, every coordinated government attack.

It didn’t matter how fast their fingers were.

It didn’t matter what computers they used. They would get nothing.

Tonight was for the people. Not for the ones who wanted to weaponize Lucid.

***

At exactly 11:49 PM in Los Angeles, the countdown appeared.

10 minutes.

And the world turned silent. Not metaphorically. It turned silent, as everyone goes their breath. It was if breathing will reduces their chances of getting the device.

Billions of eyes locked onto screens. Governments activated high-speed war networks. Tech giants deployed private servers and hackers sharpened their keyboards. Ordinary citizens crossed their fingers so tightly their knuckles turned white.

5 minutes.

Breathing grew even more shallow around the world, and sweat dripped from foreheads.

Social media froze under the weight of billions waiting.

1 minute.

Total silence.

No one blinked, as no one spoke and no one moved.

It felt like the world was counting down to a nuclear launch.

Because mentally? It WAS.

10...

9...

8...

People hovered over their mouse, over their touchscreen and over their mechanical keyboard.

7...

6...

5...

Someone fainted in a gaming café and someone else started crying from stress.

4...

3...

2...

1...

0.

THE LINK APPEARED.

The moment it dropped, millions clicked at the same time, as the platform exploded with even more traffic.

Every major website on Earth would have crashed instantly from the sheer number of simultaneous clicks—if it were any normal website.

But Nova Technologies wasn’t normal.

Its servers were beyond anything Earth possessed.

Still, even with that... All 1,000 units sold out in under 5 seconds.

The world stared in disbelief and the entire internet lost its mind.

It was the single fastest global purchase event in history.

Before they all could even process what was happening, a new official message appeared:

"All 1,000 units have been purchased."

"The next release will contain 3,000 units."

The world was in pandemonium.

Absolute pandemonium.

Ordinary people collapsed onto their chairs like they had just been dumped by their soulmate.

Some screamed, cried and punched pillows and smashed their phones.

Others ran outside yelling:

"WHY WAS I BORN SLOW?!"

Governments were humiliated, enraged and confused.

Because not a single government agent—despite high-end hardware and near-supercomputer speeds—got a unit.

National security meetings were held instantly.

Someone yelled:

"HOW DID WE NOT GET ONE?!"

Another responded:

"Even North Korea tried... they also failed."

Followed by:

"WHY ARE WE COMPARING OURSELVES TO NORTH KOREA?!"

Corporations?

Their CEOs were nearly foaming at the mouth.

"OUR TECH TEAM FAILED?!"

"EVEN OUR BOT ARMY FAILED?!"

"HOW DOES A WEBSITE IGNORE US?!"

Someone from a major tech giant slammed their desk:

"WHO RUNS THEIR SERVERS—SOMEONE WITH GODLIKE ABILITIES?"

No answer. Because honestly? Yes. Pretty much at this.

As for the lucky 1,000? Oh, they were unbearable.

Posting screenshots of "Order Confirmed."

Changing their profile pictures to Lucid icons.

Tweeting:

"Stay strong, peasants. I, too, was once like you."

"This is what peak reaction time looks like."

"Finger training arc complete."

The jealousy was so intense that memes began flooding the internet instantly:

"Me refreshing the page after 5 seconds: Sold Out."

"At least, they have increased their quota to 3,000. Yes! Let’s go, baby!"

Everyone was beyond happy when they saw that Nova Technologies has increased the quota but when they thought of the number of people that will competing for 3,000 units, which is in the millions, they felt that it wasn’t enough.

They felt that Nova Technologies should just do a 100,000 units monthly, but they are aware that even that number is barely enough to scratch the surface of the never increasing demand for the device. But since there’s nothing they can do about it, they can only wait for a month.

***

Above the Grand Canyon, Liam reclined back with his arms propped behind him as he scrolled through the memes, reactions, rage posts, celebration videos, and global meltdown happening online in real time.

Someone made a meme calling the 1,000 buyers:

"The Chosen Ones."

Someone else posted a picture of themselves crying into a pillow, captioned:

"Not even God wants me to succeed."

A Japanese user posted, "Missed Lucid by 0.2 seconds. I will not speak to anyone for a week."

An American user wrote, "I clicked so fast I dislocated my finger and still lost."

An Indian user wrote, "When you pray to every god but all of them are busy."

And one desperate billionaire wrote, "I am willing to buy one for 10 million USD. DM me."

Of course, he received no responses.

Liam laughed softly to himself. His vacation couldn’t have ended with a better show.

The thought of governments crying into pillows almost made him feel warm inside.

He stood up, brushed dust off his coat, and stretched.

"Alright," he murmured. "Vacation over."

Liam vanished from the cliff without a sound, leaving nothing behind but the cold wind and the moonlit canyon, as he returned back to Bellemere Mansion for the first time in almost a month.