61 Leverage
"HOLY COW!"
"OH MY GOD! THIS COMPANY HAS COMPLETELY GONE MADDD."
"How can we witness something like this happening in today's world!"
"Lol, I'm enjoying this so much, this is making my dormant blood start boiling again."
"Bravo Virus Industries, I love the way they handle things, hahaha."
"How is this possible? Is it truly the Virus Industries behind this?"
"In response to the above, well, there is no evidence leading to them, but who can it be other than that Virus Company? I mean you were following the previous news since two days ago, right?"
"Isn't this too much? I mean, they shouldn't be able to do this as the law shouldn't allow it, am I wrong? the country should sue that company!"
"Actually, this is just plain stupid, they are harming themselves too by showing they are not trustworthy and like this, they will take lots of economic damage, they might be experiencing it even now, as we speak."
"I just heard the country can't do anything as the contract was too much loose, almost allowing the Virus Industries to do whatever they felt like doing..."
"To the above speaker, why would the country sign such a contract in the first place? Are they stupid? And more importantly, how do you even know such important inside news."
"Well, seeing that advanced phones and the cheap prices they were selling for, the country only wanted to sign the contract faster to allow the phones to be sold in the country, not caring about the clauses and terms in the contract, it's not like they were left with any other choice too, as that company had said they would not change a single term and clause in the contract, also, I know of this because my father is one of the higher-ups...
The internet was exploding once again as people started talking about it all over the world.
But despite all this, the Virus Industries remained silent about the matter, now however much those countries accused them of different things.
Because first, they could not prove this was done by the Virus Industries in any way, no one could even figure out how this was happening, even though it was obvious who was behind this and everyone could guess it was done by them.
And second, it was their phones and software so if they wanted, even though it would be a little difficult, they could probably start banning and sanctioning specific countries from using their phones.
Because before going into contract with all of the countries, Virus had already roughly anticipated such a day might come, so he had ordered the Legal ugly to add odd and harsh clauses that would almost make the company do whatever it wanted.
At the time, seeing the super advanced phones with such cheap prices, almost all of the countries had accepted it with no hesitation whatsoever, while a few did hesitate at first but eventually accepted it with opened arms, thinking only a fool would reject such a good deal.
And about the company's image which would take some damage because of this matter, Virus didn't care honestly, as the more advanced their technologies start to get in the near future, the more the countries and their people will throw themselves at to buy.
Seeing their phones not working, people of those countries with deactivated phones started complaining about the Virus Industries as they condemned and criticized them at first, but after a while they saw the country could not do anything about it, so they started thinking they just wanted their phones to be activated again as they had paid for it, so they changed their side and started saying it was their country that was in the wrong for not returning the criminals, as they started blaming their own country.
Seeing the situation escalate and knowing things couldn't continue like this as most people had already bought the phones, all of the remaining countries except Russia sighed in surrender as they returned the criminals while thinking the Virus Industries were a fearful company that could take you down only with its advanced products.
But Russia was still not cooperating with the Virus Industries as they did not imprison that Russian CEO back again, it could be imagined what kind of background that CEO must have for the country to go to these lengths for him, though what they announced through their media was that, "they will not imprison back that CEO, because the country does not negotiate with criminals, as the true criminal here is the Virus Industries for deactivating the phones." and they also said the Virus Industries was probably behind the 'Ghost Theft' too.
After the countries made their standing points clear, all of the deactivated phones other than those in Russia started reactivating by themselves again, as it had never happened in the first place, this made the common people around the world speechless of how a company could just do whatever it wanted and no one could do anything about it unless their demands are met.
Some of those CEOs that were returned back to their countries and imprisoned were once again in despair and started regretting their decision of ever going against that Virus Industries, they swore if they only had another chance, they would never go against that company again, but unfortunately for them, no such a second chance was going to be given to them.
While most of the CEOs started hating the Virus Industries to their bones, hating it for destroying their companies, hating it for not leaving them alone even when they had run away, some of them even started planning whatever they could think of to deal a blow to that company in any way possible.
Even though they were not as powerful as before, they still had some of their connections and more importantly, now they had almost nothing else to lose, which made them even more dangerous than the past.
___________________
WITH VIRUS
"It's truly amusing watching them in despair bound by the laws they thought they could use to their advantage..." Virus said while grinning.
A couple of days had passed since Ella had come to his visit, after laying on his shoulder for some time, she left as she seemed to feel better and happier.
Now although Virus still had things to do, he decided to put a hold on it temporarily for something else.
Today, finally his bones and skeleton were completely immune to all impurities, so he wanted to break through to the eighth stage of purifying stage, which was considered the top and peak of the purifying stage in the Cultivation Multiverse of Qi.