Congratulations on the innovative shortcut! That may have just been a glitch.
But the lack of other riders is due to your Zwift client app not being able to talk with Zwift’s servers. That’s almost certainly down to a problem at your end, e.g. wifi dropout, router problem, your ISP having a glitch. That shouldn’t have caused your shortcut though, since Zwift can follow a route perfectly well with no internet connection whatsoever (you just need one at the start to join the world, and again at the end to save).