Chapter 234
The Liberation of the World
"If one day the steel mill disappears, our steel will remember us forever!"
"Come on, let's sing together! Unity is strength—"
"For the liberation of the world! And for the great unity of the people! Our steel must become the most powerful shield!"
With these powerful shouts, the sleeping god opened his eyes.
He has been sleeping deep within the veins of Qingyan Mountain for so long that he has lost count of the years.
As a wisp of the earth god, His duty is to guard the earth's veins, watching the lava flow and the vegetation wither and flourish.
He doesn't care about human affairs; those are the affairs of a mother's most beloved child. He only needs to guard his own mountain.
But today, He was woken up.
He was puzzled, wondering why he had woken up.
Even though the shouting wasn't loud and the ground tremors were very weak, why did it wake me up from my deep sleep?
He turned his gaze toward the source of the sound, to a place called Qingyanshan Steel Plant.
Inside the factory, 111 workers were sweating profusely, some shouting slogans, some singing, and some competing in front of the furnace to see who could produce the best steel.
The sound of steel casting echoed continuously, "ding-ding-ding," crisp and rhythmic, like some ancient heartbeat.
He, who normally dislikes noise, found this sound quite pleasant.
That voice contained strength, conviction, and the warmth of a group of people united as one.
He could sense that those humans poured their sweat, strength, and even a part of their souls into the red-hot molten steel.
Every piece of steel remembers a pair of hands that once held it.
And so, accompanied by this sound, He fell asleep once again.
This time, He slept very peacefully.
When He woke up again, it was because of a huge explosion.
It wasn't a volcanic eruption, nor an earthquake; it was something that fell from the sky.
A sharp whistling sound ripped through the sky, followed by a deafening roar—enemy missiles had struck the steel mill.
After the explosion, the crisp clanging of metal disappeared.
The factory area was deathly silent. The chimneys were broken, the factory buildings had collapsed, and molten steel flowed out of the cracked furnace, solidifying on the ground into strange shapes.
One hundred and eleven workers, not one of them escaped; they were all buried underneath.
Later, someone erected a monument that read, "People's Heroes, Eternal Glory," followed by a dense list of names.
Some people offered flowers, some cried, and some took off their hats and bowed.
Although it is regrettable that these people died, as a god, He does not interfere in human affairs.
War is a human affair, death is a human affair, and commemoration is a human affair.
He was merely a fragment of a spirit, having neither the right nor the reason to interfere, so after watching for a while, he turned and continued to sleep.
But what He didn't know was that something had taken notice of this place after He fell asleep.
That thing was very far away, at the other end of the universe. It had no form, no sound, like a faint glimmer of light that crossed immeasurable distances, gently swept across Qingyan Mountain, and then withdrew without leaving any trace.
Only deep within the earth's veins, a barely perceptible black aura, like a seed, began to grow silently.
One year, ten years, twenty years, sixty years.
And that wisp of black energy lies hidden deep within these places, like an invisible fuse, quietly waiting to be ignited.
Sixty years later.
The god awoke again and found the world had changed.
The war ended, peace came, new buildings were built in the town, and people lived a good life.
But the tombstones of those workers who dedicated their lives to steelmaking and died under missiles have fallen, their names are blurred, and their stories have been forgotten...
He felt sorry for those people.
He surprisingly had a selfish thought: he wanted people to remember them.
So He decided to disobey His mother and make a commotion to draw attention to this forgotten land and to the forgotten people.
He remembered the workers' words, "If one day the steel mill is gone, our steel will remember us forever!"
So He decided to use the steel of those workers to make armor, to condense a body, and to appear before humanity as the "God of Steel," so that they would remember those people again.
He began to solidify his body.
The steel that had been dormant in the earth's veins for sixty years was awakened and reassembled.
The moment it took shape, the black aura that had been buried for sixty years stirred.
It was like a venomous snake that had been lying dormant for too long, awakening from the deepest part of the steel armor, climbing along the consciousness of the gods.
The process was very gentle and slow, like cold water slowly washing over the instep. By the time the deity realized something was wrong, that icy power had already seeped into His divine nature.
He wanted to stop, to force that thing out, but it was too late.
The black aura merged with Him, like a catalyst dripping into a reactor, and those originally gentle obsessions of "wanting the workers to be remembered" began to twist.
The phrase "Our steel will remember us" was altered to "They don't deserve to remember us."
He could sense his thoughts changing.
Originally, I just wanted those workers to be remembered, but now that idea is becoming increasingly blurred, replaced by a stronger, different impulse...
Since they don't remember, let them pay the price. Since they choose to forget, let them remember forever, with fear, with death, with destruction!
No, that's not right.
He desperately clung to the last shred of reason, trying to tell himself that it wasn't like that, that the workers didn't mean it that way, and that he didn't mean it that way either.
But that black power was too heavy, like a furnace of molten steel boiling over, poured into His consciousness, melting and devouring all gentle thoughts, leaving only the most primal rage.
One hundred and eleven voices echoed in my mind, no longer neat slogans, but distorted roars.
The voices grew louder and louder, eventually converging into the same thought—
destroy.
Destroy everything.
Let everyone remember us.
The gods' resistance grew weaker and weaker, like a person clinging tightly to a branch in a flood, but the branch broke and the river rose.
The last string broke...
His eyes, like molten iron, shone with a dark red light, a light that was no longer the gentle light of a god.
Originally, He wanted to prove the existence of these workers, but at this moment, He is thinking of killing these ungrateful humans to proclaim their existence.
He took his first step, and the ground cracked beneath his feet, from which magma gushed forth.
He walked toward the town.
Every step felt like an earthquake, yet every step brought us one step closer to the town.