lcionline Chapter 59 The Bloodbath Never Ends! The Holy War Never Stops!
Chapter 59 The Bloodbath Never Ends! The Holy War Never Stops!
"Amazing grace, how sweet it is, my sins are forgiven..."
The singing rose from the central square of Hegang Town.
The wooden platform was new, rebuilt from pine planks found in the warehouse. It was unpainted and still bore the marks of chisels. The platform was empty, while people stood below it.
Approximately one thousand people.
There were men, women, and children, all wearing clothes covered in dust and sweat, and some had bandages wrapped around their arms or heads.
They stood straight, their eyes fixed on the empty wooden platform, yet their voices blended together in unison, each word pronounced clearly.
The rubble from the shell explosions has been cleared to the edge of the square and piled up into a waist-high wall of rubble.
The racks that used to hang Gundams have been replaced with a new batch.
The seven Gundams, in such a short time, already had some frosting on them.
It glowed with a dark red light in the afternoon sun.
The live streaming equipment was set up on both sides of the wooden platform.
The number of online users on the phone screen kept changing: 80,000, 90,000, 100,000...
The singing continued into the third verse.
Carl Jensen appeared from behind the square.
He was wearing the same work pants and brown leather jacket as the people in the audience, his beard was shaved, and his hair was still short.
With steady steps, he climbed the wooden platform steps one by one.
The singing didn't stop, but the volume was noticeably increased.
Everyone's eyes followed him, their gazes burning.
Karl walked to the center of the wooden platform and stood still.
He raised his right hand, palm down, and made a pressing motion.
The singing stopped.
It took only two seconds to go from deafening noise to absolute silence.
Only the sound of the wind and the distant rustling of shovels breaking earth remained in the square.
About five hundred surrendered white soldiers were building fortifications, but they stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the wooden platform.
Karl's gaze swept across the audience.
He recognized every single one of those faces.
David Miller stood in the front row, with a fresh abrasion on his left cheek.
Stephen Taylor was beside him, holding a rifle with the butt against the ground.
James Jones stood a little further away, with his back against a half-brick wall.
Everyone was watching him.
Carl turned around and looked behind the wooden platform.
There, giant crosses were stacked, with horizontal arms about ten meters long and vertical arms over fifteen meters long.
Most of the Gundams are intact, some even with frost on them, but their clothes and helmets have been removed.
The cross lay on the uneven ground, like a monument built of blood and flesh.
He turned around and raised his right hand.
With the palm facing up, the cross-shaped scar is clearly visible in the sunlight, with slightly raised edges and a darker color than the surrounding skin.
He picked up a torch from the edge of the wooden platform with his left hand.
The torches were made of rags soaked in diesel oil wrapped around wooden sticks; they ignited easily, and the flames flickered in the wind.
"The Lord's chosen people!"
Karl spoke, his voice amplified by a microphone clipped to his collar, and carried out from portable speakers around the square.
"Under the Lord's watchful eye, we crushed the claws of sinful capital, defended our town, and upheld our rights!"
He paused.
The wind blew the smoke from the torch to one side.
"host--"
He raised his voice.
"They're watching us!"
The moment he finished speaking, he turned around, swung his arm in a wide arc, and threw the torch at the pile of corpses.
The torch drew an arc in the air and landed in the middle of the cross's vertical arm.
Diesel fuel is flammable.
The flames first shot up in a small cluster, then quickly spread along the frost and grease.
Three seconds later, the entire cross was engulfed in flames.
Black smoke billowed upwards, leaving a straight column of smoke in the clear sky.
The aroma of roasted, spoiled protein wafted through the air.
Cheers erupted in the square.
At first, there were only a few scattered sounds, but they quickly merged into a chorus.
People raised their arms and clenched their fists; some jumped up, while others just stood there, heads tilted back, roaring.
The voices weren't loud, just over a thousand people, but each voice carried something heavy: the trembling of surviving a catastrophe, the ecstatic joy of defeating a stronger opponent, and the unwavering conviction of religious fanaticism.
They won! Under the Lord's watchful eye and led by the saints, they won a holy war that seemed impossible to win!
Carl waited for a while.
Approximately twenty seconds.
Then he raised his hand again, palm down.
The cheers stopped abruptly, as if cut off by a knife.
"but."
He said the sound had returned to its previous level tone.
"This is nothing more than cutting off a small part of the flesh and blood claws of capital."
He scanned the audience, his gaze sweeping across each face.
"The path to redemption is not yet complete."
He raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and held it up to shoulder height.
"O chosen people of the Lord—"
The voice suddenly rose in pitch, each word sounding like it was hitting a concrete floor:
"Are you willing to follow me! Follow the Lord's will, walk the path of atonement, and turn all sins and all suffering into sacrifices! Obey the Lord's teachings—"
He took a deep breath, expanded his chest, and then roared out the last eight words:
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
A brief silence.
Immediately afterwards!
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
David Miller was the first to shout, his voice hoarse.
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
Stephen Taylor shouted along, raising his fist above his head.
The third, the tenth, the hundredth.
Everyone in the square stood up, everyone raised their arms, and everyone roared with all their might.
The sounds overlapped, crashing against the surrounding building walls and bouncing back, creating a continuous roar.
Although there were only a little over a thousand people, they roared with the momentum of tens of thousands charging forward.
The live stream chat exploded.
A torrent of white text flooded the screen like a waterfall, all of it containing the same sentence:
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
Carl stood on the stage, looking at the excited crowd below.
He was about to turn around and leave.
The speech ended, the fire was lit, and the slogans were shouted.
The next step is to rest, resupply, redeploy, and formulate plans for the next phase.
But just as he took half a step back with his left foot, the back of his right hand suddenly became burning hot.
It wasn't the heat of a torch's lingering flame; it was a burning, stinging pain that surged from deep within the skin and flesh.
He looked down.
The cross scar on my palm is glowing.
A dark red light, like red-hot iron, seeped from the edges of the scar and quickly spread to the entire palm.
The blood vessels under the skin are clearly visible, flashing in and out with each pulse.
Immediately afterwards, a surge of heat welled up from deep within the body, instantly spreading to every part of the body.
The muscle fibers are stretched to their limit, and the bones make a slight cracking sound.
His vision suddenly became clear, and he could see the smallest pores on every face in the audience contracting, and he could hear the frantic beating of everyone's heart.
The Blood Flag Domain expanded automatically.
A dark red wave spread out from him, sweeping across the entire square like ripples on water.
David Miller, sitting in the audience, took a deep breath.
He felt a surge of power explode from the base of his spine, instantly filling his entire body.
The fatigue accumulated from the continuous battle disappeared, the abrasion on my arm no longer stung, and even breathing became unusually easy.
Stephen Taylor gripped the rifle tightly, his knuckles making a crisp sound.
He turned his neck, and a kind of newborn vitality surged through his veins.
It's not just them.
All the believers in the square, all those who had just been chanting slogans, simultaneously felt the change.
His shoulders straightened unconsciously, his eyes became sharper, and his hand holding the gun became more steady.
Even the surrendered soldiers who were working stopped what they were doing.
They turned around and looked blankly at the wooden platform, at the figure on it illuminated by flames and black smoke.
A strange yet real sense of power is welling up from somewhere deep within me.
It wasn't intense, but it was clearly discernible, like someone who had been carrying a heavy load suddenly taking off their backpack.
"This is……"
A surrendered soldier looked down at his hands and murmured.
On the stage, Karl hunched over.
The power was still surging in, like a flood bursting its banks, washing over every inch of flesh and blood.
He clenched his teeth, veins bulged on his neck, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
The red light in the palm of his right hand grew brighter and brighter, almost shining through his skin.
The crowd below witnessed it all.
A brief silence.
Then--
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
The first roar exploded.
"The bloody battle will not cease! The holy war will not end!"
Second tone, third tone, hundredth tone.
The voice was even more frantic and hoarse than before, carrying a kind of madness after witnessing a miracle.
Everyone raised their arms again, clenched their fists, and roared at the sky.
The sound waves surged in layers, completely enveloping the bowing man in the center of the wooden platform.