Chapter 926 Loyalty!
Chapter 926 Loyalty!
Thousands of steps.
If it were in reality, Battlefield would probably have to stop twice on the way.
However, in the game, when he stepped on the last step, he was relaxed without even taking a breath.
Looking at the old man in golden power armor standing in front of the hall waiting for him, Battlefield looked back at the densely packed figures and torches that almost shrank into a dot under the steps behind him, and couldn’t help but click his tongue in surprise.
At this time, a calm and kind voice floated over.
”My name is Lei Ze.”
”I… Pangolin,” Retracting his gaze from behind, Battlefield looked at the old man in power armor again, and finally couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity, “Can I ask a question?”
”My age?”
The old man stared at him with a wise look, as if he saw through his thoughts.
Battlefield nodded and asked directly.
”How old are you?”
Lei Ze raised his eyes slightly, stared at the tall archway and thought for a while, then spoke.
”In the 42nd year of the Wasteland Era, we captured the Weilant Laboratory under the War Construction Committee and obtained all the genetic source codes of the Weilant people, which marked that we had completely controlled our own destiny and gained the independence and freedom we had always dreamed of.”
”It was also at that time that Marshal Julius cut my umbilical cord with his own hands and took me out of the broken culture tank… You can calculate it for me.”
After hearing the old man’s words, the Battlefield Atmosphere Group was stunned and stunned.
If he remembered correctly, it was the 214th year of the Wasteland Era.
In other words…
this old guy is already 172 years old? !
Although this age is not a big deal in a game with a fantasy background, it is because this game is too realistic, so he accidentally used reality as a reference.
”Are you surprised?”
”Indeed…” After restraining his surprised expression, the Battlefield guy nodded and said with emotion, “You are probably the oldest person I have ever seen.”
The old man smiled faintly.
”Living long is not a skill. There is nothing to brag about. Besides, I am not the longest-lived
person.” “Are you talking about the Marshal?” The Warlord looked excited. “Is he still alive?”
The respected commander of the Royal Guards did not answer his question, but turned around and walked towards the hall.
The Warlord quickened his pace, chasing after the man in the scarlet cloak, and followed the old man into the hall. The
towering marble columns connected the towering dome and the ground, and magnificent reliefs were engraved on the columns.
There were no bright red carpets or crosses here.
There were no electric lighting tools.
The only decorations were milky white marble and vessels made of pure gold.
The Royal Guards wearing golden exoskeletons held up two-person-high flaming spears and lit the torches embedded in the wall.
Their expressions were solemn and serious, as if they were holding a sacred ceremony.
As the torches were lit, the originally dark hall was illuminated by the slowly burning flames.
At this time, the warlord was surprised to find that there were reliefs carved on the walls on both sides of the hall.
Those reliefs were connected like murals, full of stories, and extended to the end of the hall.
He walked to the wall closest to the door and stood still, looking at the reliefs engraved on the wall.
At the top of the relief, there were three burning torches, and the handles of the torches were connected to three powerful arms.
The thick arms were like mountains, tall and upright and unshakable. And the flames burning in the torches were as hot as the sun, dispelling the shadows on the ground.
”… This was during the period of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, the 21st year of the Wasteland Era, the beginning of the Weyland Plan and the beginning of suffering, and at the same time, it was the day when the Marshal was born…
Walking to the side of the warlord, Lei Ze reached out and touched the mural, his eyes seemed to be lost in memories, and he slowly spoke in a gentle and solemn tone.
”The evaluation of them by the wastelanders was mixed, and we call it the period of the Big Three. ”
Feeling the weight of history, the battlefield guy swallowed his saliva involuntarily.
”…The Big Three refer to the Technology Department, the Production Department and the Defense Department?”
”Yes.”
The old man nodded slowly, and his gold-plated index finger followed the marble lines, along the bulging veins on the arm all the way down, and stopped at the black dots as fine as gravel.
At first, the battlefield guy thought it was just an embellishment of color, until he got closer and found that those black dots were actually crawling people carved from micro-carvings.
His eyes widened involuntarily.
No wonder he always heard Fang Chang say that these big-nosed people were born artists and engineers, and it was a waste of their talents to let them go to war.
The stonemason’s carving skills have simply reached the level of perfection!
”The thousands of survivors who have come forward one after another have made the glory of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee, just as tens of billions of citizens of the People’s Union have jointly made the prosperity of the People’s Union…”
”However, their greatness is also the easiest to be overlooked. ”
”In this way, we unknowingly created a monster, fed it, obeyed it, and finally feared it… and were dragged by it onto a path we had never imagined. In the end, almost everyone forgot what we should do and what we were doing.”
Looking at the old man who was lost in his memories, the Warlord’s Adam’s apple moved.
”I remember… the Post-War Reconstruction Committee also saved a lot of people.”
Lei Ze nodded slowly and said in a gentle tone.
”You are right, if it doesn’t save anyone, why is it called the Post-War Reconstruction Committee instead of something else? The fact that fire burns is not worth being grateful for. We have to remember those who survived and those who were burned to death… This mural only records the history of the Willant people. I believe there must be other murals in this world, or similar things, recording parts that are different from ours. ”
The Warlord also nodded.
He remembered that there seemed to be a cinema in the inner city of Boulder City, which showed some past history and calculations of future possibilities based on current events.
However, that cinema had been destroyed by the collapsed building during the great changes in Boulder City.
It was a pity that he had never been there to see it, but only heard the NPC in the game mention it.
Seeing that he did not continue speaking, Lei Ze cast his gaze on the relief on the marble wall and continued.
”After winning the final victory, the Weilant people built this Glory House as a gift to the marshal. The marshal ordered us… the guards, his most loyal servants, to carve the history of the Weilant people on the wall.”
”It’s not that we don’t have more advanced recording technology, but Lord Julius… our respected marshal said that it’s easy to tamper with those illusory lights and shadows, but things engraved on the stone will not be easily and completely erased.” “Even if
the people who came here after us cut off the entire wall, the traces of hammering will still seep deep into the base of the wall.”
”Unless the person who tampered with it completely destroyed this monument, wiped it off the earth, and then built a taller, larger, and more magnificent fake on the ruins.”
Lei Ze, wearing a golden power armor, continued to move forward with the young man behind him.
Following behind the old man, the battlefield man stared at the relief on the wall intently.
He first witnessed the rise of Triumph City, and the war between the Weylants and the mutants and the predators… These legendary past events seemed to have happened somewhere before, and the more he looked at them, the more familiar they looked.
Until a certain moment, he suddenly realized that these things did not happen, but were always happening.
For example, the conquest of Avent City.
Those who occupied the miracle of the Human Alliance era, possessed advanced technology and huge wealth, but rejected some survivors in the wasteland, were simply carved out of the same mold as the old nobles of Boulder City.
But this is also the point of disagreement.
The Weylants who conquered Avent City did not make the same choice as the Alliance in the end.
They executed the stingy nobles, confiscated the property of the rich, and those poor poor people did not get any benefits in the end… The Weylants who conquered Avent City regarded them as accomplices and running dogs of the nobles, and demoted all the aliens to slaves.
They conducted a thorough liquidation of the survivors in the city, but only let go of the problem itself.
The casino continued to operate.
In a series of events that happened in the following decades, the Weylanders also completely changed from being persecuted to being complete persecutors.
The content of the relief became more and more shocking. There was no red on the milky white marble wall, but it was painted with blood.
Later, a group of people appeared on the relief.
They had no eyes, no mouths, and even their noses were cut off, leaving only ears.
The battlefield guy recognized them and his expression became stunned.
”That’s…”
Lei Ze said in a calm tone.
”Clone soldiers, since you have been on the battlefield, you should be familiar with them.”
Of course, the battlefield guy recognized them.
Those guys who grow eight times faster have an average theoretical lifespan of eight years, but their average lifespan on the battlefield is only three years. In
the Battle of Sunset, the Alliance took the surrendered clone soldiers as prisoners, and many of them are still alive today.
They have no reproductive function and no complete mind, and it is almost impossible for them to integrate into civilized society. How to deal with them more humanely and whether to count them as human beings has always been a difficult problem for the Alliance Biological Research Institute and the Academy of Social Sciences.
Seeing that the young man behind him seemed very interested in them, Lei Ze stopped in front of the mural about clones, recalled for a moment and then spoke.
”We used our own gene source code to create a group of Weylanders who were different from us, hoping that they could charge for us… But the facts proved that this was a failed exploration. Sacrifice is not something that can be replaced. Civilization will only move forward after paying enough price.”
Failed exploration?
The Warlord showed a complicated expression on his face.
In fact, if he were to evaluate, those clone cannon fodders were still a bit difficult to deal with.
To this day, he still remembers that the Pioneer was forced into a desperate situation by 2,000 clone troops, and even launching a tactical nuclear bomb did not fundamentally change the situation. It
was not until the reinforcements of the Alliance arrived that the entire battle was completely ended.
Of course, they were not called the Alliance at that time, and many things happened later.
”Actually, there is one thing I don’t understand… Why would someone like His Majesty the Marshal approve of the technology of clone cannon fodder.”
Including the massacre of Yavent City…
The Marshal should still be alive at that time, right?
Looking at the young man with a confused face, Lei Ze just smiled faintly.
”When you think about the predicament of your predecessors from the perspective of the later generations, you will indeed encounter such confusions… Then I also want to ask you, why do people like your managers who are upright and honest also use clones as containers?”
The battlefield guy was about to answer, but suddenly realized something and looked at the old man in golden power armor in astonishment.
Your manager…
This guy saw through his identity? !
Lei Ze looked at him meaningfully, and his cloudy pupils seemed to penetrate his soul.
”You are too young. You can deceive others, but not me… It was probably more than a hundred years ago, when Marshal Julius had not left us. There was a time when I dealt most with you guys who were running around. “Blue gophers” are the ones I deal with the most. Pangolin? There’s nothing wrong with you calling yourself that. Anyway, I think they are all the same.”
Seeing that the old man had already seen through his tricks, the battlefield guy was silent for a while and said with a wry smile.
”When did you find out?”
Did he reveal a flaw in Dawn City?
There seemed to be a guard there, and his name seemed to be Quick.
But when dealing with that guy, he was always very careful, and it seemed that he didn’t reveal any flaws.
”… No need to guess, from the moment you entered Triumph City, I knew who you were and where you came from.”
After a pause, Lei Ze continued.
”But you don’t have to be nervous, whether you are a resident of the shelter, a visitor from five light years away, or an alien who has nothing to do with humans, it doesn’t matter to me… You are the person the marshal is waiting for, and I brought you here, so my mission is completed.”
After saying that, he looked at the reliefs on the wall in front of him and continued in a casual tone.
”Mr. Julius is not a perfect saint. He is just like your respected administrator. He also has his own feelings, desires and thoughts…”
”He gets angry when he is betrayed. He gets sad when he sees his companions dying. Avent City betrayed us, but the residents of Avent City are indeed innocent. He regretted it afterwards. However, it has already happened. It is impossible to put the spilled water back into the cup. Many things cannot be reversed by one’s will.”
”Between the worst and worse decisions, he chose the moment when he thought the damage was less severe, allowing time to resolve the conflict between the Weilants and the old humans, thus avoiding the separation of the Weilants from the Weilants. This is also the origin of Triumph City’s protection of slaves. Before that, it was a luxury for alien races other than the Weilants to even survive, let alone become a thousand-man commander.”
”Including the clone soldiers that came later, he hoped that this way he could save the Weilants from shedding less blood. However, when he came to his senses, he suddenly realized that he had only created a new group of Weilants and did not solve the problem fundamentally.”
”And the sacrifices made by the Weilants did not decrease. On the contrary, due to the increase in war potential, they got more wars and shed more blood for it.”
”And this is what made him even more painful. He thought he was a sinner of the Weilants and even all mankind, and he regretted that his decision was extremely stupid, and he was very much like the self-righteous Lowell in the Far East.”
“He wanted to end the Wasteland Era, but ended up making himself and his children part of it. However, even so, his subordinates still worshipped him, and worshipped him more and more, even regarding him as a god…including me.”
The old man lowered his eyebrows slightly, then opened his eyes again.
”I saw it all, whether it was his joy or pain, after all, he always brought me with him.”
”He once asked me if I regretted it, but to this day, my answer is still the same… I will never regret my loyalty to him.”
”Just like that gentleman said, no one can go through life without making mistakes, and there has never been a perfect saint in this world. He can foresee many things and solve many problems, but there will always be a quagmire that he could not have anticipated lurking in front of all of us…”
”But there is nothing to be afraid of. We are not afraid of death, let alone falling down?”
”Just as he once said, as long as we record history honestly and face it upright and without covering up, the Weilant people will be a nation with hope, and sooner or later we will be able to walk out of our own quagmire.”
When saying this, Lei Ze’s face was calm. The Adam’s
apple of the battlefield atmosphere group moved, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva gently.
The ordinary tone seemed to be telling a story, but it seemed as if a heavy epic was unfolded in front of him.
It’s impossible to say that he didn’t feel a little touched…
As for where the Marshal was, he already had the answer in his heart.
”So… Marshal Julius is no longer here, right?”
In fact, he had a premonition.
”The omnipotent marshal in the hearts of the Weilants is actually just an ordinary person born in the 21st year of the Wasteland Era, and he is not even an awakener. Years of fighting have left him with many incurable hidden diseases, so that in the end he had to wear a power armor with a life-sustaining device to maintain his life, and he would be awakened by pain almost every night…”
”I remember the last time I had dinner with him was in the 100th year of the Wasteland Era, at a dinner celebrating a victory. He probably wanted to wait until dark before leaving, but in the end he couldn’t hold on at dusk. He hurriedly left his last words and walked into the deepest part of the Glory House alone.”
”At that time we didn’t know that it was a will, although I had a hunch… After all, he had been handing over his power bit by bit since a long time ago, and preparing for what would happen after he left.”
This time, Lei Ze finally answered his question directly, and cast his gaze to the end of the marble relief-the blank space where the relief had not yet been engraved.
”The future history will be written by future generations. We followed his will and carved everything that happened after he left on the wall. We will follow his will and wait for the arrival of ‘that person’.”
”…But there is one thing I don’t understand,” the Battlefield Atmosphere Group took a step forward and couldn’t help asking, “Why did he hide his death?”
Lei Ze didn’t answer, but cast his eyes on the door at the end of the marble relief.
”He’s in front, just ask him directly.”
The Battlefield guy was stunned for a few seconds, but when he saw the key and flashlight handed over by the old man, he still reached out to take them.
He walked to the heavy iron door, inserted the key and turned the keyhole.
With a tooth-grinding creaking sound, the rusty iron door finally opened.
To his surprise, what he saw was not a magnificent palace, but just a simple room.
The decoration here is very monotonous. If it weren’t for the bed, he couldn’t imagine that this is where the respected Marshal Julius lives. It looks more like a storage room.
The dust blowing in his face made the battlefield guy frown involuntarily.
There is no electricity here, so there is naturally no such thing as a hibernation chamber.
As for Julius’s body, the loyal guards would definitely not let it rot here. It must have been cremated or placed in a coffin that will not decay.
It’s not that no one has been here before. At least the commander of the Reize, who is responsible for keeping the key and keeping the secret, must have come here.
The battlefield guy turned on the flashlight and looked around. Suddenly, he was surprised to find that there was a golden power armor in the gap between the third and fourth rows of bookshelves.
”Wow… the real mission reward is hidden here!?”
The battlefield guy said to himself in surprise, stepped over the thick dust on the floor, and walked to the front of the power armor.
This should be the one that Julius wore, and the armor should be coated with real gold.
Even after a whole century of baptism, there is no trace of rust on it.
He reached out and touched the armor, only to see the helmet’s eyepiece light up, and the power components inside the armor made a restarting sound.
At this moment, a deep voice floated out from the helmet…
”You’re here?”
”What the hell?”
Startled by the sudden sound, the battlefield guy took a step back unconsciously.
But soon he found that it was a pre-recorded voice.
”I have told Lei Ze that if the thing I’m worried about still doesn’t happen after the last wall is used up, it means that everything we have done is correct, and then you can just find a place to bury me.” ”
But since you’re here… it seems that the situation I least want but am extremely sure will happen has finally happened.”
”Actually, pretending to be alive is not a smart decision, but I had no better way under the circumstances.”
”The Legion’s mission is not just to save the Weilants, we also have the mission of cleaning up the mess for the Human League. I also tried to make the Legion a little more normal before I left, but unfortunately, I don’t have much time left… and once I die, the Legion will surely fall apart, and then chaos will swallow up everything we have left in this world.”
”I know the Legion is a beast, but it is better than those man-eating marauders, mutant tribes, or mutant slime molds that cannot be called civilized at all. Maybe one day we will be killed by other survivors who unite, or replaced by more advanced and civilized productivity and production relations, just like the overthrown War Construction Committee… but that day is definitely not now.”
”Winter is over, but chaos and barbarism are not… If we die early, a better era will not come. We will kill each other and move towards a future that is worse and more barbaric than the Stone Age, and transform into real beasts.”
”I tried to prolong my life with technological means, and thus lived twenty more years, but the problem was not solved. Instead, my children became more dependent on me. And those restless forces and the ambitions that come with the power are also expanding silently.”
”I have also considered the hibernation capsule, but that is also not a good idea, because my death is necessary for the Weilant people. An immortal leader will not bring a brighter future to his children. It will only turn them into cold and hard stones in their longing and admiration.”
”Besides, I can’t do anything in hibernation, let alone deter those guys who are ready to make a move. And when I wake up from hibernation, I will bring new troubles after being resurrected from the dead.”
”In that case, I can only bear the injustice of being a ‘living dead’ for once.”
”The Weilants will remain steadfastly united in the name of loyalty until we get through the last cold winter. Facing beings more barbaric than us, we will be invincible. And the only ones who can defeat us must be more civilized, more progressive, and more historically inevitable than us.” ”
There must be someone who will come here from the land we have never conquered, liberate us from the mission that is becoming a burden and the loyalty that is being coerced, and lead us and all the other suffering survivors to a new era.” ”
I guess when that moment comes, our territory will not be so vast that it cannot include five hundred habitable galaxies. In that case, it’s no big deal to fall before learning to walk… and this is what we owe to the other survivors.”
”The Weilants should be part of the world, not the enemies of the world. I believe that now that you are standing here, you must understand what I am talking about.”
”See this power armor? It’s yours now.”
”Put it on, walk out of here, and then tell my loyal lads that the Legion has brought them to the dawn after the long night, and its historical mission has ended! Now they themselves are the sun, and the torches in their hands are the floating white on the horizon!”
”Tell them for me that their dear Marshal Julius was 79 years old and died in the dusk before nightfall. He fell asleep with a smile, perhaps with regrets, but no regrets. There is no need to miss him, he is everywhere, has never left, and has long become everyone living on this land!”
”Be true to your heart, be loyal to all Weilants, be loyal to all suffering survivors–”
”That is loyalty to me!”
(End of this chapter)
