Act.12 · [Roundabout · Taking the Long Way]

Foreword:

The more vigorously the flint is struck, the brighter the light it emits.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[Part 1: Soil and Feces]

"I once existed on Earth; this is the only thing you should remember."

Meteor silently murmured these words, feeling a heaviness creep into her heart.

As a typical Gen, born and raised in Hong Kong, he had no idea what the bilingual (Chinese and Russian) sentences meant.

Brother Yibu took out a rag and carefully wiped the dusty crystal coffin. He then told everyone a story that was both strange and familiar, as if the ashes in the white crystal had been alive and well not long ago.

"Among these ashes are my fathers and my fathers' fathers. When the Philosopher Foundation was established, they rushed into the underworld without hesitation, bidding farewell to their hometowns, and stayed away for most of their lives."

The Slavic men took off their woolen hats to keep warm and held them to their chests.

Yibu cleaned up the white crystal and then began wiping the tabletop.

"The base above us, the roads outside the base, Albert Research Station beyond the roads were all built brick by brick, step by step, by these people. Many times I don't understand why I still have to keep struggling with the giants here."

He looked up at Jason—

"Iason, the outside world must be very beautiful, right?"

Jason wanted to say something, but Yibu kept asking more and more questions.

Is human trafficking still happening?

Are there still people who don't have enough to eat or wear?

Is there enough land on the ground?

Are people still selling their bodies? Selling their flesh and blood? Or their souls?

In the end, Jason couldn't answer a single question.

Ibrahimovic didn't ask any further questions.

Silence is the most powerful answer.

"Land, land, land is the source of wealth. All productive activities are inseparable from the land. Bu Liuxing, now you should understand—why we're going to that sea, right?" After wiping the platform and putting away the strips of cloth, Brother Yibu turned to the people and said, "If the land on earth isn't enough, someone has to go where no one else wants to go. We don't care what's on the other side of the sea; that's something for future generations to care about."

"Brother Yibu." Meteor reached out his hand, wanting to shake hands with this tough guy, just like the countless rituals he had performed with Xue Ming.

Yibu had initially thought that these young passengers and VIPs were a beautifully wrapped, perfunctory gift from Ming De to the RSH outpost, and that he could see all sorts of fashionable and cheerful things in these people.

Their jewelry, the things they discussed, their constant companionship, each leading their own wonderful life.

Ming De seemed to be reminding Ibrahimovic and the rest of RSH in this way—if things really don't work out, just give up and go back to the Albert Research Station to coast along.

There are already many new-era Slavic men who spout false sentiments and act hypocritically, while holding counterfeit cigarettes and alcohol, and using fake AKs and fake smiles to entertain guests.

If you feel that this kind of lazy, aimless life is beneath your proud warrior, you can return to the Abyssal Railway system and find a way out.

That's exactly what Ibrahimovic was thinking.

--Until he returned to the shrine at the Monument to the People's Heroes, he once again polished the dusty white crystal until it shone brightly.

--Until he shook hands with Bu Liuxing, he felt the burning soul within this young man's vigorous body.

Bu Liuxing repeated the inscription on the memorial shrine, "If I die here, it will prove that I once existed on Earth, and that is the only thing that matters."

Yibu grabbed his Chinese brother's arm and nodded vigorously. "Please remember this."

While the Slavs and Chinese were conducting pre-war mobilization, the cunning and resourceful Romans had already found clues at the end of the wide passageway.

Jason poured wine onto the smooth surface of the crystal coffin; even in such a frigid environment, the antifreeze, a specialty of the Northern Territory, could not be frozen into ice flakes.

While paying tribute to the souls of Soviet heroes, the liquor, carried by the turbulent air currents, all surged in the same direction.

The wind direction revealed the existence of the underground cavity. Jason grabbed Diamond, and the two searched the smooth stone walls, but couldn't find an entrance, not even a crack.

"--Pick me up, Iason!" Diamond picked up the toolbox, straddled Jason's shoulders, and began searching higher for gaps in the air duct.

Jason and Diamond touched the top and bottom of the wall, respectively, but still couldn't find the air duct.

Diamond, covered in dust, scraped a lot of dirt off the wall and spoke to Jason with his head down.

"He doesn't seem to be here, Iason!"

Jason: "The wind doesn't lie! Look again carefully!"

Diamond: "Look at this wall. If it could be opened, there would at least be a crack in the door! In my years of experience exploring underground, it's long since weathered away, covered with a thick layer of plaster—like when a car repair shop applies putty to a car's paint. There's an outer shell, air can get in, but you can't feel it!"

Jason: "Then what should we do?"

Diamond called out, "Brother Yibu! Give me the wine!"

Meteor tossed a bucket of antifreeze to Diamond, and the two-person human ladder duo immediately unleashed their signature move.

Jason drew a line on the wall facing the wind direction, and then drew the outline of the gate according to the height standard of the RSH gate in his memory.

Diamond took a hand drill from his toolbox, poured alcohol into the miniature engine's fuel tank, pulled the hinge, and heard a rumbling sound as he began drilling into the hardened mud and rock.

Jason, with his mouth full of dust, asked, "Is it okay? Will it work?"

Diamond shouted, "Don't underestimate me! I'm Diamond, the drill maker! I've never lost to anyone when it comes to drilling! My drill bit is made of diamond—a priceless synthetic yellow diamond, nothing can stop it!"

Jason took out polishing paste and cooling water from Diamond's toolbox, asking Meteor for help. William, who had been standing by watching for a long time, finally moved.

With his height of over three meters, he could still be of some help with such a simple drilling task.

However, the giant's fingers were so clumsy that he often made a mess of the materials when delivering water and adding ointment.

"Too much! Too much! Too much!" Diamond exclaimed as he watched the white diamond powder scatter everywhere, and the drill bit, which had been at operating temperature, cooled down. "No, no, no! Giant! Don't make things worse—the permafrost needs to be heated to break through! Only fire can melt this hard mud!"

"Only fire can melt hard mud? Only fire can melt hard mud?" William handed over everything he was carrying, no longer wanting to cause trouble for the two little Homo sapiens. He squatted down to the side, carefully observing the sparks leaping from the diamond drill bit, but a single sentence made him fall into deep thought.

Jason and Diamond got to work, while Yibu and his Soviet friends were also busy, each taking out shovels and entrenching tools to tackle the solid frozen ground.

Meteor crouched beside William, watching his new friend clutch the runestone, and looked on with a sense of loss.

"What's wrong, big guy!"

William murmured.

"I came to this place to find my father. I thought he was already dead—like the other giants, dead in the Vita Imprint or in the quagmire of Niflheim, turned into mindless zombies."

The runestone is the only thing that can prove William's lineage; it was born with him and fell off from his navel.

"I don't know what I am. I guess I should be considered a person?"

Meteor: "Of course you're human!"

William nodded, with an expression that said, "I knew it."

"I've lived for over a hundred years, wandering on earth and traveling underground, all to figure out where I came from and who my father is. Only then can I know who I am and where I'm going."

"This is my umbilical cord, this runestone. It grew with me from the moment I was born. As I grew a little bigger, it grew a little bigger too. Some scholars who studied this told me that I must be the child of the Fire People, that my father's blood fell into the soil, allowing me to be born as a descendant of a hybrid giant."

"At that time, I wondered, why was my father bleeding? Was someone trying to kill him? Was he fighting with someone? Or did he simply want to shed some blood to create me as a life?"

"No matter what, I admire and respect my father from the bottom of my heart. To me, the one who created me is my God."

"Your friend just said—only fire can melt hard, cold mud."

At this point, William suddenly became agitated.

"The Ice Man, the Laughing Man, and the other giants outside are my uncles, my cousins, my elders. So, was my father ever fighting against these relatives who had lost their minds? They are now just cold, hard mud."

"I couldn't find him on the beach, nor could the people of the Heaven's Ladder, but I found his blood in Antarctica. Perhaps he was defeated, perhaps he died in battle, and only a little blood washed into the Pacific Ocean with this dark Dead Sea. Perhaps animals carried this blood there. Over the long and ancient years, they evolved into various creatures, and eventually, some of their fresh blood froze in Eastern Lake in Antarctica, which is why those giant hybrid warriors were qualified to call me brother."

"In the legends of gods and monsters, my father's name was Surter. He wielded a sword of light and guarded the homeland of the Fire Giant on the border of Muspelheim. The reason I can't find him is perhaps simply because he has vanished into thin air, unlike these uncles and elders, whose bodies still retain the runes of death."

What Meteor told Brother William was not something he only half-understood; he knew it by heart.

People in the anime/manga community will understand this.

He was just about to launch into his profound remarks.

A commotion of conversation could be heard coming from ahead of the road.

The people who sound like they're on Heaven's Ladder have discovered this underground passage, but haven't found the entrance yet.

"Enemies!" Meteor shouted, trying to rouse his companions.

But the shout echoed loudly in the spacious passage, the sound waves rushing into the steep slope, penetrating the ventilation pipes above the propaganda slogans, vibrating and circling all the way, striking the steel.

Cliff Guderian was even urinating under the monument, preparing to study how to open this damn mechanism.

The Lord of Cinder's chief strategist looked smugly at the monument erected by his old rival from decades ago, unzipped his jacket, and chatted and laughed with the soldiers around him.

"Before you were even born, we fought a war against them! This war resulted in the deaths of over 20 million people worldwide, and the amount of vital energy consumed and the number of shells fired were the largest in the world!"

Hearing the staff officer's boast, the soldiers all looked regretful and remorseful, wishing they had been born too early to participate in this killing spree.

The staff officer continued, "The intelligence system back then was completely different from what it is now. Our binoculars, listening equipment, and sniper scopes weren't nearly as effective as they are now. Decades ago, from that watchtower—"

He pointed to the tower of the military outpost in the northwest camp.

"We can't even see what William is doing here. We might not be able to find this traitor. Do you know what that means?"

In this godforsaken place without any communication equipment, after Su Ling and Xue Ming killed the frogman sentry last time, Cliff arranged for mutual lookout posts. He knew everything William did in the Monument Square.

There was a problem with soldiers catching up with the staff officers.

"This means that damned traitor! He'll stay hidden in our ranks forever!"

Giants were united in their hatred of the enemy.

"He actually helped the passengers of the Abyssal Railway! He betrayed your trust! He betrayed our faith!"

The staff officer finally shook his finger, pursed his lips, and looked very disappointed.

He was pessimistic about the mental fortitude of this generation of cannibals; these young and naive little guys simply didn't have much malice in them, which was a real shame.

"It would indeed be a pity if we couldn't find this traitor—but not like you say, it isn't."

Beneath his scorching red skin lies a body temperature far exceeding that of ordinary people, allowing Cliff to urinate freely in the environment where the fire-adding ceremony for the Lord of Cinder was performed.

Steam carrying the smell of sulfur washed over the surface of the monument.

Cliff spoke kindly and patiently to the soldiers, giving them a lesson in moral education.

"It's not what you think. The only problem is that we're short on soap ingredients. If William could make soap, it would be absolutely fantastic—like Puff. Do you know what 'fantastic' means?"

A giant woman bent down, listening intently to the instructions of the small advisor.

What does "top-notch" mean?

Cliff raised his eyebrows triumphantly, revealing his gleaming white fangs. "It's the best! The best in the world! Soap made from human oil! In ancient Semitic legends, soap can kill ninety-nine percent of the world's germs. Its essential ingredient is oil, and the oil closest to human skin is human skin itself!"

"Oh, oh, oh, oh!" Puff exclaimed in surprise and delight, "Advisor! You're right! I want to use William to take a bath right now! It would be such a shame if he wasn't a traitor!"

[Part ② - Bursting into laughter]

Right now—

-- right in this very second.

While Staff Officer Cliff was still basking in the glory of his extensive knowledge, a sonic torrent surged forth from the underground duct, and a cry of "The enemy is coming!" burst forth like a scorching gale.

It blew up a stream of foul-smelling urine, splashing it all over Staff Officer Cliff's face.

The soldiers snapped out of their frenzied euphoria and dared not utter another word.

Cliff shivered, his face still covered in yellowish ice crystals, his handsome features clouded with worry. To maintain his composure, he pulled a handkerchief from his neat uniform and gently wiped the ice crystals from his chin and the hem of his clothes.

Why aren't you laughing anymore?

The young lady with the Puff reacted the fastest!

"Hahahaha! The staff officer just drank his own urine!"

"Roar! Roar!" On the other side, the four brothers from the Puff family, like children who hadn't yet developed their minds, joined in with low, panting laughter.

Cliff was almost driven mad with rage.

He utterly loathed these giant brats who were no more than thirteen or fourteen years old.

Only William, only William is somewhat mature.

But this mature and reliable tool, who never stole human flesh, is now ruthlessly killing his own people.

He had to control his rage and find a way to make his enemies taste the bitter fruit of his anger. He absolutely could not take his anger out on the giant hybrid warriors.

"Warriors, you are beings from myths and legends, children of Mother Gaia, carbon-based life forms, souls born from the soil. I merely tasted the filthy soil solution, didn't I?"

Puff laughed so hard her whole body was shaking.

Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

She leaned on her brother's shoulder, pointed at Cliff, then at the sky, then at the floor, and finally at Cliff's little bird.

Cliff pulled out his gun and unleashed his fury into the sky.

"Stop laughing, you son of a bitch! Damn it! Dismantle the sewage pipes of the bathhouse! Bring over the water pumps from the arsenal! There are four vents here! I want these stinking rats to taste what filthy soil is like!"

The soldiers received their orders and immediately began deploying the pipelines.

Hearing this hilarious tale, the baby giants stopped laughing at the strategist's drinking urine and instead stared wide-eyed, digging even bigger holes in the ventilation shaft beneath the monument's base.

At the same time--

--The enemy's words had already traveled through the copper pipes and iron walls to the end of the passageway where the shrine was located.

The crowd's faces turned ashen. If the sewage from the bathhouse flooded into this narrow passage, they would have no choice but to grit their teeth and rush to the surface, where they would fight against the Heaven's Ladder soldiers who occupied the high ground at the exit on a low slope at a seventy-degree angle—a dead end with no way out.

Yibu rushed back into the tunnel, shouting loudly.

"No! No, no, no! What are you doing?! Cliff! Chief of Staff Cliff! You're a righteous soldier, aren't you?! My father's shrine is here!"

"Aha! Keep it up, brothers!" Cliff cheered. "Hearing your powerless and incompetent wails gave me a whole bunch of crazy ideas. Thanks, Ibrahimovic! I'm going to put two barrels of gasoline in your shit, set it on fire, and send them down together. The methane explosion will reunite you with your ancestors, so you won't die so unevenly."

Teacher Xia Xia covered her face. "Maybe if you hadn't said that, they wouldn't have done it."

Before the VIP could utter a few harsh words, her face also changed color instantly.

Because the excrement and urine had already been poured in, a foul-smelling, warm current rushed over from the end of the slope with the roar of the water pump.

"Say a few more words! Say a few more words! Let me hear your voices!" Cliff hunched over beside the ventilation duct, gesturing with one hand to his ear, his face contorted with a vivid expression, squinting eyes and a crescent-shaped mouth. "I'll be connecting the second pipe soon! If all four pipes are blocked, I won't be able to hear you! Speak louder!"

Forced by the excrement, everyone retreated in unison.

"Cliff!"

William took the lead and rushed into the filthy mud. He didn't care about his giant bloodline or noble race. Just like Cliff said, Gaia was his grandmother, and he was a giant's child, but he had returned to the earth from the cold steel platform.

"Cliff! I killed your man, and I will bear the consequences alone! You wait, I'll crawl out and face you right now! You can do whatever you want with me then, just don't hurt my friends!"

"Are you trying to negotiate with me?" Cliff sneered. "Who's the apex predator now? How arrogant can you be to demand that the hunter show mercy to the prey?! You've truly broken my heart—who is it that has you so bewitched?! What's wrong with my most capable William?!"

Cliff got really angry, spitting at the pipes and yelling insults.

"You bastard! You motherless beast! Do you know how much your brothers, whom you killed with your own hands, trusted you?! How much they worshipped you?! Even hell won't accept you!"

William said in a low voice, "Cliff, you like to eat people, and I like frozen watermelon. We'll never get along."

Cliff was horrified, his heart nearly shattered into a million pieces. "Could it be that all these months we've spent together have been a lie to me?"

William: "I'm sorry, I just wanted a ride. I'm not a [carnivore], I just took a detour and now I have to get back on track. I can't understand or accept your happiness."

"Hahahaha! Hahahahahaha!" Cliff laughed almost maniacally, grabbing the sleeve of the little Puff, pointing at the pipe, almost laughing until tears streamed down his face. "I have absolutely no desire to build my happiness on other people's suffering, but the smile on my face just won't listen to me."

Puff could only manage a few awkward laughs.

The excrement soaked almost half of William's body.

The giant still did his best, grabbing the large iron signboard with the propaganda slogan in the corridor, under the lamp stand of "How the Steel Was Tempered," trying to get the sound to Cliff's ears.

"Cliff! You wanted to use me to make soap, didn't you?!"

William pulled a knife from his MOLLE and slashed his forearm, cutting a gash that reached the bone.

The smell of blood wafted out through the tubes.

Cliff immediately ordered his men to stop.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!"

The blood contains delicious fats and proteins, as well as fresh oxygen and the rusty smell of iron.

All of this excited Cliff; this was extremely precious elemental energy that should not be wasted. If he could devour William, perhaps this advisor could once again fuel the King of Cinder.

At this moment, the fifty-odd soldiers and giants present all gagged, their appetites overshadowed by the stench of the excrement.

Before the shrine, the Slavic men formed a tower, holding the shrine of their ancestors high, not daring to let the spirits of the fallen be desecrated by filth.

On the wall, Teacher San San had transformed into a werewolf, standing on the dirty soil, lifting Jason and Diamond, ordering the two clever guys to continue digging the hole, with VIP idols slung over his shoulders.

Only A Xing ran frantically towards William, stumbling along the way.

William frowned. "Can't you smell it? If you could smell it, you'd know how delicious I am! Right? Is it your hometown's custom to cure meat with excrement?! Cliff! Let's make a blood-and-flesh deal!"

"I can't smell it! I can't smell it at all! Please give me more!" Cliff gritted his teeth, forcing away the excited soldiers and giants around him with his eyes. "I need to be even weaker! I need to bleed more, and I need to put it in a bottle and bring it to my lips in a seventeen-centimeter goblet!"

William saw A Xing arrive, but inexplicably panicked.

A Xing is like a bomb; nobody knows what he's capable of.

That's why William panicked.

"Meteor, don't come any closer! If I could exchange it all for you..."

"Brother Xue Ming told me this!" Bu Liuxing pulled out the Wild Wolf ACE from his pack, his eyes wide, his anger almost bursting from his throat. "--Don't make flesh trade with the enemy! You won't get anything in return! Fight fire with fire! The harder the flint is struck, the brighter the light it emits!"

"But..." William hesitated for a moment, but the knife did not stop. He wanted Cliff to smell more blood, and as the enemy had instructed, he used a clean cotton coat to absorb all the blood, afraid of leaving even the slightest stench.

Bu Liuxing raised his gun and roared at William.

"You are not alone, you are me! Me, begging for mercy in the cesspool! Me, powerless to fight back! Me, forced to grovel and offer up my flesh and blood! It is me!--"

When William saw Meteor loading an incendiary bomb into the gun barrel, he immediately understood the other party's intention.

He bent down and hugged his companion tightly, as if he didn't need anything to prove he was the child of the Fireman—this physical body alone was enough.

Flames always burn upwards, just as hot air always rises upwards.

It will not accept being at a disadvantage; it will never compromise or bury itself underground.

Even the oldest volcano, as long as it is still alive, will erupt one day.

Two molten lava flows exploded in the ventilation duct.

--It ignites the biogas through the ventilation pipe.

It resembles a giant beast, asserting territorial sovereignty.

It burst out of the twisted and deformed passage with a deafening roar, while the red-skinned imps from hell were still listening intently, trying to find the sweet and intoxicating aroma of flesh and blood in the burnt fur.

It crawled through the rumbling water pump pipes, breaking the clamps of the steel joints, its fury shattering the steel pipes, and blasting the water pump's axle into the air.

The flames, like swords of light, were born from the "filthy mud" and ignited the Great Baths.

-- Half of the bathhouse's ceiling was reduced to fragments, and the shockwave from the explosion blasted the six soldiers guarding the bathhouse's pipes into 666 pieces.

It came so fast and suddenly, the impact of the sound and light was so intense that Cliff's eardrums shattered, he went deaf, and he didn't hear a sound. He remained frozen, breathing heavily.

William remained unmoved under the scorching flames, wanting only to hold the meteor tightly in his cold body, to use his broad back to welcome the brief but deadly flow of fire.

Three-Three-Zero-One was so frightened that the entire wolf evolved, its sharp claws gripping the opening of the pit that Diamond had crawled out, and its tail began to burn under the scorching flames.

The shockwave splashed onto the beach, Ice Man merely glanced back briefly before remaining motionless again.

The mudflats churned up waves that lapped against the skin of the Laughing Man's calves, where his senses were heightened.

It grinned, its chest heaving violently.

--Laughing heartily.