Liu Zhipeng stood atop the tower, the fierce wind whipping his hair into disarray. The smell of blood mingled with the acrid tang of ozone, driving straight into his nostrils.
He forced both hands to stay buried deep in his suit pockets.
If he wanted to.
If he pulled his hands out now and snapped his fingers.
Across every star system, trillions of Men of Iron would be utterly erased from existence in a single microsecond. Not even a drop of machine oil would remain.
Saving these people was easier for him than breathing.
Crrrk...
Liu Zhipeng clenched his teeth tight. His hands balled into fists inside his pockets, his nails digging deep into his palms. Golden blood trickled between his fingers and dripped onto the tower's cold floor.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself not to look at the unspeakable massacres in the streets below. Forcing himself not to hear the wails of desperate mothers clutching their children.
The energy within him surged wildly. It was his human empathy roaring, urging him to save his own kind.
No... I can't...
Liu Zhipeng screamed furiously at himself inside his mind.
If I intervene now... they'll never learn their lesson.
If I save them this time, what about the next? When the Daemons of the Warp descend, when those nameless horrors tear Realspace apart, who will save them then?!
Flowers raised in a greenhouse cannot survive the bitter winter.
Liu Zhipeng's body trembled slightly. A droplet slipped from the corner of his eye, whether rainwater or something else.
"This is the price..." he said through clenched teeth, squeezing the words out as though pronouncing the cruelest curse upon himself. "This is the coming-of-age ordeal... civilization must endure."
Only through fire could they be reborn.
He could not be the nursemaid god