From Titan Corporation to the Empire of Man

Chapter 693 "I have witnessed the suffering you have endured."

The morning light flowed across the streets like melting amber, reflecting a shimmering luster onto the pavement that was still wet from last night's rain.

The boy and his family stood on the steps of the apartment building, with broken concrete blocks and faded debris under their feet—all traces of the riots that had taken place a few days earlier.

On the street, the doors of other residents opened one after another, and all sorts of faces peeked out from the cracks in the doors, their eyes filled with a mixture of vigilance and probing.

An elderly woman with a cane took a shaky half-step, then withdrew her foot as if the ground was scorching hot.

The young couple next door were holding their baby tightly. The husband's fingers unconsciously rubbed the pistol at his waist. The chaos of recent days had made their habitual vigilance as hard to break as a rusted chain.

An eerie stillness filled the air.

There were no alarms, no gunshots, only the occasional clanging of metal in the distance, like giants pounding on the bones of the city.

Boom, boom——

Heavy footsteps came from the end of the street, shaking the ground like a drumbeat.

The pebbles bounced slightly in the puddle, and the boy felt a tingling vibration under his feet.

! !
He instinctively turned around, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Two giants clad in golden armor were marching in with synchronized steps.

Their armor gleamed brilliantly in the morning light, and the dragon patterns embossed on their shoulder armor undulated slightly with each step, as if they were alive.

Their towering figures, over three and a half meters tall, cast shadows around their waists as the light shone on them. When their magnetic boots rolled over the road, they left clear footprints, as if they were made of clay.

"Run! Run!"

"My God! It's those monsters, and even bigger monsters!!"

A hoarse scream erupted from the crowd.

The street erupted into chaos instantly.

The old woman staggered backward, her cane striking the steps with a crisp sound, while the young couple, carrying the baby, rushed toward the nearest alleyway.

The boy's father suddenly raised his rifle, but never pointed it at the Imperial Guards. This was not out of fear, but instinct told him that such an action was no different from an ant punching a mountain.

The older brother gripped the baseball bat tightly, his knuckles cracking, but he remained frozen in place, unable to move.

The mother pulled the boy and his sister behind her, her arms blocking them like a fragile dam.

Only the boy's face remained calm.

He tilted his head back, his gaze piercing through the gaps in the golden mask to meet the crimson goggles of the Imperial Guard.

There was no violence, no contempt, only an almost mechanical calm, like a god looking down on the human world, or a giant statue guarding a granary.

The Imperial Guards did not quicken their pace due to the riots.

They maintained a precise rhythm, their magnetic boots landing with the steady cadence of a pendulum, while the servo systems at the joints of their armor hummed softly, like the lingering notes of some ancient musical instrument.

As the giant approached the boy's family, the younger sister suddenly peeked out from her mother's arms, her innocent voice breaking the silence:
"Will you kill us?"

? !
Time seems to stand still.

The father's breathing stopped, and the brother's baseball bat crashed to the ground.

The fleeing crowd on the street seemed to be paused, with countless eyes peering at the scene from behind cover.

The two guards stopped.

The man on the left slowly bent his knees, the hydraulic system emitting a soft, silk-like rubbing sound.

When he knelt on one knee, the ground trembled slightly, and a few pebbles rolled down from the cracks in the wall.

With a "click," the visor unfolded, folded, and tucked into the neck armor, revealing a sharply defined face—

His black hair was short and stiff like steel needles, and several faded scars ran across his bronze skin, yet a gentle smile, incongruous with his massive size, played at the corners of his mouth.

"Don't worry, kid."

His voice was deep and resonant, like the movement of the earth's crust, yet strangely carrying a soothing rhythm: "We are here to protect you."

He took out two bags of silver foil-wrapped objects from a storage box at his waist, and with a deft tear of the seal by his metallic fingertips, a rich chocolate aroma immediately wafted out.

The younger sister twitched her nose and clutched her mother's clothes tightly with her little hands.

The boy stared at the two bags of chocolate.

The packaging was printed with unfamiliar Chinese characters, but the sweet aroma of cocoa transcended the language barrier. He swallowed and slowly reached out his hand under his father's tense gaze.

The Imperial Guard's movements were elegant; when he placed the candy in the boy's palm, his fingertips deliberately avoided the child's delicate skin, as if he had already calculated the pressure of every milligram.

“Try it.” The giant blinked, his eyelashes gilded in the morning light. “This comes from the third agricultural zone of Saturn in the main universe, and it’s much better than your cocoa butter substitute.”

My sister suddenly burst out laughing.

The laughter was like a key that broke the spell, and the frozen fear on the street began to loosen.

The old woman loosened her grip on the doorknob, the young couple peeked out from behind the trash can, and one of the bolder young men even held up a mobile device (phone), the camera focused on this surreal scene.

The father finally lowered the gun and asked in a hoarse voice, "What exactly do you want here?"

As the guard stood up, before his visor closed again, the boy saw the smile on his lips turn into a solemn reverence.

"reconstruction."

He pointed into the distance, where the golden glow of the Monument to the Pure Flower was shining on the ruins of the dilapidated hospital, and the engineering vessels of the Steel Hands moved among them like hummingbirds, "in the name of the Emperor."

Thump, thump!

As the giant took another step, the younger sister suddenly broke free from her mother's hand and stuffed a piece of chocolate into her mouth.

The moment the sweetness exploded on her tongue, she squinted and mumbled, "Thank you, Mr. Gilgamesh!"

The Imperial Guard's figure swayed almost imperceptibly.

A muffled laugh came from beneath the visor, and the servo system translated this pleasure into a series of cheerful hums from the joints of the armor.

The sunlight finally pierced through the clouds, gilding the entire street with flowing gold leaf.

People gradually emerged from their hiding places, like animals just awakening from hibernation, tentatively exploring the temperature of the new world.

Above them, a silver-gray cruiser swept across the sky, its hull projecting the full text of the Code of Mankind onto the clouds, each character appearing as a golden flame burning with pure flowers.

Next, the boy took his sister's hand and moved forward with the growing crowd.

On both sides of the street, the scars of war are healing at a visible speed.

Numerous Hextech robots hovered above the collapsed overpass wreckage, their hexagonal force field generators emitting a ghostly blue light as they reassembled the concrete fragments with the precision of a child playing with building blocks.

A construction-type hunter used the molecular welding torch on its forelimbs to repair a twisted steel beam. Sparks fell like golden rain, bouncing on its black armored shell without leaving a single burn mark.

Various scents wafted through the air.

The younger sister looked up at the mechanical creations, her little face illuminated by the flickering arc of light, the chocolate residue still shimmering at the corner of her mouth.

“Those machines,” the father murmured, “seems like they were fighting the UED’s armored forces just yesterday.” The older brother sighed, “Now they’re building roads, just like…”

"It's like preparing for a celebration."

The mother suddenly spoke, her voice so soft it was like a sigh.

Soon, the crowd became dense.

Cloned soldiers stood at each crossroads, the hems of their trench coats fluttering slightly in the morning breeze.

They wore full-face helmets with cold, dark red visors, and their gun-holding postures were as precise as if etched by a protractor.

When the little boy made eye contact with a clone, the clone suddenly nodded slightly. This seemingly innocuous gesture sent a chill down the boy's spine, as if he were watching a fine gear suddenly turn on its own.

"The way they looked at us," the younger sister said, shrinking back, "like they were counting how many hairs we had."

Children's intuition is sometimes more accurate than adults'.

Indeed, clone soldiers wearing full-body armor may look no different from ordinary people, but they are "weapons" without any emotions, and are naturally not as "approachable" as the Imperial Guard.

Soon, the family arrived at the central square with the crowd.

The cordon at the edge of the square was maintained by a tactical squad of Flame Lizards.

The warriors, equipped with dark green titanium armor, were not wearing helmets, revealing their scarred yet gentle faces.

An Astartes with burn scars around his eyes is kneeling on one knee, allowing children to touch the lizard and dragon reliefs on his shoulder armor, the scales gleaming warmly in the sunlight.

"Look over there!" the older brother suddenly pointed to the sky.

As we got closer to the center of the square, the light began to refract in a wonderful way.

The air grew warmer, as if each breath carried a faint electric current, as if one were beneath clouds about to bring rain.

A few strands of my sister's hair stood up quietly, floating like jellyfish tentacles under the influence of static electricity.

then
They saw the high platform standing in the center of the square.

It is constructed from a white stone with fluorescent properties, and its surface has liquid light-like patterns, as if the entire Milky Way has been compressed into building material.

The platform is surrounded by twelve crystal pillars, each containing a blooming pure flower inside. Their pulsating light is eerily synchronized with the human heartbeat.

Two figures stood on the high platform.

The figure on the left, who was over five and a half meters tall and wore a dark gold robe, distorted the laws of space around him simply by standing there.

His silhouette shimmered with iridescent distortions, like a mirage under intense heat.

As a strong gust of wind blew by, the hem of his robe fluttered, revealing a fleeting glimpse of black and gold armor.

The woman on the right looks like a statue forged by sunlight.

The golden armor clung to his perfect muscle lines, and as the Spear of Victory rested on his shoulder, the light particles "dripping" from its tip vaporized into tiny rainbow fragments in mid-air.

As she bowed slightly to speak with the giant beside her, the electric arcs dancing in her hair outlined a profile reminiscent of an ancient Greek relief.

The crowd suddenly fell into absolute silence.

Even the baby stopped crying; a kind of pressure beyond language caused all thoughts to go blank for a moment.

The boy felt a heat in his nasal cavity, and warm blood dripped onto his collar, as if his brain was experiencing the impact of this close encounter with a divine being.

Suddenly, his sister broke free from his hand, her eyes now filled with golden light.

“Brother, that giant looks like Mr. Gilgamesh (the Imperial Guard)’s father.”

She pointed to the platform as she spoke.

The childish address sounded particularly jarring in the silence, and several clone soldiers immediately turned their helmets toward the source of the sound, their goggles suddenly brightening.

"hehe."

But the giant on the platform seemed to chuckle softly.

The halo of light enveloping his face rippled slightly, and for a fleeting moment, the boy was certain he saw the other's lips curve into a slight smile—

It was a tired yet gentle expression, like that of a father who had finally returned home after years of fighting, taking off his armor under the porch light.

The radiance of the Pure Flower suddenly surged.

A golden wave spread outwards from the high platform, sweeping across every face in the square that looked up.

The boy felt warm fingers brushing across his brow, and his nosebleed stopped immediately. A sense of peace beyond comprehension enveloped him like a down comforter.

He heard gasps rising and falling, the lame old woman straightened her knees again, the muffled sounds in the chest of the middle-aged man coughing up blood disappeared, and even his father's back, which had been hunched over for years due to old injuries, straightened up.

“That’s…” the mother’s voice trembled, “They are healing.”

Suddenly, the crystal pillars surrounding the platform rang simultaneously, their clear, resonant sound waves, like church bells, condensing into tangible characters in the air. Declarations in different languages ​​flowed like a waterfall, ultimately unifying into the ancient Chinese seal script of the Earth—

"The old era has passed, this is the dawn of mankind."

The clone soldiers suddenly knelt down on one knee, their trench coats spreading out like black flower petals.

The Imperial Guards slammed their halberds into the ground, the shockwaves carving radial cracks into the stone pavement. The Astartes removed their helmets, their scarred faces revealing a rare awe.

The boy simply held his sister tightly, and in the golden glow of the pure flower, he saw for the first time what the new era looked like.

At that moment, the giant on the platform slightly raised his hand.

This simple action created subtle ripples in the space, as if the whole world was trembling gently at his fingertips.

The radiance of the Pure Flower swayed, projecting his figure into the sky above the plaza, forming a semi-transparent phantom a hundred meters tall, with every detail clearly discernible, from the star map patterns etched on the armor to the dark golden energy flowing along the edge of the robe.

When the giant spoke, his voice did not travel through the air, but resonated directly within the skulls of each person.

That voice was deep and resonant, like the pulse of the earth's core, yet strangely gentle, like the crackling flames in a fireplace on a winter night, injecting a sense of security directly into the depths of the soul.

"Children of the Earth".

As soon as he finished speaking, the air in the square suddenly became "sticky".

The elderly people's cloudy eyes reflected a strange light, as if they had suddenly recalled a forgotten warm afternoon from their childhood. The young people unconsciously straightened their backs, as if they had heard an ancient call from the depths of their blood.

“I have witnessed the suffering you have endured.”

The giant slowly surveyed the crowd, and where his gaze fell, even the clone soldiers' visors lowered slightly. "Hungry children huddled in the slums, mothers used the last of their flour to cook thin porridge, and fathers gripped rifles lacking ammunition, guarding their families behind them—"

These images are etched on tombstones from an old era.

His words carried the weight of time; each syllable was like a bronze artifact salvaged from the long river of history, carrying the sighs of countless civilizations.

Suddenly, the younger sister gripped her brother's finger tightly. In the child's pure pupils, the star map flowing on the giant's shoulder armor was reflected. Deep within that space, the rise and fall of Earth's civilization seemed to be reenacted, from the campfires of the Stone Age to the mushroom clouds of nuclear explosions.

"But today, I bring a new covenant."

The giant opened his palm, and a ball of liquid golden light condensed within it, forming the shape of a miniature Earth.

The continental plates were clearly visible, and tiny waves rippled across the azure ocean surface. As his fingers closed, the miniature Earth suddenly erupted with a supernova-like flare, transforming into countless particles of light that showered upon the crowd.
(End of this chapter)