Gus opened his mouth, but he did not know what to say.
The young man had reached the age of ignorance and passion. Sometimes, when he was woken up by the hot power in the middle of the night, he would be surprised by his own arrogance.
Therefore, he knew what it felt like to fall in love with a girl, and he also knew what the demon meant by "picking up girls".
However, he did not expect that the high and mighty deities could be so … approachable and down-to-earth. Did they need to pick up girls?
The young man suddenly felt that the so-called deities were no different from mortals.
In other words, mortals could become deities, too. Did the so-called "ascension" really exist?
That night, faced with the dark road ahead, Gus thought for a long time.
He did not agree to the demon's request, but he did not turn it down, either.
He decided to see more scenery on the way and make a decision later.
In the next half a month, this fleet full of mechanical demons and steam demons continued to sail downstream toward the Land of Hope in the south.
They were intercepted by the Iron Fist Army several times on the way.
However, the Fist God Palace was too slow to send messages. They did not send many soldiers, and their experts were not as strong as the Grand Priest of Allheaven in Qianyuan City, either.
The residents who lived on the river were often sympathizers and secret supporters even if they were not believers of the Church of Machines and Steam. Gus also had the help of the storm bolters and the Vulcan cannons provided by the demons.
Therefore, none of the checkpoints could successfully stop them.
Countless soldiers of the Iron Fist Army were blown into crimson powder by Gus's firepower.
As a result, Gus's position in the hearts of the defeated soldiers grew higher and higher. The title of "Saint" was deeply imprinted in the hearts of all the believers.
They had been running away in a panic, but under the encouragement of the arrival of the Saint, their morale was weirdly high. It seemed that they were not running to the south but marching to the south to participate in the final battle between the Iron Fist Army and the steam army.
It was true that the further south the fleet sailed, the weaker the Fist God Palace's control was when they saw the scenery on the two sides of the river.
It could be seen from the facilities on the docks and towns on the two sides of the river.
In the beginning, when they were still in the north, the docks on the two sides of the river were mostly driven by people.
They had seen countless burly men who could carry hundreds of kilograms of goods by themselves and step on the planks laid on the dock with a creaking sound.
He had also seen countless boatmen with dark skin and muscles as strong as steel. They used ropes as thick as their arms to drag ships through the turbulent waves.
No matter how arduous the work was or how dangerous the place was, people rarely used tools, let alone complicated machines.
However, as the fleet headed south, the flags of the Iron Fist Army with the Fist of Steel on them gradually became sparser and dimmer. On the contrary, various tools that were driven by capstans and gears appeared at the docks, as well as levers to lighten the load.
Those cleverly designed levers and cables could be operated by ordinary people or even women, who were thin and weak. The goods could be directly lifted from the ship and slid to the warehouse on the shore.
As they headed south, Gus even saw mills and factories powered by water power in some of the villages along the river. They worked day and night, and the rumbling sounds of the machines were even louder than that of the river.
Andre, the commander of the fleet, told Gus that in the south, the flour that was ground by the mills powered by water power was white and thin. Its quality was at least two levels higher than that by hand in the north, but its price was thirty to thirty percent lower.
Similarly, there were many spinning factories in the south that used water power to drive the spinning machines. The cloth they spun was strong, light, and cheap. Even with the transportation costs of secretly transporting it to the north, it was still more cost-effective than the handmade cloth in the north.
Even the most devout believers of the Fist God in the north were tempted by the flour or cloth that was cheaper but of better quality.
In the further south, water power was gradually replaced by steam, which was more stable and powerful. The goods there were even more varieties and prices!
The merchants in the south shipped the goods to the north in secret and made a lot of profits. The residents in the north never knew that there were so many delicate things in the world that were so cheap.
Just like that, the goods that had been offered to the Fist God Temple were all pocketed by the merchants in the south.
The Fist God Temple was infuriated. Naturally, they turned the merchants in the south into evil followers and regarded the goods that they made with the power of machines and steam as the temptations of devils.
The Fist God Temple cut off the trade routes and captured the merchants. They also sent the Iron Fist Army to the swamps in the south, which were considered unimportant, to destroy the machines and burn the factories, trying to suppress all the activities of the Church of Machines and Steam.
Cutting off other people's livelihood was like killing their parents. The so-called conflict of beliefs was, after all, a conflict of interests. The merchants in the south whose factories had been destroyed were not willing to wait for their doom. Therefore, they organized a 'steam army' with all their belongings to defend the factories and the trade routes. They also invested a lot of money to support the activities of the Church of Machines and Steam in the north, trying to poach the Fist God Temple from the root.
Just like that, the 'chaos of steam' grew more and more intense. To this day, the steam army was already able to compete with the Iron Fist Army in the south and was even showing signs of catching up.
If Gus had heard of such magnificent changes in the past, he would've been so excited that he would've joined the steam army as soon as possible and annihilated the stubborn old forces as a new force that was full of vitality.
But right now, he learned from the devil that the seemingly magnificent replacement of the old was nothing more than a show that the Fist God had foreseen. The people who struggled, fought, and sacrificed themselves for their own fate, and the believers who believed in the true god in their hearts and believed that a bright future would arrive, were nothing more than chess pieces that the Fist God played with blatantly. They were even just a series of insignificant data.
The young man was both sad and angry.
He wanted to roar at the sky, but in the end, he swore to himself.
He swore that he would make the goddamn Fist God — no, the goddamn A Boxing Champion — pay the price.
He would let A Boxing Champion see them, whether they were chess pieces, ants, or insignificant data that could be tampered with and erased at will!
Finally, half a month after leaving Qianyuan City, the fleet sailed into the south.
On the border between the north and the south was a burning, broken fortress.
The fortress that was controlled by the Fist God Temple and guarded by the Iron Fist Army had been breached by the steam army at this moment. The seemingly solid fortress was riddled with holes caused by the steam cannons. The flag of the Iron Fist Army was burning furiously on the fortress!
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
