On this day, countless Fort Apocalypses in North America witnessed the same major occurrence in the sky.
First, a gigantic whirlpool appeared.
It tore through the dark crimson sky that had trapped the entire world for the last 102 years.
Blue skies entered the world once more.
After that, an item made out of bronze that was unbelievably enormous appeared within the whirlpool.
It had the face of a human and wore only a simple Buddhist-style robe. Its face was filled with mercy and kindness, and it had an air about it that was unmistakably sacred.
It immediately became the focus of everyone's attention.
Several astronomers and experts in the study of space watched this happen through their huge radio telescopes set up on the Fort Apocalypses.
"What is that?" The electronic screens on the forts also showed the images that the radio telescope was capturing.
This gigantic bronze person had its palms clasped together as it sat cross-legged and descended from the whirlpool.
The humans who had escaped destruction and were lucky enough to be alive looked at this scene from the various forts and began to feel nervous.
They started to recall the disaster that had suddenly befallen them a century ago.
The Diablos had descended from the void, tearing through the skies and destroying cities.
After leaving Earth in ruin and destruction, they flew back toward the vast universe and into the stars again.
And now, the same scene seemed to be happening all over again.
"Is that a Diablo?" a young person asked his parents beside him.
"I have no idea…" His parents only shook their heads and were utterly confused.
But everyone knew that regardless of who it was, the fate of humans was going to change from today onward.
In the next moment, there was something new happening on their electronic screens.
The atmosphere seemed to be changing.
A huge spider-shaped Diablo was descending from outer space.
Even though its indescribable form had gone through much filtering, it still made everyone who saw it feel an insanity arise from the depths of their hearts.
Many people fainted on the spot.
That was their way of protecting themselves, and it was a method that humans had developed over many centuries to cope with fear or of going insane…
Cutting off their own consciousness and allowing machines to take over.
That way, the humans had a chance to restart their bodies.
That was a better option than looking upon a Diablo and becoming a monster after losing control of their thoughts and understanding.
The humans who were still able to withstand such a scene saw something that they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
A gigantic Diablo descending from outer space...
Its body had altered the sky, and its enormous spider legs that were covered with venomous spikes pierced through the clouds trying to attack the bronze item that had just descended earlier directly.
Soon, on both the electronic screens and the radio telescope…
The merciful and friendly expression on the face of the bronze item that was descending broke into a faint smile.
It stretched its gigantic bronze left hand out.
A weapon beyond anybody's imagination appeared in its hand.
It was as if this weapon had existed in its palm since the beginning of days.
A sacred glow surrounded the weapon.
Six poles that were surrounded by a holy, bright gleam slowly began to move.
"Na, Mo, Ah, Mi, Ta, Bha!"
Everyone heard this extremely compassionate chant rise from the bottom of their hearts.
After that, they saw flames spew throughout the sky.
Gigantic bullet after gigantic bullet rescued compassion and sensitivity as they struck the Diablo that was descending from outer space.
Da! Da! Da!
The entire atmospheric layer started to shake from the impact.
Da! Da! Da!
As a result, even the air started to become distorted.
Da! Da! Da!
The limbs that the Diablo had used to pierce through the atmosphere broke off one after another in the face of these compassion-filled bullets.
"Ahh!"
A terrible howl resonated throughout the whole world.
A bright light filled the air and seemed to fill the sky and everything within sight.
The electronic screens turned into patches of white.
Countless radio telescopes were immediately burned up from the brightness.
For a few moments, the few working radio telescopes continued to project the images they were capturing.
The sky was completely different now.
The skies were blue and filled with white fluffy clouds.
Many people felt tears come to their eyes.
And then…
Pitter-patter!
Everyone watched as the rain fell from the skies above them.
However, the rain was gleaming droplets of blood.
It was the blood that was flowing out of the body of that Diablo.
"Look at the ground!" Someone exclaimed as he pointed to part of the electronic screen.
Everyone hurriedly shifted the focus of some of the radio telescopes.
Then they saw the most unbelievable thing that they had ever seen in their lives.
As the blood mixed with the light and fell onto the ground…
In this vast land of nothingness that had dried up a long time ago…tiny specks of green stubbornly fought to emerge from beneath the hard soil.
After 102 years after the Void Storm, plants began to grow once more on Earth.
"It's our savior!" One after another, people fell to their knees in front of the electronic screens as they started to worship the bronze item that had descended from the whirlpool.
******
Elizabeth was soaking in the bloody rain.
The droplets of blood pelted her body.
But they didn't carry any stench or smell of filth.
Instead, she could smell a fragrance.
It was the smell of life.
She squatted down and carefully moved her feet.
A bright green blade of young grass had stubbornly arisen from under the surface of the soil and was starting to produce a patch of young leaves.
These were seedlings that had been buried deep within the soil before the Void Storm happened.
For the past 102 years, nothing had gotten the chance to bud at all.
But today…
These seedlings had managed to bud.
Elizabeth carefully dug it out from the soil and held it in her hands.
Then she looked piously towards the gigantic Buddha that was slowly disappearing within the whirlpool.
She knelt down and clasped her hands together to greet that almighty savior, the truth of the universe.
"Praise be! Praise to the great Gatling Bodhisattva!
"How wonderful is the great Gatling Bodhisattva!
"The way of Buddha is indeed merciful and has compassion on all living things!"
If this had happened in the past, Elizabeth might still have had some doubts.
But after today, she finally knew the answers.
What she had found was the true path of liberation, the definite path to rebirth, and the truth of this universe.
"To have much is good! To be large is beautiful!" She raised the tiny blade of grass and started to jump toward the metal sacrificial altar that had sprung up.
"I have found a suitable place to make a sacrifice!" She flipped open the Gospel for Synthetic Beings.
She now knew what her purpose in life was.
She also understood the will of the metal altar.
Believers!
Any noble and mighty deity needed more believers!
The merciful and compassionate Gatling Bodhisattva also needed more people to read its scriptures.
And so she sat in the middle of the Church of Machines and pressed her hand on the Holy Seat of Steel.
The steel and the machines seemed to come alive as they surrounded her on all sides.
******
The sun shone into the room through the window.
Ling PingAn opened his eyes and yawned.
Then he sat up in bed.
"I feel like I just had a pretty awesome dream," he said.
He had forgotten most of what had happened in the dream.
But there was one part that had felt especially real and exciting…
Especially that last part, when he had held a Gatling gun and shot a monster to smithereens. The feeling of doing that had been simply amazing.
The bullets had been fired from the gun.
In the midst of their spewing fire, a spider that was at least a few thousand feet high had been destroyed completely.
When he thought about these images, Ling PingAn sighed. "Why isn't there such a game on the market?"
Huge monsters, dramatic scenes, high-quality effects...
The frame never jumped, and everything looked as real as it could be.
This was really a game that could only happen in his dreams.
"I hope I can have another dream like that the next time I go to sleep." He got out of bed and saw the phone that he had left behind on the couch.
After picking up the phone and unlocking it with a swipe, the expression on Ling PingAn's face immediately changed.
"What the h*ll!"
"I got reported!"
The game on his phone screen had returned to the main menu already.
There was a notification from the system in his in-box.
He'd had 14 points deducted from him, and he was banned from logging in for the next 48 hours.
"What sh*tty game is this?! Who are these sh*tty developers?!" Ling PingAn flew into a rage and yelled angrily. "All I did was fall asleep, and I didn't purposely mean to disconnect at all! How could they deduct so many points and bar me from the game for 48 hours?"
"You can forget about ever getting a single cent out of me!"
But the truth was that he had never paid for anything in the game before.
Both his characters and skins were either from completing missions and campaigns or from exchanging various tokens within the game.
The developers wanted him to pay for in-app purchases?
There was no way he'd ever do it.
But that lack of spending didn't stop him from behaving as if he was a father who'd provided his son with allowance money.
Since he was their dad, then cursing the developers and operations team was as normal as a father scolding his son, right?