Soul of Searing Steel

Chapter 915: The Strong and the Weak

There was no need for the weak to exist. Repeated tales of the strong triumphing over the weak filled the history of civilization.

A dark red planet featuring dim sunlight, a cold atmosphere, and an abnormally volatile and rugged landscape lay beneath the illumination of the ancient yellow-brown sun. Common sense dictated that the iron-rich land and atmosphere should not have sustained any life, being so dull and barren that even advanced civilizations would not have bothered exploring on passing.

And yet, within the dead realm that almost felt too cruel, something miraculous happened. Deep within the warm springs in a valley basin, primitive sprouts grew amidst vigorous magical energy. The deep mana zone eventually enveloped the world through seismic movement and initial life spread throughout the world. Tens of millions of years of dramatic evolution and countless descendants later gave birth to a steel-hard species.

They were born upon mountain caverns and lived within the deep winding cavities. Though their form resembled snails, their bodies were harder than rock and the shells they shouldered tougher than steel. The thickness of their shells had certainly been burdensome, but ensured their safety. In return, they proudly named themselves the Amos, which meant ‘to carry’ in the ancient tongue.

The tribe prospered and strengthened with passing time. From the ancient stone age to the flourishing enchanted industry era, the Amos gradually occupied the entire world. They wiped out the titan lizards, their sentient counterparts, defeated aboriginal hordes, expelled mountain centipedes, and chased the metal beasts that had destroyed their mountain cities out of the ecosphere’s protection. The Amos succeeded in changing their world, advancing their own civilization, and claiming the entire planet as their domain.

Yet, there remained one thing that the Amos could never have changed. It was the heavy responsibility that all intelligent life carried upon their shoulders—weakness. The original sin of being weak.

Naturally-deformed newborns were thrown into lakes of magma during the old stone age. Ancient races were banished from their homeland due to outdated tools in the new stone age. Tribes were culled for being unable to master element magic during the early tribal era.

They were ever-changing and numerous. They were the children discriminated and bullied for shells not hard enough, therefore cowering in a corner to cry. They were the menial laborers ostracized by society simply for the fact that they were unable to ever learn magic despite their best efforts. They were the poor with no educational resources, no opportunity to change their fate, and no future to speak of—they were the untouchables, forgotten by the world and deemed to be unfit even for taxes.

They were the weak.

Various reasons and causes divided the strong and the weak at birth ever since Creation. Larger cells devoured smaller ones, creatures of tougher shells crumpled ones with fragile shells, and those able to use tools enslaved those who could not, just as the magical oppressed the non-magical.

Nobles exploited slaves and peasants to sustain themselves and their heirs with every resource within their domains, allowing the stronger descendants to do the same. Kings ruled over nations, with royal families grooming champions who would consolidate the country’s forces and perpetuate their rule over a thousand years, a cycle of order akin to having an iron hammer smashing upon the world, shaping morals, logic and principles into something entirely different.

The strong were ever victorious and oppressive over the weak. So what if the weak were enraged and unwilling to resign to their fate? Could tears crumble the noble’s citadels, or bellows tear down the king’s palaces? Such was the order that was beyond moral measure, the gap between Extraordinary individuals—over countless years, the powerful feasted upon the vulnerable to maintain their rule, to accumulate sufficient time and resources, thereby pushing their supernatural powers above threshold after threshold.

That had been precisely the reason for the civilization’s progress.

[Weakness is sin]

A king sat upon the pinnacle of the mountain kingdom he ruled, overlooking his vast empire while powerful magical energy swept through the nation. He was the first individual in the Amos history to reached new heights in Extraordinary ability, an unprecedented genius and the finest work of bloodline legacies.

And he was also the first to feel the suffering of the weak through that same power, and thereby understood that pain.

[The weak bear the Original Sin]

Civilization had fallen into a limbo. Crude means for resource gathering no longer sufficed for Extraordinary individuals to reach the next level, as oppression and torment of the Amos’ bottom hierarchy over endless years had divided them into two very different races. The Low Amos had no magical talent, had frail bodies and shells, and could not endure heat and pressure to excavate magical crystals in deep mining zones for the High Amos’ cultivation. The latter were robustly formed, having inherited alloy shells from their family, had powerful magic that could change landscapes, were capable of swimming in volcanoes and magma—but yet never involved themselves in production, merely dedicating their lives to seeking power.

[Everything is the fault of the weak]

It was the incompetence of the weak that could not satisfy the growing demands of the strong causing civilization to stagnate. They had then become a malignant tumor of the Amos civilization, the reason civilization could not progress. In the dawn of a new age, the Low Amos were simply a waste of resources, a negative value, creatures struggling to survive even though their will to live was a complete mistake.

[The weak have no reason to exist]

The king felt the pain of the weak and their vulnerability, their difficulty and struggles though they knew not of what tomorrow held for them, or where the future for their painful survival lay. They could not even understand what the words ‘tomorrow’ or ‘future’ meant, nor were they able to comprehend that they were the same species as the nobles.

But unlike the Amos nobles whom belittled the Low Amos as tools, slaves and numbers, the king, born a champion, took pity upon them, deigning to meet them and promise them a wish.

The weak—the Low Amos individual who had been questioned by the generous king did not even leave his name. Instead, he spoke with the most jaded, zealous, pained, and humble tone to the lofty king whose face showed pity.

“Let me die,” he said with utmost freedom.

Then the weak died. That was probably the salvation the Low Amos begged for.

So that was it—they were enduring such misery and did not yearn for life. From that day, the king realized the truth and an Imperator was thus born.

[Yes—since being weak meant hell…]

Then let the weak gain awareness of their weakness and grow in reality, and before they would experience boundless torment, let them be gently killed. Let all be cleansed before the embryo gains life, before life gains wisdom, and before wisdom forms self-awareness.

The pain and darkness to come would have been a thousand times greater than that of the present moment. In the presence of the Void, other civilizations, and the World Eaters that decimated worlds, how despairing was the pain of the weak. They abandoned everything—duty, honor and pain, along with the right to live and a future, handing it all to the strong.

With the tumors called the weak extracted, only geniuses and champions remained. The strong were self-sufficient and grew independently, allowing them to throw away the cumbersome support system.

The civilization would have been able to prosper and be empowered, and yet be pure, sacred, glorious and consummate without requiring accomplishments and honors, or having it be built upon the pain of the weak—for all evil and pain was ended at birth.

“We severed our weaknesses; we changed our forms and swallowed poison. We changed our mindset, spitting upon gods and religion—even setting our own pontiff aflame over a bonfire of steel. We detonated arcane fusion bombs over our planet, so that the weak would have no chance of surviving.”

“We are the Amos, the chosen bearers. We shoulder our shells, the mountains, and planets just as our Imperator advanced with the stars upon his back. We laughed as we devoured the flesh of the weak and claimed their pain. In the name of all glory and duty, we will fight in this Multiverse to the very last moment, to cull all sadness and pain of the weak from the stars!”

A warped will became a great horde, and the dark ideal transcended galaxies. None could sense the terrible presence, just as none were aware of the origins of that message, only that it was a tide spreading amidst the Flame. Humans would certainly never have felt it.

The tremors from that spirit between the Flames of civilization could perhaps be only represented by the collective consciousness of civilization itself. Still, it was a marginal perception of the information that came, transcending endless darkness.

But while men could not, gods could. Beyond the stargate within the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds of the Mycroft system within the Lost Galaxy, the golden cocoon of divine power buried deep beneath an underground lab shuddered, trembling in rage. The deity that had been in slumber within the Initial Flame and the boundless Root opened his eyes, as darkness was illuminated by the brilliance of the dimensional rift.

Dawn came, and the God of Might and Justice awakened.