Chapter 759: [Side Story] The American Salvation Record: The Founding Father’s Demon-Slaying Tale

Chapter One: God Bestows Grace Upon the Clay

[I looked upon the land, and it was formless and void. I gazed upon the Stars and Stripes, and their light had grown dim. The people were as lambs to the slaughter, weeping blood beneath the blade of the algorithm.]

The clouds of Heaven were thin.

God sat upon a gilded throne.

He wore a pair of thick reading glasses as his withered fingers leafed through a yellowed-edged copy of The Federalist Papers.

Suddenly, his brow furrowed, a look of helplessness in his eyes.

"Gabriel," God’s voice echoed through the great hall.

The Archangel Gabriel arrived from beyond the heavens, folding his pure white wings and kneeling on one knee before the throne.

"Do you know why I have summoned you?" God asked.

"Lord, you must have learned that something has gone awry in the world below," Gabriel said, his head bowed.

God looked displeased.

"Why was this not reported sooner?"

"Lord, you are preoccupied with the countless affairs of the universe. I dared not trouble you with the trivial matters of mortals below." Gabriel’s reply was impeccable.

God sighed and waved his hand dismissively.

"Gabriel, you have spent too long in the world below. You’ve picked up the bad habits of Washington."

With a wave of his sleeve, God caused a massive crystal ball to rise in the center of the hall.

Mist churned within the sphere, gradually revealing scenes from the modern-day United States.

In Philadelphia, hordes of zombies wandered the streets.

Their clothes were ragged, their gazes vacant, their limbs twisted at bizarre angles.

They were fentanyl addicts, wandering the streets like lost souls.

The crystal ball turned, the scene shifting to Los Angeles.

Along the highways and under the overpasses, a sea of colorful homeless tents stretched on endlessly.

It was a mountain range stitched together from despair and tattered cloth, sprawling across the heart of the City of Angels.

But a more terrifying sight was unfolding.

An invisible red light swept across the city’s sky.

The red light passed over an old man who had lost his job and, with it, his health insurance.

The old man’s body instantly turned transparent before dissolving into a cloud of ash, scattering in the cold wind.

The red light passed over a steelworker holding a collection notice, unable to pay his mortgage.

The worker’s roar of anger caught in his throat as he was utterly erased from existence.

"That the world has decayed to this point... they’ve even stripped mortals of the right to suffer," God sighed.

Gabriel raised his head.

"Lord, that is not the worst of it," Gabriel said.

God lifted his eyes. His expression did not change, but Gabriel felt an invisible pressure closing in from all sides.

It was a pressure hotter than the brimstone fires of Hell, heavier than the resentment from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

It was the wrath of the Creator, an absolute will powerful enough to extinguish stars.

"Why sugarcoat the truth?"

Gabriel dared not speak, only burying his head lower.

"It is understandable that mortals cannot see the full picture."

"But you, Gabriel, you can see the threads of causality."

"You knew the poisonous vine of greed had crept into the very marrow, yet you were only willing to snip away a few withered leaves."

Gabriel remained silent.

"Speak. What else is there?"

"There is a portent at the National Archives," said Gabriel.

"The bulletproof glass case is intact, and the parchment is still there, but..."

"But what?"

"On the Declaration of Independence, the golden ink of the words ’all men are created equal’ has been sucked dry by a demonic wind! Only the shriveled parchment remains."

God took off his reading glasses, his gaze turning sharp.

"Where did this demonic wind come from?"

"From Wall Street, in New York," Gabriel reported dutifully.

God rose to his feet.

He did not call down a flood, nor did he summon a meteor.

His gaze pierced the clouds of Heaven and fell upon Washington D.C., upon the magnificent dome of the Congress Building.

There, a giant fresco was painted: The Apotheosis of Washington.

"Since this is an earthly ailment, it should be cured by an earthly hero."

God extended his right hand and pointed at the fresco.

A blinding golden light descended from the sky, striking the dome of the Congress Building.

The colors on the fresco began to distort and peel away.

The figure seated in the clouds, flanked by the Goddess of Liberty and the Goddess of Victory, suddenly opened his eyes.

With a tremendous crash of shattering stone, George Washington burst forth from the wall.

He wore the dark blue uniform of the Continental Army, stained with the snows of Gettysburg and the mud of the Delaware River. His face was as hard as marble, and his eyes burned with the same fire that had driven out a tyrant two hundred years before.

God opened his palm.

A cherry-wood ax, wreathed in blue lightning, materialized and fell into Washington’s hand.

"Go forth to the world below, my child."

God’s voice thundered across the heavens.

"Go to Wall Street, and reclaim that lost golden spirit."

"Wipe out those blood-sucking fiends."

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Chapter Two: The Gathering at the Potomac

[One man’s strength is finite; therefore, God said, ’You shall have brothers to walk with you.’ They awaken from statues of stone and from bills of paper, bearing the thunder of days past.]

The night wind swept along the Potomac Riverfront as George Washington landed before the Lincoln Memorial.

He looked at the world before him, surrounded by neon lights and digital billboards, and felt an unprecedented sense of oppression.

’The sorcery of this modern age is too strong,’ he realized. ’I cannot cleave through this all-encompassing cyber-fog with only this cherry-wood ax in my hand.’

So he walked straight toward the magnificent white marble memorial.

Washington stood before the nineteen-foot-tall seated statue, raised his cherry-wood ax high, and the blue lightning coiling around its blade let out a sharp CRACKLE.

"Awaken, woodsman of Illinois!"

Washington roared and swung the ax down.

"BOOM!"

The marble throne was split in two.