Chapter 760: [Side Story] United States Salvation Record: The Founding Father’s Demon-Vanquishing Legend

The dust settled, and Abraham Lincoln awoke.

He had transformed into a three-meter-tall berserker, his body a mass of knotted muscle.

In his hand, he gripped a thick iron chain, every link glowing with a dark red fire.

The chain was the physical manifestation of the parchment of the Emancipation Proclamation.

"Who calls for freedom?"

Lincoln’s voice rolled across the square like muffled thunder.

"I do, brother." Washington put away his axe. "The nation has fallen into servitude once more. This time, the shackles are not of pig iron, but of debt and algorithms."

Lincoln swung the chain in his hand, and the air cracked with a piercing sonic boom.

"Then we will shatter them together."

The two left the Special Zone together, traveling swiftly until they reached Philadelphia.

Thunderclouds packed the night sky as a torrential downpour swept through the old districts of Philadelphia.

The old site of Independence Hall was hidden in the curtain of rain, surrounded by leaking scaffolding and graffiti-covered walls.

Washington and Lincoln stood in the middle of the street, rainwater streaming down their clothes.

Washington looked down at the pooling water at his feet.

Next to a tattered fast-food paper bag lay a hundred-dollar bill, soaked in grime.

The bill spun in the murky puddle. At that moment, the portrait of Franklin on it suddenly opened its eyes.

The once-stolid portrait came to life, its eyes darting rapidly within their narrow frames, revealing a cunning glint.

Washington raised his cherry wood axe high, and a bolt of azure lightning plunged from the depths of the clouds, striking the puddle with perfect accuracy.

"SIZZLE!"

The current exploded into countless tiny sparks on the water’s surface.

The portrait on the bill began to change, the ink squirming in the water like a living thing.

Benjamin Franklin leaped out from it.

He wore a shabby, brown wool coat over a white shirt that was messily tucked in.

He slapped the water from his thigh and pulled a sophisticated instrument made of copper wire, glass tubes, and vacuum bulbs from his coat pocket.

He slung the kite lightning conductor over his shoulder. Unstable blue arcs of electricity danced between his fingers.

"Oh, hell. The current frequency these days is a real headache."

Franklin brushed the water from his clothes, muttering some raunchy scientific jokes about electrical charges and the static electricity under women’s skirts.

"We need your mind, Benjamin," Washington said, his tone calm. "The United States is sick."

"Of course, General. To be honest, I’ve long been fed up with those Wall Street fools who only know how to trade stocks but not how to invent anything."

"Let’s go. There’s one last brother."

The three vanished into the wind and rain of Philadelphia, returning to Washington D.C.

They stopped beneath an abandoned New Deal monument on the Potomac Riverfront.

Washington gripped the handle of his axe, feeling a faint pulse emanating from deep underground.

"He’s right below us."

Washington swung his axe, smashing it into the ground.

The sharp edge of the cherry wood axe cut through the stone slab. The ground began to crack, a fissure spreading rapidly.

Then, the entire heavy slab was violently thrown into the air by an immense force from below.

Steam billowed up.

With the grating sound of grinding gears, Franklin Roosevelt appeared.

He sat in a tracked, steam-powered wheelchair forged from brass and pig iron, a Gatling gun mounted on each side.

Roosevelt had his signature long cigarette holder clenched in his teeth. His gaze was cold, and the pride of a man who looked down upon the masses was still etched into his wrinkles.

He reached out and patted the Gatling gun’s trigger on the armrest. The gun’s rotating barrels made a soft, mechanical whirring sound.

"I hear the world below has fallen into another Great Depression?"

Roosevelt exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, which hung in the cold air without dispersing.

"Looks to me like those Wall Street Vampires still haven’t learned their lesson."

Roosevelt sneered, his eyes fixed on the direction of Wall Street in the distance.

The group of four was assembled.

The Commander of the Continental Army held his war axe, the Liberator swung his chains, the Polymath controlled lightning, and the New Deal Leader commanded steel.

They stood on the bank of the Potomac River. In the distance, the lights of Washington D.C. flickered, like the breaths of a gravely ill person.

Washington looked at the other three.

"Where we are going, there is no law, no justice—only the ruins of desire."

"Then that is exactly where we must go," Lincoln’s voice thundered.

"My kite is itching to dismantle those disguised base stations," Franklin said, fiddling with the instrument in his hands.

Roosevelt yanked the joystick of his wheelchair.

"Let’s go. Let’s show those algorithm-playing Demons what true national will looks like."

The tracks crunched over the gravel, making a teeth-grinding sound.

The four turned to face west and officially set foot on Route 66, the highway that once crossed the United States and was now a wasteland.

Two hundred years ago, they built a nation here.

Over a hundred years ago, they saved the nation here.

Decades ago, they reshaped the nation here.

Now, they were here to, once again...

Vanquish the Demons.

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Chapter Three: The Golden Bull Calf Beguiles the Hearts of Men

"They worshiped the man-made beast, offering the blood of the sick. The priests called it the law of the market; God called it an excuse for slaughter."

The four of them drove Roosevelt’s super-wheelchair—modified by Franklin to run on absorbed lightning—across the wastelands of the Midwest.

They arrived at an industrial city shrouded in smog.

In the very center of the city stood an immense green Cross.

The Cross was pieced together from countless LED screens, emitting a dazzling green light.

Tens of thousands of civilians stood in long lines, walking numbly toward the Cross.