Chapter 763: [Extra] American Salvation Chronicle: Legend of the Founding Father Vanquishing Demons

When the group of four appeared, the wraiths swarmed them like a tidal wave.

They surrounded Washington, letting out mournful wails.

"Founding Father... you told us that labor is sacred."

A wraith that had lost half its shoulder knelt before Washington.

"We shed sweat and blood. We followed all the rules."

"But the factories moved away, the pensions vanished, and our cities became laughingstocks on television."

"Our homes were taken by the banks, and our children are doing drugs on the streets."

"Where is our happiness? The happiness you wrote about on that piece of paper, where is it?"

A wraith stretched out a withered hand. "You lied to us!"

Washington raised his cherry wood axe but found he could not bring it down.

He could split the armor of demons and sever the chains of capital.

But how could he cleave through decades of accumulated despair?

The battle-axe was useless against these wraiths.

He felt a profound sense of powerlessness.

He finally understood. The spirit of the Declaration of Independence hadn’t just been stolen by monsters; it was lost because the land itself had rotted, no longer able to provide fertile ground for it to survive.

Without bread, how can there be dignity? Without work, how can there be happiness?

Lincoln’s chains drooped as well.

Franklin’s lightning spells were useless here.

In this moment of despair, Roosevelt, sitting in his wheelchair, did something that shocked them all.

He gripped the armrests of his wheelchair with both hands, and with a grinding of bones, he stood up.

A miracle occurred.

"Fireside Chat, Domain Expansion!"

He opened his arms, and a warm, orange-yellow light radiated from his body, enveloping the cold wasteland.

"Come, sit by the fire, my fellow countrymen."

Roosevelt’s voice was deep and rich, carrying a strange, soothing power.

"I have heard your cries, and I have seen your suffering. This country has failed you. The greed of capital has snatched the food from your tables."

"I too have faced such ruins," Roosevelt said softly.

"I too have seen thousands upon thousands displaced, and I too have felt powerless."

"This country is sick. Greedy capitalists have devoured its backbone. Those people sitting in their Wall Street towers—they don’t know you, and they don’t want to."

"But I do."

Roosevelt pointed to the abandoned blast furnaces.

"It was your sweat that forged the skeleton of the Statue of Liberty. It was your backs that held up the United States."

"I promise you, we will rebuild the order of this land with a new deal."

"We will make the smokestacks billow once more! We will make the gears turn again! And we will drag those bloodsucking demons down from their Wall Street thrones!"

"Your labor has value! Your dignity is sacred!"

"If we cannot reclaim our dignity without bloodshed, then we will shed blood! But this time, it will be the blood of the plunderers we shed."

The wraiths stopped crying.

Their once-blurry faces began to sharpen into focus.

"Mr. President..."

The wraiths dissolved one by one into motes of starlight and ascended into the night sky.

The starlight swirled, finally converging into a luminous river that flowed into the cherry wood axe in Washington’s hands.

The axe absorbed this immense will of the workers and underwent a strange transformation.

The once-silver blade of the axe now glowed a dark, molten red, as hot as magma.

Markings of a hammer and wrench materialized on the handle, an extension of the will of hundreds of thousands of laborers.

Washington gripped the searing handle. He could feel the roars of millions surging through his blood.

"Let’s go," Washington said, tightening his grip on the heavy battle-axe. "To New York."

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Chapter 6: A Battle with a Vicious Dragon on Wall Street

[Now the great dragon is that ancient serpent, called the Demon and Satan, who leads the whole world astray. Its lair lies deep in the canyons of Manhattan.]

The group of four, driving the heavily damaged steam-powered wheelchair, finally arrived on the East Coast—at Wall Street in New York.

The sight before them made them gasp.

Wall Street had transformed into a massive Golden Fortress suspended in mid-air.

Its surface was inlaid with countless electronic screens flashing with stock tickers and derivatives indices.

A gale howled around the fortress.

It was a storm of inflation, powerful enough to devour the life savings of the common people.

Below the storm, the waters of the Hudson River flowed backward, forming an all-consuming tsunami of debt.

At the center of this raging tempest coiled the final monster.

The Leviathan Gold Dragon.

It was a monster forged from the greed of Wall Street’s financial oligarchs and the steel of the military-industrial complex.

Its scales were gold coins, its claws and teeth were missiles.

It opened its cavernous mouth, constantly devouring the surplus labor value of the mortals below.

Within its transparent abdomen, the four could clearly see a faint golden light.

It was the golden spirit of the Declaration of Independence, which the beast had swallowed.

It was being converted into a ceaseless stream of paper profits.

"Die, foul dragon!"

Lincoln was the first to attack.

With a furious roar, he shot toward the sky.

His brawny arms swung the steel chains, smashing them toward the gold dragon’s head.

"ROAR!"

The Leviathan Gold Dragon let out an earth-shattering roar.

It opened its great maw and spat out a storm of US Dollars, a torrent formed from countless green bills.

This green storm of US Dollars was highly corrosive.

It could corrode all faith, all morality.

The storm swept past.

The moment Lincoln’s chains came into contact with the green light, their dark red glow was instantly extinguished. Then, the steel links melted like wax.