“…”
“…”
“…”
The battle ceased in an instant.
It was entirely because a massive explosion and an earth-shattering tremor, powerful enough to force every single living soul to react, had just violently ripped through the air.
Absolutely anyone participating in the battle could clearly see the colossal pillar of fire and thick, black smoke rapidly billowing into the sky from just beyond the frontlines.
Both the Spanish army and the Florida forces, who had literally been tearing at each other’s throats mere seconds prior, clamped their mouths shut and stared at the inferno in stunned silence.
They couldn’t even bring themselves to cheer or scream. After all, one had to at least possess a rudimentary understanding of what had just happened to actually react to it.
Consequently, they merely stood frozen in place, staring blankly at the apocalyptic chaos unfolding in the distance.
“…Huh?”
With one notable exception.
Alonso Garcia knew exactly what had caused that horrific pillar of fire.
A collision.
‘His’ mechanical monster had violently collided with the colossal Spanish siege cannons.
And then, absolutely everything had gone up in flames.
Igniting the massive gunpowder stockpiles, the war chariot itself, and everything else in the immediate vicinity, the ensuing catastrophic explosion was currently tearing the Spanish ranks to absolute shreds. Naturally, those terrifyingly massive siege cannons wouldn’t have survived an explosion of that magnitude either.
However, that wasn’t the important part.
‘He’ was still inside that blazing inferno.
If he truly was a divine Angel, he surely wouldn’t die. However… Alonso simply didn’t know. Alonso couldn’t possibly know.
For a terrifying moment, his mind went completely blank.
“…The outcome of this war rests entirely in your hands.”
If that were true, why on earth would he go to such extreme, suicidal lengths for them?
“H-Hurry! Snap out of it!”
The rebel commander standing next to Alonso desperately roared. The soldiers, who had been staring blankly at the explosion for several agonizing seconds, finally began to snap back to reality.
“H-Hurry and a-advance! Charge forward!”
At that command, the soldiers’ bodies instantly stiffened again. Charge? Even if the enemy ranks were currently in chaos, they were still overwhelmingly outnumbered! How could they possibly launch a frontal assault when they had been desperately defending against a brutal siege mere moments ago?!
However, the commander’s next sentence instantly washed away every ounce of their hesitation.
“There will never be another opportunity like this! H-Hurry! Did the Angel not just miraculously obliterate our enemies?!”
The Spanish soldiers, still standing in a stunned daze, naturally took significantly longer to recover from the sheer shock. Considering a catastrophic explosion had just violently detonated right in the dead center of their main camp, they were likely still trying to comprehend what the hell was happening.
And so, by the time they finally snapped back to reality.
“F-For Florida!”
They were instantly swept away and violently crushed by the surging charge of the Florida forces.
Over a thousand rebel soldiers threw open the fortress gates and charged forward in unison.
***
Getting stabbed with a sword… is not exactly a pleasant experience.
The sickening, violating sensation of cold, foreign steel violently forcing its way into places it absolutely shouldn’t be.
The sensation of having your limbs brutally severed is equally horrifying. Watching a piece of your own body—an extension of your very self just moments prior—instantly transformed into a meaningless, bleeding chunk of meat lying on the ground before you is a uniquely traumatic experience.
When your body is engulfed in flames, it feels as though thousands of white-hot needles are relentlessly piercing every single inch of your flesh, causing your nervous system to violently misfire and your muscles to spasm uncontrollably.
In truth, many people have likely experienced significantly milder versions of these sensations in their everyday lives.
Everyone has experienced the stinging pain of a paper cut, accidentally sliced their finger while cooking with a kitchen knife, or briefly burned their hand on a hot stove at least once.
However.
Experiencing all of those agonizing sensations simultaneously, magnified to an apocalyptic degree, is likely not something most people will ever endure.
I felt my entire body violently erupt into flames.
Simultaneously, I felt my entire body being violently ripped to shreds.
Those few agonizing seconds stretched out into an eternity. Completely engulfed by the roaring, crimson inferno, I couldn’t even properly see my own limbs. No, actually, my eyes had likely been incinerated before I even had the chance to try and look at anything.
I couldn’t do a single damn thing. I couldn’t even freely flail around in agony. Completely overwhelmed by a level of pain that far exceeded the maximum threshold of human endurance, my shattered nervous system began wildly misfiring chaotic signals in every direction, and my blood rapidly poured out of places it absolutely shouldn’t.
My body was completely and utterly destroyed. At some point, I couldn’t even feel the agonizing pain anymore.
I completely lost all control over my physical form. As my consciousness violently detached itself from the sensations of my ruined body, absolute, suffocating nothingness enveloped me.
Even the very act of thinking became increasingly difficult.
I could feel my consciousness—reduced to its most primal, simplistic form—hanging by a fragile, terrifyingly thin thread.
Normally, taking one step further from this state is what people refer to as ‘death.’ I was currently rapidly progressing through the agonizing process of dying.
Amidst the roaring flames, the flying shrapnel, and the deafening explosion, my body and mind were violently dismantled and incinerated.
As if the entity known as ‘I’ had never existed in the first place.
However, I do not die.
I am…
…
…
…
.
.
.
And the earth was without form, and void;
And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
(Genesis 1:2)
***
“…M-Merciful Lord! What the hell happened here?!”
“Throw water on it!”
“Throwing water is only making the flames spread faster!”
“Stop! Get those water buckets out of here right now! T-That’s burning oil!”
The roaring inferno, greedily devouring vast quantities of crude oil and black powder, was not something that could be easily extinguished.
The Spanish soldiers frantically rushed to haul water and sand from the surrounding areas to dump onto the massive explosion that had just detonated in the dead center of their infantry square, but the weather happened to be particularly dry.
As the flames eagerly lashed out with their nimble tongues to consume the surrounding grass, uniforms, and anything else remotely flammable, the fire only continued to violently expand rather than subside.
“T-The Sergeant Major (Sargento mayor) has lost consciousness!”
“Evacuate the officers immediately! Hurry!”
To make matters infinitely worse, the command center had naturally been positioned right in the dead center of the most heavily fortified, heavily defended infantry square for maximum safety.
Naturally, the Spanish had also deliberately maintained a safe distance between the command center and the artillery batteries.
However, because Kim Lee-sang’s excavator and the massive stockpile of gunpowder had detonated so violently and unexpectedly, the devastating shockwave had effortlessly reached the command center anyway.
“Commander! C-Commander!”
“Ghk… Haaah…”
Juan del Águila, a man well into his sixties, had inhaled copious amounts of toxic black smoke and collapsed, while numerous other high-ranking officers were either knocked unconscious, horrifically wounded, or killed outright by the blast.
In short, the entire strategic brain of the Spanish army had been completely paralyzed.
And in the midst of that absolute chaos.
“Freedom!”
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
The enemy forces finally surged out of the fortress and stood before them. The very same pathetic, untrained slaves who had been cowardly hiding behind those transparent shields and stone walls, effortlessly toying with the elite Spanish veterans just moments prior.
However, rather than being thrilled that the enemy had finally emerged from their rat hole, the Spanish soldiers were utterly terrified. They were forced to abandon their frantic efforts to contain the raging inferno and hastily reform their shattered ranks to repel the impending attack.
While the massive fire was still roaring violently right in the dead center of their formations.
As the decapitated Spanish army stood paralyzed in confusion, terrified of completely breaking formation if they moved recklessly, the Virginian-backed Florida forces were finally able to unleash their true, terrifying potential without an ounce of hesitation.
“Reload!”
Clack.
“Fire!”
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
The traditional matchlock muskets currently utilized by the Spanish required the musketeers to maintain a significant distance from one another to prevent the burning slow matches from accidentally igniting their comrades’ gunpowder pans.
Furthermore, because the user had to constantly maintain a lit fuse and manually lower it into the pan, it was incredibly difficult to perfectly synchronize the exact moment of firing even after the weapon was fully loaded.
However, the flintlock muskets were entirely different. Once loaded, they could be fired instantaneously at the exact moment the commander desired.
Meaning.
“Fire!”
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
Executing perfectly synchronized, devastating volley fire was infinitely easier.
Of course, it was fundamentally impossible for a mob of recently liberated slaves, who had only been receiving rudimentary military training for a few weeks, to perfectly execute the rigorous, highly disciplined line infantry tactics Kim Lee-sang had ignorantly attempted to introduce.
Standing your ground while the enemy’s blades and bullets are flying toward you, violently suppressing your own primal survival instincts, and concentrating your fire in perfect unison based entirely on the collective will of the unit?
That required a level of profound, deeply ingrained discipline and psychological conditioning that far exceeded Kim Lee-sang’s naive expectations.
However, even their clumsy, pathetic imitation was more than enough to deliver a devastating shock.
“Fire!”
It was an incredibly clumsy, amateurish imitation.
Yet, they wielded overwhelmingly advanced firearms capable of effortlessly compensating for all of that amateurish clumsiness.
Coupled with the sheer, desperate fighting spirit forged by the terrifying realization that there was nowhere left to run if they lost here.
The concentrated wall of lead produced by all those factors combined was…
“Aaargh! Aaaaagh!”
“Do not fall back! Spearmen, advance!”
“I-If we advance into that, we’ll all be slaughtered!”
“Then do you plan on dying meaninglessly right here?!”
…Still more than enough to completely overwhelm the Spanish veterans.
Caught in the terrifying, albeit slightly inconsistent, hail of synchronized volley fire, the Spanish soldiers couldn’t even break out of the kill zone before being gunned down.
Realizing they were being completely outgunned in a long-range firefight, several Spanish companies desperately attempted to charge forward and force a brutal melee… but they received absolutely no coordinated command or covering support. There was no central command left to oversee the grand strategy of the battle and systematically maneuver the various moving parts of the army.
The disastrous outcome of ten fingers attempting to independently play a complex symphony without a conductor was glaringly obvious.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
The companies that recklessly charged forward without proper covering fire were simply left completely isolated and brutally shredded by the concentrated crossfire.
Meanwhile, the companies that refused to advance completely missed their opportunity to meaningfully strike the enemy.
And so.
“Hah, dammit! Finally…!”
Amidst the continuous, agonizing string of tactical defeats, the Spanish soldiers in the rear finally managed to extinguish the massive inferno that had been severely restricting their mobility. Having witnessed the brutal slaughter occurring at the frontlines, they were currently sweating profusely.
They stared at the melted, mangled shards of metal, and the horrific, charred remains of countless human beings, grass, and splintered wood.
The sickening, nauseating stench of burning oil, melting plastic, synthetic leather, roasting human flesh, and scorched earth violently assaulted everyone’s lungs.
Watching the thick, black smoke lazily drifting up from the freshly cooled mountain of ash, they slowly turned their heads.
It was finally time to fight back properly.
Although the high command was still largely incapacitated due to the shockwave and toxic smoke, the enemy was already right in front of them. If they retreated now, they wouldn’t be able to continue the war.
To prevent a total, catastrophic rout, their only remaining option was to order a massive, general advance and physically crush the enemy using their overwhelming numerical superiority.
In order to advance past the mountain of ash, they took a single step forward, and.
Squirm.
“U-Uwaaah!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“N-No… S-Something… something just squirmed under my boot…!”
A soldier violently recoiled, feeling something distinctly move beneath the charred earth.
He had undeniably felt something.
It wasn’t just the subtle wriggling of a buried insect. It felt exactly like stepping onto the chest of someone desperately gasping for air.
Assuming the man was just making a pathetic fuss over a stray snake or a large bug, the others angrily berated him for wasting time during a critical moment and confidently took a step forward themselves.
Squirm.
And they, too, violently recoiled.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Their comrades were currently being brutally slaughtered just a short distance ahead, yet they were inexplicably, terrifyingly unable to take another step forward.
Beneath their boots… they felt a massive, rhythmic vibration. It felt as though the very earth they were standing on was merely a fragment of a colossal, buried egg.
It felt as though a massive, incomprehensible lifeform was violently sprouting from within.
As a horrifying chill violently shot up their spines, they instinctively turned their heads to look back at the black smoke still lazily drifting up from the mountain of ash.
“…Huh?”
Something was incredibly wrong.
The smoke wasn’t dissipating into the sky.
It was actively clumping together.
As if guided by an unseen hand, the wind was violently sweeping the thick smoke and scattered ash into a single, concentrated focal point.
Even the charred soil and dust beneath their boots began to violently swirl upward, eagerly joining the swirling vortex of smoke. Chunks of debris far too heavy to be casually tossed by the wind floated gently upward as if they were nothing more than weightless autumn leaves.
As all of those elements violently coalesced roughly at the height of a grown man’s chest…
The dense, black smoke rhythmically expanded, and then violently contracted, repeating the cycle over and over again. The shape it formed looked exactly like…
“…Lungs?” someone muttered blankly.
It was breathing.
Something unseen was violently breathing life into it.
And then.
There was light.
***
The brutal battle raged on.
With the Spanish desperately struggling to hold their crumbling formations together, and the Floridians utilizing their overwhelming firepower to compensate for their numerical disadvantage, there was absolutely no end in sight to the bloody slaughter.
Even as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, plunging the battlefield into an inky darkness where they could barely distinguish friend from foe by the faint light of the moon and stars, they continued to blindly fire their muskets and scream in agony.
To make matters worse, tonight was a new moon, and thick, heavy clouds completely obscured the sky, leaving nothing but suffocating darkness.
“W-What the hell… Why did they suddenly stop firing and turn around…?”
And then.
FWOOOOOOSH!
A blinding, ethereal light suddenly erupted from the very center of the Spanish ranks. Simultaneously, the deafening roar of Spanish gunfire abruptly ceased. The Spanish soldiers frantically began shouting in absolute panic before completely breaking formation and fleeing desperately back toward the site of the recent explosion.
While continuing to fire relentlessly into their retreating backs, the deeply confused Floridians cautiously pursued them, wondering what on earth was happening.
“W-What the hell was that light just now?”
“I don’t know… Are they preparing to fire another cannon or something?”
“Dear God, don’t even say something so terrifying!”
BANG! BANG-BANG!
Before long, the only gunshots ringing out across the battlefield belonged exclusively to the Florida forces. The Spanish soldiers were doing absolutely nothing but dropping to their knees, violently trembling, weeping uncontrollably, throwing their weapons into the dirt, and frantically fleeing in every direction.
Leaving the surrendering and fleeing Spanish soldiers behind, the Florida forces finally reached the very center of the enemy’s shattered formation.
The epicenter of the massive explosion. The exact spot where the nameless man had charged.
And there, they saw it. They saw the exact same impossible spectacle the Spanish had just witnessed.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Terrified to take even a single step closer, they froze dead in their tracks. They instantly realized that the Spanish soldiers had been completely paralyzed by this exact same, overwhelming, divine pressure.
They could feel it in the shifting currents of the wind.
It was currently the dead of night, and they were positioned directly near the coast. This was the exact time when the land breeze should have been blowing in a neat, orderly fashion from the shore out toward the ocean.
However, that basic meteorological ‘knowledge’ couldn’t even begin to explain the bizarre, swirling vortex of wind currently violently coalescing above the mountain of ash.
The shape floating above the ashes.
Every single strand of the swirling wind was violently dragging ash and dust up from the scorched earth, eagerly adding new colors and textures to the floating shape as if a divine artist was painting on a blank canvas.
The blackened, charred remnants were violently pulverized and reassembled, rapidly taking on vibrant new colors.
Something was being meticulously sculpted above the ashes.
And absolutely everyone present instantly recognized exactly what it was.
“A-A-A human being…!”
The distinct silhouette of a human being violently shimmered into existence like a heat mirage, rapidly growing thicker and horrifyingly distinct.
Starting from the chest and the head, violently expanding to the stomach and the shoulders, and then rapidly extending down to the upper arms and thighs…
Slowly.
It was being meticulously sculpted from the very dirt of the earth.
Finally, even the delicate fingers and toes were perfectly formed.
The complete, flawless figure of an adult male was finally revealed before them all. Hovering weightlessly in the air like a drifting leaf, the completely naked body lacked any trace of actual vitality, looking exactly like a meticulously crafted, lifeless doll.
From within the swirling vortex of dust… thick steam violently erupted, rapidly condensing into a steady stream of liquid. As that liquid violently mixed with the swirling ash, a vibrant, crimson hue began to violently pulse through it.
It was fresh, living blood.
That blood began to violently seep directly into the body sculpted from the dirt.
As it eagerly seeped through the nose and mouth of the lifeless form, a vibrant, healthy flush of life instantly bloomed across the radiant body.
And then.
…
…
…
That body gently, weightlessly touched down upon the earth.
That body slowly opened its radiant, glowing eyes.
When Kim Lee-sang finally looked around at his surroundings.
There was not a single living soul upon the earth who was not violently kneeling before him.
Not a single person dared to remain standing on their own two feet in his presence.
***
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
And man became a living soul.
(Genesis 2:7)