Soul of Burning Steel

This is a story about a little boy that happened a long time ago.

That year, the boy was nine years old. He had a father who worked as a technical director in a large company, a mother who wrote full-time at home, and a sister who was four years younger than him. The four lived in a small country in the middle of the mainland, and their lives were peaceful. without ups and downs.

The father is generous but busy, the mother is strict at home, the five-year-old sister is usually well-behaved and sensible, but occasionally adds some chaos to the family, the boy's life is neither perfect nor miserable, just ordinary, normal family, normal Happiness.

But there is one thing that always makes boys feel distressed, and that is the expectations of parents, teachers, and even classmates and playmates.

——What do you want to do in the future? What are you interested in? My child is so smart, he will definitely be able to go to a good college, and my students' grades are not bad, so we should really work towards this.

This is the habit of the Siberians. They like order, a life that can be predicted and controlled. From social engineering, nation building, down to child training, planning for the future, no matter what it is, they always like to make a lot of preparations in advance, and use various technologies and arrangements to make everything go according to their own ideas.

The Siberians can make everything run according to their own ideas, even the world is the same-this is what the central government boasted in the news at that time, and at that time, the Siberians had already developed facilities that could control the weather and suppress earthquakes, they boasted The whole of nature has been taken into the hands of man.

So the people of Siberia should be like this.

You should do this, you should do that, you should be this kind of person, you should be that kind of person——Under the arrangement of parents, young boys learn mathematics, practice musical instruments, he thinks about exercises, studies physics, and he is doing tutoring Accompanied by books in class and copying notes in school, he travels back and forth every day, learning one kind of knowledge after another in accordance with the requirements of his parents, striving to become the person they expect.

As for his own thoughts, the boy has not yet, and he doesn't care, because he doesn't mind arranging his life according to other people's plans. The vast majority of Siberians are like this. At home, they must obey their parents, at school, they must obey their teachers, and if they enter the society to work, they must obey their superiors and officers. Most Siberians live according to the ideas of others. is the norm in society.

The boy didn't feel dissatisfied with this. He listened carefully to the advice of his elders and accomplished what they expected, and his life continued in a normal way. The father-like high-level technical personnel became part of the middle and upper classes of society.

However, this peaceful life did not last long.

On a peaceful summer night, a huge meteor shower that covered the entire night sky and even the sky of the entire Siberian world fell from the sky suddenly. Its appearance was completely beyond the expectations of the Central Observatory, and there was no warning at all before that.

Amid the delighted exclamations of passers-by on the side of the road, streams of light streaked across the sky. These colorful meteorites, almost none of which had exactly the same color, seemed to appear out of thin air, and then disappeared out of thin air. Obviously, everyone saw these meteors coming from the sky. fell, but no one found even the slightest fragment of the meteorite.

That year, the boy was ten years old, and it was his tenth birthday. When he was looking up at the shooting star in the night sky with his parents on the balcony at home, he saw a shooting star shining with dark blue light falling from the sky and falling into the center of his eyebrow.

And the next day, the world was changed.

Because, the "superpowers" that only existed in legends and movies in the past have truly appeared in this world without miracles.

The so-called superpowers are people who have abilities beyond what ordinary humans can hold. The superpower discovered at first was a drunken middle-aged male, probably because of entertainment, and he who drank too much alcohol lit a big fire in his sleep, and the blazing flames spurted out from his mouth and nose along with his snoring, and the The entire bar and even half of the surrounding block were burned to the ground, and hundreds of people died as a result-this immediately caused great social panic, and also made the central government quickly raise its vigilance against the existence of superpowers.

The whole world has shown great yearning and fear for this unknown power that can easily kill other people. They want to get it for themselves, but they don't want others to get it. In order to judge whether this middle-aged man should be sentenced to death, Lawyers from both sides launched a long tug-of-war in the Grand Court of Siberia, which aroused great social discussion.

But soon, no one paid attention to that man anymore... because after that, other various superpowers began to appear in front of the stage.

Some of them have physical abilities beyond ordinary people, some can control water, some can transform into lightning, and some can fly invisible... Psychic power, frost, mind peeping, memory manipulation, gravitational repulsion, transformation... People with these superpowers come from all corners of society, including high-level officials of the central government and homeless people living in street corners. Since the emergence of these superpowers, they have quickly disrupted the social order.

Some of them rely on their ability to do evil, and some rely on their ability to do good. For various reasons, superpowers quickly started fighting with each other. They fought in the streets and squares. The government was helpless against them. The army may still have a little deterrent effect on those relatively weak power users, but they have nothing to do with those powerful power users. They are no longer afraid of normal weapons of war. Whether it is missiles or lasers, they are useless, even Even long-range sniping will be detected by some kind of peculiar sixth sense. Even if the most powerful ones are attacked by fission bombs, they may not necessarily die.

The emergence of superpowers and the conflicts among them have quickly affected the stability of the entire society. Even if the government has begun to recruit some ordinary superpowers on a large scale, it is still the same because there are still a steady stream of superpowers awakening, and they have no Irregularity, many of them are criminals, mentally ill and antisocial lunatics. Their existence has caused the entire central government to suffer. Siberians without superpowers have collectively fallen into panic. They feel that their peaceful lives can no longer be controlled. Life is also in the hands of some superpower who doesn't know if he is a lunatic or not.

But the boy has a lot of leisure because of it. The cram schools on the streets have almost all closed their doors, and many schools have even lost their normal teaching functions. Countless students can only stay at home, waiting for the day when classes will resume, but this day is far away, because superpowers The relationship between victims and ordinary people is gradually intensifying.

As long as individuals have wisdom, character, different standpoints and thoughts... as long as there are 'differences' between individuals, then there will inevitably be conflicts between individuals.

And the huge gap in strength brought about by superpowers will magnify the contradiction hundreds or even thousands of times.

Before they had superpowers, there was a quarrel between the two. As long as it was not too intense, no one would choose to do it, because they could all be injured and punished.

But if one of them has super powers, he only needs to move his fingers, take a look at it from a few streets away, or send his power into the other party's body through the crowd, choose the time to explode, and he can Easily kill this unpleasant guy in front of you, and no one can find evidence. Superpowers are so convenient and powerful. Before their abilities, ordinary people are probably not much better than ants. This is still an ordinary energy system. If it is a superpower of the spiritual system, maybe a look, your self The personality will completely collapse and become a puppet licking each other's shoes.

If the two sides really had a conflict, would the capable person not do it? Maybe, there will always be people who want to believe in the qualities of others, and put their lives on the morality and self-control of others.

All in all, today's world is only maintaining a fragile balance. The relationship between superpowers and ordinary people is tense, but the relationship between superpowers is also extremely contradictory, and they cannot be united as one.

And the last straw that overwhelmed this fragile balance was a few extremely simple pieces of news.

Through battle after battle, the most powerful superpowers discovered that their abilities can be improved by killing other superpowers and absorbing the source of their abilities—and at the same time, through unknown powers. According to the clues mentioned, they also discovered that the central government is secretly conducting research on the 'anti-super energy interference field' in an attempt to wipe out all super users.

Thus, the war between superpowers and superpowers, between superpowers and ordinary people, started abruptly and unnaturally.

That year, the boy was twelve years old. On the day when the war started, he was at home with his parents, celebrating his sister’s eighth birthday on the second floor of the house. When he was cutting the cake for his sister and lighting the candles, the boy inadvertently turned his head and looked out the window. Then, he saw a There was a flash of red light, and the scorching ray streaked across his home from left to back, slicing through all the walls on the first floor.

At the moment when it was too late to exclaim, the boy's home, together with the houses on the entire street around it, were completely destroyed and began to collapse rapidly, but at this extremely dangerous moment, the boy found that he was curled up because of the sudden fear. The body has been unfolded again at this time, and he feels an inexplicable force spreading from his body, making his speed many times faster, unexpectedly directly avoiding all dangers, making everything around him seem to be in slow motion. so-so.

At this time, the boy's eyes were shining with a magnificent blue light. This energy overflowing light is the most obvious feature of the "superpowers"!

At this moment, for the boy, time seemed to be standing still. After realizing that his home was being attacked by superpowers, he immediately turned around nervously and looked in the direction where his parents and sister were - at this time, the boy's parents were being attacked The collapsed ceiling of the building crushed their legs. Their expressions were terrified, as if they were exclaiming, their eyes were full of dazedness and fear, while his sister had been buried by broken rocks and bricks, leaving only a small hand exposed ...

My heart was cold from the beginning, and gradually became somewhat hopeful. Although I don't know why, and I don't understand what my ability represents for the time being, but the trembling boy knows at this moment that he may have the ability to help his loved ones now. At this moment, he only wanted to save his relatives as much as possible. Thinking of this, the extremely nervous boy immediately ran to his sister who was closest to him, and ran to the layers of bricks and tiles.

The boy wanted to clean up the sundries and save his sister from the sundries, but it wasn't until he was able to barely lift a large piece of rubble away after a lot of hard work that the boy understood.

He can't save anyone.

Even if he has awakened superpowers, he is just a twelve-year-old boy, a teenager. His instinct tells him that the current state he is in lasts for less than five seconds at most, and for five seconds, he cannot move The rubble on his younger sister's body could not drag the parents who were pressed down by the ceiling away from the weight... He could not restore anything.

The rock was pressed down at an extremely slow speed, and the younger sister's hand twitched at an extremely slow speed. The boy turned his head blankly and looked at his parents. Even if his time was accelerated, he could still see his parents clearly. The slow change in the expression of the eyes is brought about by the gradual transformation from bewilderment to fear and panic... despair.

The dazed fear of being attacked, the ignorance of awakening ability, the panic when thinking of the death of parents and sisters, the joy of feeling that I can save them, and now, the powerlessness of waiting for the last moment to come bit by bit-the time is extended It's meaningless to die, he can't redeem anything, he can only let himself be tortured by the pain that has become more permanent-the boy roared immediately, he absolutely does not admit this fact!

Five... Four... Three... Two... One... The boy frantically tried to remove the gravel from his sister. He roared like desperately, and threw the rock bricks behind him with all his strength, but The time is too short, and there are too many sundries. When the duration of the ability ends, time begins to flow again... Bright red blood spills from the cracks in the rocks, and the little hand that is still stained with cake cream convulsively lifts, then stops twitching, and The painful groans of the parents also echoed in the boy's ears.

snap.

The boy sat down on the rubble. He was exhausted. A strong sense of exhaustion from nowhere spread throughout his body. He stared blankly at the pile of rubble that was overflowing with blood. With a big mouth, he looked at the parents whose legs were broken, and heard the other party's wailing, his mind went blank... At this time, in the middle of the night, there was a violent explosion in the distant city, and a raging fire was ignited. The firelight made the surroundings look like daylight. Under the orange firelight, the boy's eyes of grief and despair shone with blue light of uncertain brightness.

Inside the pupil, the hands of the clock rotate, even if it slows down, it will never stop.

Just like fate.

And this is the war and the prelude to the boy's story.

...

In the vast hall of the palace, forty-two majestic and solemn metal iron pillars support the towering dome, making it fade into the dark shadows. On the slightly sunken floor of the hall, rows of mysterious and complicated runes extend towards the center At this time, the magnificent magic circle formed by countless regular lines is shining with light blue light. During the surge of energy, countless light particles are scattered and disillusioned in mid-air, making the magnificent hall in the hall almost dreamlike.

But now, there is a 'person' slowly waking up from the throne in the center of the hall. He opened his eyes bit by bit, there was still a trace of undetectable light and dark fluctuations in the pupils that flashed with dark blue light, and the hands of the clock rotated. But soon, these sad fluctuations dissipated and turned into incomparable indifference.

"dominate."

The voice of an immature little girl rang in his ears. It was a petite soul puppet floating in mid-air. At this time, the puppet's calm voice came: "The 319th world line replacement failed. , your observation failed, and you fell into the dream of the possibility of the collapse of the river of time."

"Yeah."

On the throne, the man was silent. After a long time, he turned his head and said in an indifferent and calm voice just like a soul puppet: "I had another dream that I couldn't even catch hope."

The man remained silent, the hall suddenly became silent, and the slight buzzing caused by the flow of magic power echoed between the light particles of magic power and the dark dome. It could be seen that their light was gradually weakening, as if they had lost some important support, and the hall In the process, the feeling like a dream also quickly faded away, as if he was retreating from an unknown realm to reality.

And just before the light was about to completely dissipate, he spoke again.

"Then start the three hundred and twentieth time."

The man's voice was calm, and because of his words, the surrounding time seemed to stop, whether it was the fading magic light or fading dreams, everything was frozen and stagnant, the only exception was the petite girl floating beside the throne. The soul puppet, and this soul puppet is respectfully in mid-air at this time, bowing its head and half kneeling: "Follow your instructions, 'Time Turner', 'Master of Destiny', His Majesty Fatrolvi."

"Now prepare for the 320th world line replacement, start to link the river of existence, start to ignite the initial light, and start to activate the 'observer' system."

In the huge and magnificent hall of the palace, countless stars lit up, the light blue light flourished, and the mysterious runes surged layer by layer, forming two mighty streams of light, one surging and the other calm. rise.

And above the two rivers, the dome shrouded in dark shadows began to glow, accompanied by the igniting of millions of light clusters that seemed to be souls, and hundreds of millions of stars bloomed one after another, as if the dome forged by the stars showed a magnificent posture ——The stars are shining, it seems to cover everything in the world, reflecting the entire world and multiverse.

And under the cover of such a dome, the original river of light that was calm like stagnant water finally began to tremble slightly, as if a drop of water fell on the center of the river, and layers of concentric ripples began to spread. until it covers the entire river.

Until then, the calm and unwavering voice of the soul puppet came.

"Start the 320th observation."

The first more 5000 words