Deep inside the Serenitea Pot munitions factory, the furnaces roared with tireless, crimson flames, melting White Iron Ore into rolling rivers of molten metal. Massive forging hammers thundered, their every descent sending a faint tremor through the ground beneath, while spattering sparks flickered amidst the lingering steam like the dying breath of a falling star. The air was a suffocating weave of scorching metallic stench, pungent machine oil, and heavy sweat. The assembly lines pulsed forward without pause, like the veins of some iron behemoth, carrying the cold receivers of the Pan Yan assault rifles, the rugged tubes of the Chuan Zao launchers, and the heavy barrels of the Tuoting rocket launchers. On the wall, the crimson slogan "Forging together in solid rock, torches burning ever bright" stood out under the furnace glare like a glaring wound.
"Shift twenty-seven, change over! Move it!" the foreman's hoarse roar cut through the machinery's roar.
Pierre and his three compatriots from Fontaine dragged their leaden legs, staggering as they squeezed out of the thundering core area. For fourteen consecutive hours, their eyes had been glued to the cutting heads of precision lathes, milling the spiral cooling fins—designed by Limeng and born of otherworldly memories—onto the barrels of the Pan Yan rifles. Every single barrel had to undergo its final coating process in a bath of Geo Element crystallization liquid, the dark, matte gold oxide film hissing and releasing white …
Chapter 167