The dawn was just breaking.
The assault from the Thunder Beasts had finally come to a lull.
Ding Ye and two colleagues were cleaning up the destroyed No. 2 blast furnace, searching amidst the ruins for any surviving workers, although the possibility was slim.
He lifted a section of iron trough, turning over two charred and mutilated bodies from the rubble.
Having been stripped of human senses of smell and taste, Ding Ye was relieved of much burden.
When he had been a knight-errant in the past, each time he saw innocent humans killed, he would be filled with intense anger.
That fury and impulse were necessary qualities for a knight-errant, also known in the older generation as "qi."
Without this "qi," one could not claim to be a knight-errant.
Now, having a sword as his essence, walking in an Iron Soldier body, Ding Ye clearly felt the difference from before.
He always considered himself still Ding Ye, just existing in a different form.