Universal Soldier

Upon hearing this, Alexia stood up, saved the file she had been recording, and walked to Sui Yang's left side. She crossed her arms in front of her, pondered for a moment, and said, "Boss, my team and I are about to complete our research. In six months at most, the first batch of Universal Soldiers will be ready for trials. Once they pass, they can be officially deployed to the battlefield. There's no need to..."

"Don't worry." Sui Yang raised a hand to dispel her concerns. "I won't cut off your research funding. Don't forget, the Universal Soldier project was my idea in the first place."

As he spoke, Sui Yang's tone deepened slightly. "You may have overlooked the key point I mentioned earlier. I want a super soldier that can be mass-produced and created using the genes of myself and those two children. In my vision, they will be ten, perhaps even a hundred times more powerful than the Universal Soldiers."

"A hundred times stronger than the Universal Soldiers..."

From the moment Alexia joined the core team at Atlas, she had been carrying out the Super Soldier Project—the Universal Soldier program—according to Sui Yang's intentions. It was also Sui Yang who provided the "creative" spark and the general outline for the project. As a teenage genius, Alexia initially didn't think much of Atlas; although the company's pharmaceutical industry ranked in the top ten globally, the content and terminology of their nutritional supplements were simply unbearable to look at or hear. However, the salary Atlas offered was truly tempting, so Alexia chose to accept, intending to give it a try. No one turns their back on money.

But after passing a series of trials and tests, successfully entering the core team, learning that their boss was an "Immortal," and discovering the truth about Compound V, her entire worldview was instantly refreshed. Fortunately, Alexia had always looked down on the freaks at Vought International, and knowing the fact that the vast majority of "superheroes" were scum made her happy to accept the job of taking Vought down.

Then, Sui Yang explained to her and a group of experts in biology and chemistry his plan to use highly concentrated serums to "resurrect" soldiers who had been dead for no more than three hours. Combined with genetic-level modification and the "reprogramming" of the brain, these soldiers would have no sense of pain, pity, or morality—only absolute obedience to orders. With the application of cloning technology, these soldiers could also have their limbs, torsos, and other parts "replaced" when severely damaged. Only by being completely dismembered, pulverized, or suffering catastrophic head trauma would these soldiers lose their ability to fight and move.

The most crucial step in this plan was the "highly concentrated serum." Without a serum capable of "resurrecting" corpses, everything else was merely theory and hypothesis. Their boss, "coincidentally," was an Immortal with powerful self-healing abilities, which meant they could attempt to refine the so-called "serum" using blood samples provided by him.

From 1988 to 1993, in the span of five years, Alexia went from a 16-year-old PhD fresh out of school to the youngest director among all of Atlas's departments. On August 30, 1990, the bioengineering department she led successfully refined the "serum." Through extensive experimentation, it was confirmed that the serum could "resurrect" corpses that had been dead for no more than five hours. However, the "resurrected" bodies only possessed a certain level of physiological function; aside from the brainstem, 60-90% of the brain remained in a state of death.

Furthermore, the serum could not be used on living humans. Experimental results showed that if the serum were injected into a healthy adult, it would cause the immune system to become hyperactive, leading to massive edema, necrosis, and eventually death. As for the experimental materials... Atlas, or rather Sui Yang, did not oppose human experimentation. To improve the feasibility of the Super Soldier Project and ensure Atlas's military strength continued to advance, human subjects were necessary, but Sui Yang was not "insane."

It is worth noting that not only Vought International, but many large pharmaceutical companies privately capture homeless people, illegal immigrants, and other poor souls without identities or records for testing and experimentation. In contrast, the source of Atlas's "Disposable Human Experimental Materials," or "D-Class Materials," were actually a group of heinous, proven serial killers, rapists, and other scum sentenced to prison. As a company with top-tier financial power and influence in the American Midwest, Atlas "traded" very smoothly and happily with prisons in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and other regions to obtain a large number of scumbags for their experiments. Once again, in the United States, if you are willing to pay, you can buy almost anything.

So, after the serum was successfully refined, Alexia led her research team to continue tackling the "reprogramming" of the brain. By December 21, 1992, the Universal Soldier project had a very complete set of procedures: freeze the corpse (dead for no more than 5 hours) in liquid nitrogen → inject the serum → stimulate the thyroid and pituitary glands to accelerate the corpse's repair and self-healing until "resurrection" → perform brain surgery on the "resurrected" body, implanting chips and corresponding equipment developed with the help of the research department, and attempt to connect them to the brain's nerves.

To date, the bioengineering department has successfully "resurrected" two bodies. These two bodies possess impressive durability, capable of withstanding multiple 7.62x51mm full-power rounds at close range without armor while still retaining a certain degree of mobility. However, the brain programming still needs improvement, as these two bodies can only perform simple action commands and do not yet meet the standard of a true "Universal Soldier."

Alexia felt increasing admiration for Sui Yang, who had proposed the plan and provided its general direction, and she believed that accepting Atlas's invitation was one of the best decisions she had ever made. However, even knowing that her boss would not choose to pause or cancel the Universal Soldier project for other matters, Alexia had invested so much time and effort into it that she could not help but feel concerned.

It was just that... Alexia believed there was still a long way to go before "mass-producing" super soldiers. After all, at the current stage, for Atlas to "manufacture" a Universal Soldier, setting aside the cost, the surgery itself required Alexia and her team to handle it personally. If one were to add the subsequent debugging time, it would take at least a month for a Universal Soldier to go from a corpse to a true elite that knows neither pain nor fear. Moreover, the subsequent debugging steps were still incomplete.

And at this moment.

The office fell into a brief silence.

Seeming to sense Alexia's anxiety, Sui Yang looked toward Sanguinius and Roboute, who were sleeping even more soundly, and spoke: "If we want to mass-produce super-soldiers using myself and those two as templates, we must utilize the gland known as the Gene-Seed."