"Could some method have permanently altered the underlying structure of his genes?"
After thinking it over for a long while, Nie Yun could only arrive at this as the most likely explanation.
The rate at which cells aged was controlled by genes, and carbon-based life-forms with broadly human physiology generally followed this rule.
This was the foundational architecture of their genes.
It was like an ironclad rule the Creator had laid down for the human species: birth, aging, illness, and death, repeating endlessly.
Even for Nie Yun, who possessed the "human genetic blueprint," accelerating this process through physical surgery at the genetic level was indeed possible, provided he accumulated experience through extensive human experimentation before modifying every cell in the body.
But that applied only to humans from Earth.
Although the people of the Wulf Empire were also humanoids, the slightest difference could lead to vastly different results. Developing a genetic aging technique specifically for Wulfians might take decades, or even centuries.
The technical challenge lay not in accelerating aging, but in doing so without triggering genetic collapse.
It was like a tower of blocks stacked ever higher. Removing a block from the top was easy, but tampering with the base could easily set off a chain reaction that brought the entire structure crashing down.
And as far as Nie Yun knew, the Wulf Empire was still a considerable distance from that level of technology.
Only an advanced civilization whose biotechnology surpassed Nie Yun's by an entire tier could possibly carry out such a covert attack undetected, slipping past an emperor's extraordinarily tight security.
Could an advanced civilization be trying to provoke civil unrest by assassinating the emperor, allowing it to take over an empire without shedding any blood? A suspicion formed in Nie Yun's mind.
After all, given the