The Man

The Gene-Engineer stood before the operating table. Without any anesthesia, he manipulated the auxiliary arms and used a cold laser to split open Li Tang's sternum and implant the gene-seed.

For one Terra week, the Emperor remained by Li Tang's side.

The Custodes guards stood beside him, silent and watchful as they protected the Master of Mankind.

The staff took turns, monitoring every physiological change in Li Tang and gathering detailed information on the Twenty-First's gene-seed.

No matter how many times he saw it, the Gene-Engineer was still amazed by that transformation of the level of life, from the inside out.

As Li Tang slept, his frail body radiated new vitality. The gene-seed constantly released genetic information, reshaping his flesh from within.

Something miraculous was quietly taking place. The subject's fractured lower leg healed itself, and his body gradually developed. A figure nearly three meters tall lay on the operating table.

"Mm." When he groaned in his sleep, the Gene-Engineer was startled. While maintaining his life signs, he looked hopefully toward the Emperor, who sat calmly upon his stone throne.

Everything proceeded step by step, yet everything once again reached that critical moment.

The instant his bodily functions stopped growing, the Emperor suddenly rose from his seat. He had sensed an utterly inconceivable phenomenon.

Li Tang's soul still existed, but it had vanished from both the material universe and the Warp!

The Emperor walked to the operating table and placed a hand on Li Tang's rising and falling chest, sensing the changes within his body.

A soul had vanished from both the material universe and the Warp. This bizarre event had occurred before the Emperor's eyes, and he had to take it seriously.

Every soul, strong or weak, cast a projection within the Warp.

Even the "soulless" possessed hollow souls that projected an empty black hole into the Warp.

No soul could escape the Warp!

The Emperor felt inexplicably tense. All his attention was focused on Li Tang as he searched for the slightest clue.

At last, around his chest, the Emperor sensed a unique fluctuation from the soul.

When Li Tang awoke again, he quickly sensed the changes in his body.

His body was still small and frail, yet the injury on his leg had somehow healed. He raised his head and saw an endless desert before him. The sky was a bizarre orange-red, and violent winds howled through the atmosphere.

"Is this what it looks like after death?" He could not understand why he was walking naked through the desert.

Perhaps the surgery had never stopped, and he had died on the operating table.

Fine! Li Tang suddenly smiled in relief, feeling much lighter inside. At last, he could lay down his burdens and get some proper rest.

Just as he let out a long breath, a red glimmer appeared below his field of vision.

Li Tang looked down and discovered that, at some point, a red rune mark had been imprinted on his soft, sunken chest. It glimmered faintly like breathing.

Before he could understand why the rune mark had appeared on his chest, a dense, yielding sensation came from beneath his feet.

The blood-colored sand had grown damp, muddy, and slippery. He scooped up a handful and squeezed it hard. Slick blood seeped from the sand!

Li Tang was shocked. Without investigating the mark on his chest, he staggered back several steps and hurriedly flung away the blood-soaked sand in his hand.

The instant he looked up, the sight filled him with horror. At some point, the desert had become packed with all kinds of terrifying monsters.

They looked horrifying and grotesque, as if they had crawled out of nightmares. They shared certain features, proving that they belonged to the same species.

Spiral horns grew from their heads, while their feet ended in hooves resembling those of even-toed animals. Their bodies were powerfully built, and savage strength coursed through their pale muscles as they flexed.

Their claws and fangs were hideous, black, and ancient. Their faces were terrifying and twisted, without noses or eyes. Blood-red, wicked light radiated from their empty sockets, while a supernatural force flowed through their sinful bodies.

Demons! The two words radiated primordial evil and branded themselves into Li Tang's mind.

An endless army of demons let out savage laughter and howled as a tide that crushed toward the tiny, fragile Li Tang.

At the same time, the mark on his chest shone brightly, and a surge of fury erupted within him, rushing straight into his heart.

A cold message surfaced in his mind: "Kill! Or be killed!"

His back teeth ground together with a grating sound. His hatred exploded completely. His fists clenched with sharp cracks, and the little muscle in his legs tensed.

Kill?

Li Tang glanced at the demons' explosively muscular bodies, then at his own thin arms and legs. He surveyed his surroundings as quickly as possible, trying to find some useful cover.

But at a glance, although there were several huge rocks in the Crimson Desert, none would be of any use. The demons were swarming in from every direction!

"I'll butcher you all!" His roar echoed across the blood-red wasteland!

Thus, after discovering that there was no escape, Li Tang clenched both fists and charged toward the demons with an equally savage expression, intent on tearing them apart with his bare hands!

Then, in the next instant, everything went black before his eyes. A winged demon flashed to his side and drove a claw through his chest.

Outside, the Emperor saw the gene-seed spread a blood-colored barrier that completely enveloped Li Tang's body.

The Emperor probed the edge of the barrier with psychic power, wanting to enter and investigate its secrets. On the operating table, Li Tang's body suddenly convulsed, and his chest burst open as scalding blood sprayed out!

A mysterious wound had appeared!

The Gene-Warlock panicked and immediately stepped forward to skillfully activate the life-support equipment, injecting various life-preserving drugs.

The Emperor's expression turned solemn. He now knew the exact cause. Li Tang's soul had been injured within the barrier, and the gene-seed, acting as the connecting medium, had caused the injury to appear on his physical body as well.

The Emperor touched his brow with a finger and condensed his will into a steel needle. Slowly, he drove it into the gene-seed, searching for the root of the problem.

When the Emperor's mighty consciousness pierced through the barrier and entered a hazy blood-colored expanse, he stared at his own hands in surprise. They had become slender and youthful, returning him to his younger days.

His upper body was bare, and he wore only a pair of linen trousers. His black hair fell over his chest and down his back. He had shed his weathered appearance and disguises, returning to his original true self.

He was the youth who still carried dreams in his heart.

Without hesitation, the Emperor raised a hand and gently swept it through the blood-red mist. Under his tremendous power, the mist gradually dispersed, but fragments of visions were transmitted before him.

Even though he had existed eternally, the Emperor was still moved. What he saw left him shaken.

Within a disordered flow of time and space, a humanoid creature wore dark green power armor. Though his true face was hidden, the Emperor was certain that he was human.

He wielded a primitive, ancient double-barreled shotgun. Shattering time and space, he crossed every calamity and balance, slaughtering fiends and hunting demons through endless cycles of epochs across countless dimensions.

The blood-red wastelands of Hell were trampled beneath his feet without mercy.

Great beings comparable to the Four Chaos Gods, eternal and indestructible Titan demons, and mighty lifeforms whose very existence collapsed dimensions and shattered reality were all beaten to pieces by that man.

That man rode the currents of time upward, slaughtering his way down from the primordial epoch. He purged every demon from every timeline, killing until Flame Hell wailed in misery.

With a Judgment Sword in one hand and a double-barreled shotgun in the other, he made the demons taste pain and forced Hell, formed from the concept of "evil," to fear.

He never spoke a word. Cold and merciless, his soul showed no emotion, containing only boundless fury toward the existence known as demons.

Eternal fury burned across the timelines. His name echoed through infinite dimensions. Countless demons throughout the multiverse feared and worshiped him, shouting his name:

DOOM! Doom Slayer!

He cast down Heaven, defeated gods, slaughtered demons, and killed Flame Hell into a silent land.

He never spoke a word. He was always killing.

When the final moment came and the decisive battle between The Creator and the Doom Slayer began, The Creator was defeated, and the Doom Slayer fell into slumber.

A fragment of his soul essence drifted into the gaps between universes, its whereabouts unknown.

Even though they were separated by an immeasurable expanse of time and space, the primordial auras leaking from both sides of that creation-level battle within the vision still subjected the Emperor to boundless pressure.

The youthful form created by the Emperor's consciousness now had reddened eyes brimming with tears. A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, gradually becoming loud laughter. He now understood everything and had never felt such joy.

He knew where that red soul essence had ultimately gone.

The Emperor had investigated countless times, wondering why the Four Chaos Gods cared about that red soul.

Now, the doubt buried deep within his heart vanished like smoke. The answer was so wonderful.