That Man

The Gene-Engineer stood before the operating table, manipulating robotic arms to slice through Li Tang's sternum with cold lasers, sans anesthesia, to implant the Gene-seed.

For one Terra week, Emperor kept vigil by Li Tang's side.

The Custodes stood guard beside him, silent and motionless, watching over the Master of Mankind.

Staff rotated in shifts, monitoring every physiological change in Li Tang to gather detailed data on the Twenty-First Gene-seed.

No matter how many times they witnessed it, the Gene-Engineer remained astonished by that transformation of the life essence from the inside out.

Li Tang lay in a deep slumber, his frail body radiating new vitality as the Gene-seed continuously released genetic information, reshaping his flesh from within.

A miracle was unfolding in silence: the subject's broken lower leg healed and recovered, his physique gradually developing until a body nearly three meters tall lay upon the table.

"Ugh." As he groaned in his sleep, the Gene-Engineer felt a jolt of alarm. While maintaining life-support stability, he looked toward Emperor, who sat composed upon a stone throne, his heart filled with hope.

Everything was proceeding according to plan, yet everything had reached that critical juncture.

The moment the body's growth ceased, Emperor rose abruptly from his seat, having sensed an inconceivable phenomenon.

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

Emperor walked to the operating table, placing a hand upon Li Tang's rising and falling chest to sense the changes within.

The soul's simultaneous disappearance from the material universe and the Warp was a bizarre event occurring right before Emperor's eyes; he had to treat it with the utmost gravity.

Every person's soul, whether strong or weak, casts a projection within the Warp.

Even the "soulless" project a void-like black hole into the Warp with their hollow spirits.

No soul can exist apart from the Warp!

Emperor felt an inexplicable tension; all his focus was concentrated on Li Tang, searching for any trace of evidence.

Finally, at the position of his chest, Emperor sensed a unique fluctuation of the soul.

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

It was still a thin, small frame, yet the injury on his leg had inexplicably healed. Looking up, he saw an endless desert, the sky tinted a strange orange-red, with wild winds howling through the atmosphere.

Is this what lies beyond death? He could not understand why he was walking naked through a desert.

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

So be it! Li Tang suddenly felt a sense of relief, his heart lightening. He could finally put down his burdens and get some proper rest.

Just as he let out a long sigh, a faint red glow emanated from below his field of vision.

Li Tang looked down and discovered that his frail, sunken chest had been branded with a Red Rune Mark, which pulsed with light like a heartbeat.

Before he could fathom why a rune mark had appeared on his chest, he felt a dense texture beneath his feet.

The Crimson Desert sand had become damp, muddy, and slick; he grabbed a handful and squeezed, only for greasy blood to seep from the grit!

Li Tang was horrified. Ignoring the mark on his chest, he stumbled back a few steps and hurriedly shook off the bloody sand.

The moment he looked up, the sight filled him with sheer terror: the desert was suddenly teeming with all manner of horrific monsters.

They were grotesque and bizarre, as if stepped out of a nightmare. They shared certain common traits, proving they belonged to the same race.

They bore spiral horns on their heads and hooves like ungulates; their bodies were powerful, and as their pale muscles flexed, violent power surged within them.

Their claws were jagged, black, and ancient; their faces were terrifying and twisted, lacking noses or eyes, with blood-red, evil light radiating from their sockets. A supernatural power flowed through their wicked bodies.

Demons! The word, radiating primal evil, was branded into Li Tang's mind.

An endless army of demons let out hideous laughter and howls, a tidal wave crushing down upon the small, fragile Li Tang.

At the same time, the mark on his chest flared with intense light, and a surge of fury erupted, rushing straight to his heart.

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

Gritting his teeth until his jaw clicked, his hatred exploded. His hands clenched into fists with a crackle, and the meager muscles in his legs tensed.

Kill?

Li Tang glanced at the demons' explosively strong bodies, then at his own thin arms and legs, scanning the environment in a split second to find any useful cover.

But as far as he could see, while there were a few boulders in the Crimson Desert, they were useless; the demons were swarming in from all directions!

"I'll slaughter you all!" A roar echoed across the blood-red wasteland!

And so, finding no path of retreat, Li Tang clenched his fists and charged toward the demons with a ferocious expression, intent on tearing them apart!

Then, in the next instant, his vision went black; a winged demon flashed to his side and pierced his chest with a claw.

In the outside world, Emperor saw the Gene-seed emit a crimson barrier, completely enveloping Li Tang's body.

Emperor probed the edge of the barrier with his psychic power, seeking to enter and uncover the secret, when Li Tang's body on the table jolted violently, his chest suddenly bursting open as hot blood sprayed out!

A mysterious wound had appeared!

The Gene-Warlock was frantic, immediately stepping forward to expertly activate the life-support systems and inject various restorative agents.

Emperor's expression was grave; he knew the cause. Li Tang's soul had been injured within the barrier, and the Gene-seed, acting as a medium of connection, had manifested that damage upon his physical body.

Pressing a finger to his brow, Emperor condensed his will into a steel needle and slowly pierced it into the Gene-seed, searching for the root of the problem.

As Emperor's powerful consciousness pierced through the barrier and stepped into a swirling expanse of blood-red, he looked at his own hands in astonishment, his slender, youthful form having returned to his teenage years.

He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of linen trousers, his black hair draped over his chest and back, stripped of all vicissitudes and disguises, returning to his original, true self.

He was that same boy who still harbored dreams.

Without hesitation, Emperor raised his hand and brushed it lightly, driving away the blood-red mist. Under his great power, the fog gradually dissipated, yet fragments of visions were transmitted before Emperor.

Even though he had existed since the dawn of time, Emperor was still moved; he felt shaken by everything he saw.

In the disordered space-time, a humanoid creature clad in dark green technological armor appeared; even though he did not reveal his true face, Emperor was certain that the man was a human.

He held an ancient, primitive double-barreled shotgun, shattering time and space, traversing all calamities and balances, and slaughtering fiends and hunting demons across infinite cycles of eras in every dimension.

The blood-red wasteland of Flame Hell was ruthlessly trampled beneath his feet.

Great existences comparable to the Four Chaos Gods, eternal and immortal Titan demons—powerful lifeforms whose mere presence caused dimensions to collapse and reality to shatter—were beaten into pieces by that man.

That man marched against the torrent of time, killing his way from the primordial era, purging every single demon in every timeline, and forcing Flame Hell to wail across the land.

With one Judgment Sword and one double-barreled shotgun, he made demons taste agony and made Hell, formed from the very concept of "evil," feel fear.

He remained silent throughout, cold and cruel, his soul devoid of any fluctuation save for an infinite rage toward the very existence of demons.

Eternal fury burned fiercely across the timelines, his name echoing through infinite dimensions, and countless demons in the multiverse feared him as much as they worshipped him, chanting his existence:

DOOM! Doom Slayer!

He struck down the heavens, defeated gods, slaughtered demons, and turned Flame Hell into a land of silence.

He remained silent throughout, and he continued to kill.

When the final moment arrived, the decisive battle between The Creator and Doom Slayer took place; The Creator was defeated, and Doom Slayer fell into a deep slumber.

A fragment of his essence drifted into the gaps of the universe, its whereabouts unknown.

The creation-level war, even across endless space and time, leaked enough primordial aura in the vision to make Emperor feel infinite pressure.

The boy, manifested from Emperor's consciousness, had eyes red with tears, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that gradually turned into loud laughter; he knew everything now, and he had never felt such joy.

He knew where that red essence had ultimately ended up.

Emperor had investigated countless times, wondering why the Four Chaos Gods cared so much about that red soul, and why the evil gods were so obsessed with it.

As the doubts deep within his heart vanished at this moment, the answer was truly magnificent.