He was inside a container. Liquid surrounded him. It looked very much like... a growth tank?
His body felt... incredibly powerful.
It lacked a Nurgling's bloated bulk and a Genestealer's agility, and surpassed even an Ork boss's brute strength and the cold precision of the Necrons. This was a... perfect body, brimming with limitless potential.
Twin heartbeats sounded, steady and powerful, like war drums.
"Thump-thump... thump-thump..."
Was this... an Astartes? No, something stronger.
Liu Zhipeng hesitated no longer. He reached out and pressed a huge, perfectly formed palm against the tank's inner wall.
Bang.
He had barely exerted any force, yet cracks instantly spread across the tough synthetic glass.
He pushed a little harder.
Crash!
The growth tank shattered. Hundreds of liters of viscous nutrient fluid poured out, reeking of chemicals as it splashed across the cold metal floor.
Liu Zhipeng stood up, stark naked.
He looked down at his body. It was almost perfect, its muscles sculpted like a statue from ancient Terra, brimming with explosive strength. Yet its skin was excessively pale, as though it had never seen sunlight.
He looked around.
It was a tiny room. Well concealed, and even somewhat rudimentary. The tank he had just emerged from was the only one in the room. The remains of biochemical equipment lay piled in a corner.
He smelled the lingering stench of decay and burnt flesh in the air.
He was not somewhere normal.
Frowning, Liu Zhipeng pushed open the secret room's heavy lead door.
An entirely different scene lay beyond it.
This was an enormous laboratory. Or rather, a slaughterhouse.
Twenty growth tanks large enough to hold giants lay scattered across the floor. Some had been riddled with Boltgun fire, others cleaved open with Chainswords, and still others melted by intense heat into twisted, charred wreckage.