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The alarm blared so sharply it seemed to pierce eardrums, and crimson lights spun wildly on the second basement level, slicing the once futuristic, silvery-white corridor into a terrifying, fragmented halo. Li Haotian leaned against the wall, turning his head to avoid the high-pressure steam billowing from behind a transparent blast door. The liquid in the glass culture tanks had boiled over, and countless deformed limbs were convulsing wildly in the murky nutrient solution. Many of the hardened keratin had even shattered the glass, falling onto the corridor like puddles of mud, emitting a sickening screech.

"Qin Yue, how much longer?" Li Haotian pressed his earpiece, his voice remaining eerily calm amidst the cacophony of alarms.

"We've bypassed the last firewall; the independent lab ahead is the core area." Qin Yue's voice carried a slight static, and the clatter of her fingers on the keyboard didn't slow down in the slightest despite the chaotic environment. "But I must warn you, the heat source display inside is very singular, yet the energy reading is very high, which doesn't conform to the configuration of a conventional lab."

"Singleness often implies concentration." Li Haotian's gaze turned cold, and the specially made tactical dagger in his hand drew a jet-black arc under the red light.

He kicked aside the wreckage of a lab bench blocking his path and strode towards the heavy alloy door at the end of the corridor. The indicator light on the door switched from green to red and then went out completely, clearly indicating that the emergency braking had caused the entire underground facility's security system to malfunction. But this was actually a good thing for him, as it meant the door lock was no longer electronically secured.

With a heavy groan from the hydraulic rod, Li Haotian pulled the alloy door open by hand, creating a gap large enough for one person to pass through. A blast of cold air rushed in, a stark contrast to the sweltering, chaotic atmosphere outside.

The place was eerily quiet.

Li Haotian slipped inside, closing the door behind him to shut out the screams and alarms outside. It was a huge, circular observation room with reinforced glass flooring, offering a panoramic view of the hellish scene on the second basement level. At this moment, in the very center of this room, there was only one person.

The man, dressed in a spotless white lab coat, stood with his back to Li Haotian, intently adjusting data in front of a microscope. Although the alarm could still be faintly heard through the soundproof glass, he seemed to be in another dimension; even his meticulously combed gray hair remained perfectly intact despite the vibration.

Li Haotian narrowed his eyes, a sense of unease welling up inside him. That figure, with its stiff, bookish air, seemed strangely familiar.

"If I were you, I wouldn't touch that cup of coffee." Li Haotian suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but it resounded in the deathly silent space.

The man paused noticeably for a moment before slowly turning around.

When he saw that face clearly, Li Haotian's pupils contracted sharply, and the knuckles of his fingers gripping the dagger turned slightly white.

It was an old face covered in wrinkles but full of energy, with a pair of thick gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. At this moment, there was no fear in his eyes behind the lenses, only the indifference and inquiry he had when he saw the lab rats escaping.

"So it's an old friend." The old man pushed up his glasses, a standard scholarly smile curving his lips. He even reached for the coffee cup next to him. "Mr. Li, we met outside the imperial mausoleum. If I remember correctly, you even called yourself an advisor to the Cultural Relics Bureau."

Li Haotian sneered: "I never expected that Professor Chen, a renowned archaeology expert in China, would appear in this kind of man-eating underground laboratory."

"Archaeology? That's just a hobby." Professor Chen put down his notebook, slowly straightened his cuffs, and spoke with an infuriatingly calm tone. "Excavating the dead is to explore history, but here... we are creating the future. Mr. Li, don't look at science with such a narrow perspective."

"Science?" Li Haotian looked around, his gaze sweeping over the gene sequences and human modification data flashing on the screens. "Turning people into monsters, turning faith into a means of control—is this also a new topic for your academic community?"

"Neotheism needs fanaticism, but it also needs wisdom." Professor Chen doesn't deny this, and he even has a hint of pride in it. "The believers are responsible for providing funds and bodies, while I am responsible for providing... direction. You know, on the path of evolution, someone always needs to act as the cold scalpel. Theology is the anesthetic, putting the world to sleep; science is the scalpel, weeding out the useless dross."

Li Haotian's heart sank. He had always thought the New God Cult was just a group of madmen who used mysterious powers to plot conspiracies, but he never expected that such a devil disguised in academic garb was hiding in these dark corners. With these so-called "elites" advising him, it was no wonder that the other party's methods were so professional and deadly.

"Since this is an academic exchange, it seems we can't reach an agreement." Li Haotian took a step forward, his murderous aura no longer concealed, surging towards Professor Chen like a tide.

Professor Chen seemed to have expected this. He neither begged for mercy nor backed down, but simply shook his head slightly, a hint of regret in his eyes: "Mr. Li, you are always so rude. Do you think creating chaos can destroy everything? The real security here is never those failed attempts that only know how to shout."

Before he finished speaking, Professor Chen gently pressed a hidden spot under the corner of the table.

There were no alarms.

But suddenly, a low, mechanical grinding sound came from the walls surrounding the observation room. The previously seamless metal walls slowly flipped open, revealing four dark firing ports. Immediately afterward, the hidden doors on both sides of the observation room slid open simultaneously, and the sound of heavy, synchronized footsteps instantly filled the entire space.

Twelve fully armed special agents rushed in.

They wore black tactical armor, wielded large-caliber assault rifles, and moved with the precision of well-oiled machines. But what made Li Haotian frown was not their equipment, but their eyes.

Through the gaps in their bulletproof masks, one could see that everyone's pupils were an eerie milky white, murky like stagnant water, unfocused and devoid of emotion. They rushed in without a sound, their breathing barely audible, like a group of soulless shells carrying out a killing mission solely on instinct and command.

"Those are clinical application samples of the 'Z-7' enhancement agent." Professor Chen pointed to the soldiers as if showcasing his most prized creation. "They feel no fear, no pain, absolute obedience, and don't even need to think. Mr. Li, when facing a group of people you don't even know, are your fighting skills still useful?"

Looking at the dark gun barrels, Li Haotian's lips curled into an even colder smile.

"No fear? That's such a shame."

He turned slightly to the side, and with his left hand he pulled out an exaggeratedly designed pistol from his lower back. The patterns on the gun shimmered eerily under the light.

"Fear is the last line of defense for humans to maintain their rationality. Without it..." Li Haotian's words stopped abruptly, and he rushed towards the nearest soldier like an arrow.

"...Then it will just turn into a simple chunk of meat."

Gunshots didn't ring out immediately; instead, there was a muffled thud of bones shattering. Li Haotian's speed was astonishing, instantly cutting into a blind spot amidst the hail of bullets. Although the drug-controlled soldier had lost the sense of pain, his body's physical structure still followed the principles of mechanics—Li Haotian's vicious knee strike shattered his knee joint, followed by a hammer-like elbow strike that slammed into his jaw.

Even though the other person was unaware of the pain, the instantaneous loss of balance caused by the structural collapse caused him to fall heavily to the ground.

But the remaining eleven soldiers did not pause at all, nor did they even turn their heads to look at their fallen comrades. Their guns were turned in unison towards Li Haotian, spitting fire.

"What a boring battle." Professor Chen stood behind the safety barrier, watching the scene indifferently, as if he were watching bacteria fighting under a microscope.

Bullets sparked a series of fires on the floor as Li Haotian tumbled and leaped in the narrow space, his figure moving like a ghost among the twelve killing machines.

"Little Black!" Li Haotian suddenly shouted.

The small black beast that had been lurking in the shadows of his collar suddenly leaped out, its body growing larger in the air as it faced the wind, instantly transforming into a wolf-sized black shadow that pounced on Professor Chen behind him with a fierce whistling sound.

"Ding—" Just as Xiao Hei was about to touch Professor Chen, an invisible transparent barrier repelled it.

Professor Chen remained standing in place, not even raising an eyebrow, simply looking at Li Haotian through the thick bulletproof glass with a condescending and mocking gaze: "Mr. Li, let's close the net. The net here is much stronger than you imagine."

The red alarm lights continued to spin, illuminating the silent massacre with an even more gruesome light. Li Haotian leaned against the corner of the wall, breathing heavily. The dagger in his hand was already dulled, but in his black eyes burned a flame deeper than the alarm light.

The drug-controlled soldiers rearranged their formation, forming a slowly moving wall of sighs, inching closer.

An unexpected encounter, an unexpected enemy. But this was still within expectations—just as there are people in this world willing to sell their souls for a nonexistent god, there are equally people willing to create hell for so-called "science".

Since it's all hell anyway, what is there to fear?

Li Haotian threw away the broken blade in his hand, pulled out the last spare tactical knife from the outside of his thigh, and locked his eyes, sharp as a blade, onto the "academic giant" standing behind the barrier.

"Professor Chen, the lecture is over." Li Haotian's voice was hoarse and carried a hint of blood. "Now, it's time for the lab session."