The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The tremors in the underground base grew more intense, with rubble and dust constantly falling from above, like the shedding skin of this steel behemoth before its death. Li Haotian had just rushed out of the shaky corridor when the scene before him made him stop in his tracks.

Instead of the expected panic and frantic escape, the underground exit passage was filled with a suffocating silence.

A towering man stood blocking the way, a heavy assault rifle still smoking, its muzzle pressed firmly against the middle-aged man who had collapsed to the ground, trembling. That was Liu Hu, the tough guy in charge of covering fire for the team; his scarred face was now etched with disdain.

"Boss," Liu Hu heard footsteps behind him, and without turning his head, his voice was so loud it sounded like a roar, "I've caught this big rat. It's the one that just tried to destroy the exit control system."

Cornered in the corner was the very same "Apocalypse" chief expert who had been so eloquent on screen. His white lab coat was now dusty and worn, and half of his gold-rimmed glasses were broken, looking comical against his face contorted with extreme fear. He clutched a silver briefcase tightly, his knuckles white from the force.

Li Haotian walked forward slowly, avoiding a piece of concrete falling on his head. He glanced at the expert, his gaze as cold as the wind from an ice cellar.

"Professor Chen, right?" Li Haotian asked casually, as if chatting with an old neighbor. "You escaped quite quickly, but unfortunately, you took the wrong path."

Expert Chen shuddered, raised his head, and his cloudy eyes showed no sign of surrender, but rather a desperate madness. He stared intently at Li Haotian, a strange smile suddenly appearing on his lips, and a gurgling laugh escaped his throat.

"The road is narrow? No...you don't understand..." Expert Chen's voice was hoarse, tinged with madness, "The real road hasn't even begun! What I'm bringing isn't data, it's the future! It's God!"

Before he could finish speaking, he abruptly released the silver briefcase and began frantically typing on the control panel beside it. It wasn't a command to open the door, but a string of codes forcing an overload.

"Liu Hu, stop!" Li Haotian keenly sensed something was wrong and shouted, but it was too late.

Expert Chen let out a shrill roar and slammed down a red manual gate next to him.

"Crack—Boom!"

The wall on one side of the passage suddenly shattered, and a massive gust of air, carrying white steam, erupted out. Behind the broken wall, a huge culture tank filled with a pale green liquid was revealed. Due to the forced change in the control system, the reinforced glass wall could not withstand the internal pressure and instantly crumbled inch by inch.

"Splash—"

The viscous culture medium poured out like a flood, instantly submerging the ground. And in that murky liquid, a huge, curled-up figure slowly unfolded.

It was a repulsive monster. It had a human-like torso, but three or four thick arms covered in bone spikes, and a row of barbs resembling insect carapaces protruding from its back. Its head had no facial features, only a gaping wound that took up half of its face, filled with fine, serrated teeth.

"What the hell is this thing?!" Liu Hu cursed, raising his assault rifle and firing a burst of bullets.

"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—"

The large-caliber bullets struck the monster's skin hard, splattering blood, but that was all. The monster's wounds began to heal at a visible speed, and even the bone fragments shattered by the bullets instantly reformed.

"It's useless! It's perfect!" Expert Chen knelt in the floodwater, his hands raised high as if worshipping a deity. "Devour! Evolve! This is the end of the apocalypse!"

The monster let out a piercing scream, like tearing fabric, a sound that didn't travel through the air but pierced directly into everyone's minds. With that scream, the surrounding air seemed to be instantly sucked away. A few tenacious clumps of moss growing in the corner of the passage withered and crumbled instantly, and even the emergency lights that had been on nearby dimmed, as if their life force had been forcibly stolen by the monster.

It absorbs all the life energy around it to repair its own wounds.

A wave of intense dizziness washed over him, causing Liu Hu to stagger and turn pale. "Holy crap... this thing can suck blood?"

"Step back." Li Haotian reached out and stopped Liu Hu, who was about to fire again. He didn't draw his sword, nor did he even change his posture in any defensive way. He simply turned to the side, revealing Xiao Hei, who had been quietly perched on his shoulder.

The mysterious, jet-black creature slowly straightened up. It was unlike a cat, or any known wild beast; its eerie green eyes shone frighteningly brightly in the dim passage.

The monster, which had just risen from the ground, seemed to sense something. Its faceless form abruptly turned towards Little Black. Its ferocious body tensed; though it had no sight, its instincts told it that the small black figure before it was the real threat.

"roar--!"

The monster roared and charged forward, bringing with it a stench. Its massive body created a suffocating sense of oppression in the passage, like a moving mountain of flesh and blood.

Liu Hu instinctively tried to raise his gun, but Li Haotian pressed down on his shoulder.

"Watch," Li Haotian said calmly.

There was no earth-shattering impact, nor any blood and flesh being torn apart.

Just as the bloodied monster rushed to within three meters of Xiao Hei, Xiao Hei merely raised its head slightly, its eerie green eyes calmly watching the monster.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

The monster's movements abruptly froze in mid-air, as if a video had been paused. Then, a chilling scene unfolded.

From the point of contact with the monster, its body began to disintegrate. Not from the tearing of wounds, but from crumbling like building blocks. Its flesh, bones, and even the energy flow that had just healed within it all turned into countless tiny gray dust particles in that instant, scattering in all directions.

There were no screams, no struggles. The moment that enormous body came into contact with Xiao Hei's gaze, it seemed to be judged as an "illegal product" by some higher-level cosmic law and subjected to the most severe erasure.

Just three seconds.

The arrogant monster, who called himself a "perfect god," vanished completely into thin air before everyone's eyes, leaving behind only a puddle of water that smelled faintly fishy.

Silence returned to the passageway, with only the faint sound of distant explosions echoing through the air.

Professor Chen, kneeling on the ground, stared blankly at the scene, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets. His masterpiece, the "god" he had sacrificed his entire life to pursue, had vanished without even touching a single hair on its head?

"No...this is impossible..." Professor Chen muttered to himself, his body beginning to tremble violently. "This is perfect evolution...it's God...why..."

He violently grabbed at his hair, letting out a piercing scream: "This is a perfect god! Ah—! My god! My masterpiece!"

His mental defenses collapsed completely in an instant. He slumped to the ground like a lump of mud, muttering meaningless ravings, tears and snot streaming down his face.

Li Haotian coldly observed the madman, his eyes devoid of any emotion. For someone lost in a false sense of power, pity was utterly superfluous.

Little Black climbed back onto his shoulder, licking its paws as if it had just swatted a fly.

"Let's go." Li Haotian turned around, no longer looking at the crazed expert.

Liu Hu swallowed hard, looked incredulously at the empty water stain, then at the seemingly harmless little black dog on Li Haotian's shoulder, a deep sense of awe flashing in his eyes.

"Yes, boss."

The three stepped over Professor Chen and walked towards the light at the exit. Behind them, Professor Chen was still crying out to the air in the darkness for his "perfect god," the sound growing fainter and fainter until it was finally buried in the deafening roar of the underground base collapsing.

The wind and rain outside continued, but compared to the nightmare beneath the earth, the biting cold wind felt strangely sobering. Li Haotian took a deep breath of the earthy, pungent air and flicked away a speck of dust from his fingertips.

This absurd farce has finally come to an end.