The Genetic Engineer stood before the operating table, and without any anesthesia, manipulated the auxiliary arms to cut open Blazkowicz's sternum with a cold laser, implanting the Gene Seed.
For one Terra week, the Master of Mankind stayed by Blazkowicz's side.
The Custodian Guards stood by him, silent, silently guarding the Master of Mankind.
Staff rotated shifts, monitoring every physiological change in Blazkowicz, acquiring detailed information about Gene Seed number twenty-one.
No matter how many times he had seen it, the Genetic Engineer was still amazed by that transformation of life from within.
Blazkowicz was in a deep sleep, his frail body radiating new vitality, the Gene Seed continuously releasing genetic information, reshaping his flesh from the inside out.
Something miraculous was quietly happening; the test subject's broken shin bone healed and recovered, his body gradually developed, and a body nearly three meters tall lay on the operating table.
"Hmm." As he groaned in his sleep, the Genetic Engineer's heart skipped a beat, and while maintaining stable vital signs, he looked with hope towards the Master of Mankind, who was seated on the stone throne.
Everything was proceeding as planned, and everything had reached that critical point in time.
The moment his bodily functions stopped growing, the Master of Mankind suddenly rose from his seat; he had sensed an incredible phenomenon.
Blazkowicz's soul still existed, but it had simultaneously disappeared from the real universe and the Warp!
The Master of Mankind walked to the operating table, placed his hand on Blazkowicz's constantly rising and falling chest, and sensed the changes within his body.
The soul's simultaneous disappearance from the real universe and the Warp—this bizarre event unfolded before the Master of Mankind, and he had to take it seriously.
Everyone's soul, whether strong or weak, has a projection in the Warp.
Even 'soulless ones,' their hollow souls, project a void black hole in the Warp.
No soul can escape the Warp!
The Master of Mankind now felt an inexplicable tension; all his attention was focused on Blazkowicz, searching for clues.
Finally, in the area of his chest, the Master of Mankind sensed the unique fluctuations of a soul.
When Blazkowicz woke up again, he quickly sensed the changes in his body.
It was still a thin, small body, but the injury on his leg had inexplicably healed. He looked up to see an endless desert before him, the sky a strange orange-red, and strong winds howling through the atmosphere.
"Is this what it's like after death?" He didn't understand why he was walking naked in the desert.
Perhaps he hadn't survived the surgery and had died on the operating table.
That's fine! Blazkowicz suddenly smiled with relief, feeling much lighter inside. He could finally put down his burdens and get some good rest.
Just as he let out a long breath, a red glow emanated from below his field of vision.
Blazkowicz looked down and found that his soft, sunken chest had, at some point, been branded with a red runic mark, glowing faintly like a breath.
Before he could understand why a runic mark appeared on his chest, a dense sensation came from under his feet.
The blood-colored sand became moist, somewhat muddy and slippery; when he grabbed a handful and squeezed it hard, slick blood seeped out of the sand!
Blazkowicz was startled, ignoring the mark on his chest, he stumbled back a few steps and quickly shook off the blood-soaked sand from his hand.
The moment he looked up, the sight terrified him: the desert was, at some unknown point, filled with various terrifying monsters.
Their appearances were horrifying, bizarre, as if they had walked out of a nightmare. They shared certain common features, proving they belonged to the same species.
They had spiraling horns on their heads, and their feet were hooves similar to cloven-hoofed animals. Their bodies were strong, and as their pale muscles flexed and relaxed, violent power flowed within them.
Their claws and teeth were hideous, black, and ancient; their faces were terrifying and twisted, without noses or eyes, but with blood-red, sinful light emanating from their eye sockets, and a supernatural power circulated over their sinful bodies.
Demons! The two words radiated primal evil, branded into Blazkowicz's mind.
An endless army of Demons let out hideous laughter, howling as a tide surged towards the tiny, fragile Blazkowicz.
At the same time, the mark on his chest glowed brightly, and a surge of rage erupted, quickly overwhelming his heart.
A cold message appeared in his mind: "Kill! Or be killed!"
His back teeth ground together, gnashing, his hatred completely erupting, his hands clenching into fists with crackling sounds, and the only muscles in his legs tensing.
Kill?
Blazkowicz looked at the Demons' explosively muscular bodies, then at his own slender arms and legs, and quickly surveyed his surroundings, trying to find some useful cover.
But at a glance, although there were a few boulders in the blood-colored desert, they were useless; Demons were coming in droves from all directions!
"I'll kill you all!" A roar echoed across the blood-red wasteland!
So, finding no escape, Blazkowicz clenched his fists and, with an equally ferocious expression, charged towards the Demons, intending to tear them apart!
Then, in the next instant, his vision went black as a winged Demon quickly appeared beside Blazkowicz and impaled his chest with a claw.
Outside, the Master of Mankind saw the Gene Seed spread out a blood-colored barrier, completely enveloping Blazkowicz's body.
The Master of Mankind used his psychic power to probe the edge of the barrier, wanting to enter it and explore its secrets, but Blazkowicz's body on the operating table suddenly shook violently, his chest suddenly exploded, and hot blood gushed out!
A mysterious wound appeared!
The Gene Artificer was anxious, immediately stepping forward to skillfully activate the life support system and inject various life-sustaining medications.
The Master of Mankind's expression was serious; he now knew the specific reason. Blazkowicz's soul had been damaged within the barrier, and the Gene Seed, acting as a medium, caused the damage to also appear on his physical body.
Pointing a finger at his brow, the Master of Mankind condensed his will into a steel needle and slowly pierced it into the Gene Seed, searching for the root of the problem.
When the Master of Mankind's powerful consciousness penetrated the barrier and entered a swirling blood-red mist, he looked at his hands in surprise, long and tender, as if he had returned to his youth.
He was naked from the waist up, wearing only linen trousers, his black hair cascading over his chest and behind his head, shedding his weariness and disguise, returning to his original true self.
He was the young man who still harbored dreams.
Without hesitation, the Master of Mankind raised his hand and gently waved, dispelling the blood-red mist. Under his great power, the mist gradually faded, and fragments of visions were transmitted before the Master of Mankind.
Even though he had existed for ages, the Master of Mankind was still moved; he was shocked by everything he saw.
In a disordered spacetime, a humanoid being wearing dark green power armor, though his true face was not revealed, the Master of Mankind was certain that the person was human.
He wielded a primitive, ancient double-barreled shotgun, shattering time and space, traversing all calamitous balances, slaughtering evil spirits and hunting Demons in endless cyclical eras across various dimensions.
The blood-red wasteland of Hell was mercilessly trampled by him.
Great beings comparable to the Four Gods, the eternal and immortal Titan Demons, powerful lifeforms whose very existence caused dimensions to collapse and reality to shatter, were nevertheless broken to pieces by that man.
That man ascended the torrent of time, killing his way down from the primal era, purging every Demon on every timeline, brutally slaughtering the fiery Hell until wails echoed across the land.
With a great sword of judgment and a double-barreled shotgun, he made Demons taste pain and made Hell, formed from the concept of 'evil,' feel fear.
He remained silent, cold, and cruel, with an unwavering soul that held only infinite rage towards the existence of Demons.
Eternal rage burned fiercely through the timelines, his name echoed in infinite dimensions, countless Demons in the multiverse feared and worshipped him, shouting his existence:
DOOM! Doom Slayer!
He struck down Heaven, gods fell before him, he slaughtered Demons, and the fiery Hell was turned into a land of silence.
He remained silent, he was always killing.
When the final moment, the decisive battle between the Creator and the Doom Slayer, arrived, the Creator was defeated, and the Doom Slayer fell into slumber.
A fragment of his essence drifted into the cosmic void, its whereabouts unknown.
Even separated by endless time and space, the primal aura leaked by both sides in the visions of the creation-level war made the Master of Mankind feel immense pressure.
The young man, a manifestation of the Master of Mankind's consciousness, now had red eyes brimming with tears, a faint smile on his lips that gradually turned into a hearty laugh; he knew everything and had never felt such joy.
He knew where that red essence had finally ended up.
The Master of Mankind had investigated countless times the red soul that the Four Gods were interested in, wondering why the Chaos Gods cared about it.
As the doubts deep within his heart vanished at this moment, the answer was so beautiful.
The Emperor knew all the causes and effects; the mist before his eyes dispersed, allowing him to see everything that had transpired in the Warp.
Doom Slayer! His spirit must have fallen into the Warp! Discovered by the Chaos Gods, it circulated and then returned to the real universe.
The Four Gods in the Warp had searched for millennia without comprehending its mysteries.
The Doom Slayer's hatred for demons had sublimated into a concept, a hatred that inherently countered demons, making it difficult even for the Chaos Gods to defile its essence.
The Emperor walked through the desert, his steps light, humming an ancient tune with a smile on his lips, as innocent as a child, yet with tears in his eyes.
In the illusion, endless information poured into his mind: there were universes beyond universes, and human civilization was incredibly prosperous.
The Four Gods were not insurmountable; a great being from the multiverse had already descended into this universe, and even if it was just a fragment, its essence was powerful, inherently possessing infinite possibilities.
Walking along, the Emperor was cautious, constantly reining in his power, fearing he might burst the trial barrier released by the Gene-Seed.
He observed demons he had never seen before; though different from Warp demons, they were even more dangerous.
The demons chanted blasphemous languages, and meme infections continuously corroded the surrounding environment, eroding the souls of the test subjects.
If a test subject failed, if their soul was corrupted before completing the trial, the Gene-Seed would destroy all infection.
In the center of the wasteland, Blazkowicz's frail body was locked in battle with demons, surrounded by a circle of demon corpses; he panted, not daring to relax for a moment, constantly repelling the demons.
Death! Rebirth! Death! Rebirth!
Demons would be reborn when killed, and he would be reborn when killed.
He and the demons seemed trapped in a time loop, doing meaningless things.
Sometimes, he didn't even want to kill demons anymore, because it was utterly pointless.
"This is a great trial."
A clear, youthful voice entered his ears, tinged with the shyness of one who hadn't spoken to others in a long time, yet also the majesty of a deity.
In a lull from killing demons, Blazkowicz looked up to see a black-haired youth sitting on a rock; he emitted a faint golden glow, and the demons ignored him, sweeping past him directly towards Blazkowicz.
The golden radiance was familiar to him; it was the majestic golden figure from the laboratory.
The black-haired youth had tears in his eyes, yet was exceedingly joyful; his gaze towards Blazkowicz was devoid of sorrow or joy, without any pity: "Only by passing his trial can you gain recognition."
"That power that gallops across the universe, unstoppable!"
With that, he left, without leaving Blazkowicz any hint of how to obtain help.
"Gene Artificer."
The Emperor's consciousness returned to reality; he saw the continuously twitching body on the operating table and said emotionlessly, "Disconnect the life support; it serves no purpose."
"The generous strong give everyone a chance; if one cannot even pass a simple trial, one is not worthy to receive that generosity."
"How many Gene-Seeds were cultivated from Subject Twenty-One's genetic material?"
"My Lord."
The Artificer lowered his stance and reported truthfully, "Only three hundred."
The Emperor was somewhat surprised; the genetic material of other Legion Primarchs produced several times more seeds.
"Gene Artificers, the Custodes will take over the work here; you have completed your task well."
As he spoke, the Emperor waved his hand, scattering a burst of psychic light: "After you leave here, you will forget all your memories."
The Gene Artificers bowed, holding their robes, and departed; they had no need to question the Emperor's decision.
"Custodes!"
The Emperor's magnificent voice suddenly rose as he commanded his most loyal servants, "Activate all three hundred Gene-Seeds; cultivate qualified warriors regardless of cost!"
Regardless of cost!
Even with the Custodes' strong mental fortitude, when they heard those four words, their hearts couldn't help but tremble.
Currently, thirty thousand people had not produced a single qualified one. A simple calculation showed that at least a hundred million lives would have to be sacrificed, just for three hundred Twenty-First Legion warriors!
"Prepare for the worst."
The Emperor saw through his servants' thoughts, and his next words shocked and even made the Custodes envious: "A billion people, ten billion people—even if it costs the population of an entire world, I will have them."
The Custodes had always been created by the Emperor's own hands, and he personally bestowed weapons upon each Custodian.
Now, the Emperor seemed somewhat unfamiliar to the Custodes; was he still the rational Emperor?
He was like a child seeing something he loved, willing to pay any price, without considering the consequences, just to possess that thing.
The Emperor wrote incantations with his psychic power in the operating room, raising a psychic barrier to obscure the omnipresent prying of the Warp's great powers.
Having completed all this, he strode away with a Custodian guard.
"I will help you forget all of this."
The Emperor walked forward, speaking to the Custodian following behind him, "Alpharius!"
"Father! Why?"
The person in golden armor was not a Custodian; he was one of the twenty-one Primarchs, a Primarch blown to Terra by a Warp storm.
The Gene-Father of the Twentieth Legion—Alpharius!
"You and Malcador taught me to keep secrets strictly; am I not qualified to keep secrets?"
In the operating room, Alpharius witnessed everything, knowing that his Father had commanded the Custodes to undertake the cultivation of his brother's offspring, but he knew nothing beyond that.
He did not know what the Emperor had seen within the Gene-Seed's barrier, or why he had made such a decision.
Now, he was being asked to have his memories deleted for an unknown secret.
"Of course..." The golden-armored Alpharius said hesitantly, "If it is your command, or if I am not qualified to know now, you may proceed."
The moment Alpharius's words fell, the Emperor's palm pierced his brain, causing no harm, and extracted a segment of memory, crushing it into specks of starlight.
Alpharius then realized, he finally realized, that his Father was not consulting him, but rather giving an unrefusable notification.
"What did I forget?"
As the starlight before him dissipated, Alpharius knew that a segment of his memory had been deleted.
"A secret you do not need to keep."
His Father's voice came from ahead; the Primarch turned, looking at the operating room guarded by Custodes and protected by a psychic barrier, suppressed the inappropriate curiosity in his heart, and then turned to leave.
"How could you issue such an order?"
Malcador's tone was very angry; he pushed open the door and entered the Emperor's private chambers, seeing his old friend standing by the window, looking into the distance through stained glass.
His nose caught the scent of wine; on the table was an open bottle of red wine, and a tall glass held rich red wine.
"Shouldn't you explain?"
Malcador quickly realized that the Emperor already knew of his arrival, and had even calculated his arrival time, decanting a glass of treasured Old Terra red wine.
He was working himself to death! For this nascent Imperium! All those numerous departments that seemed perpetually insufficient!
This man before him still had the leisure to drink fine wine and enjoy the scenery, looking utterly content; Malcador even wanted to hit him over the head a few times!
"My old friend!"
The Emperor turned, facing his old friend whom he had known for so long, his ancient ally with whom he had fought side by side for countless years, and he smiled!
That face revealed a smile that had gradually faded over tens of thousands of years, through countless instances of distrust.
It was a little stiff, but very beautiful.
Malcador stood frozen, tears welling in his eyes, gazing at the genuine smile on his old friend's face.
The Emperor of the past was a very talkative, very lively person. His face also showed smiles, expressions, and all the joys, angers, sorrows, and delights.
As his psychic power gradually grew stronger, he foresaw the decline of humanity. He told his friends of his prophecies, hoping to avert a dark future with the other immortals.
Unfortunately, some people, steeped in the glory of the Golden Age, did not trust what the Emperor said, even suspecting he had gone mad under the influence of psychic power.
Gradually, the Emperor distanced himself from them.
He no longer discussed prophecies in public, his expressions grew fewer and fewer, gradually becoming cold, nervously preparing for the future he foresaw, gathering all the technological resources that could rebuild humanity.
Now, Malcador saw his old friend smile again, a genuine smile.
Very stiff, very happy.
"Malcador, my old friend!"
The Emperor's hand trembled slightly as he raised the stemmed glass and offered it to him, his eyes also filled with joy and tears.
"I have never been so happy; I don't know how to describe it to you..."
The Emperor's face was flushed, whether from alcohol or excessive excitement; his words were a little slow, he wanted to tell everything he had seen, but stammered in his urgent excitement.
"I can't wait to share it with you..."
"Don't share it with me!"
Malcador's expression changed, and he abruptly interrupted his old friend: "I carry too many secrets; they've bent my back."
"Just tell me, what did you see?"
The Emperor lowered his head, gently rubbing the stemmed glass with his fingers, silent for a long time. When he looked up, his eyes were firm, his tone resonant, and he uttered two words that shocked Malcador:
"Hope!"
"Snap ~" The stemmed glass shattered, the priceless Emperor's treasured wine spilled onto the floor; Malcador was truly stunned.
In the dark universe surrounded by Chaos Gods, the word "Hope" was the most ethereal, and also the most precious.
The Emperor embraced Malcador, and both their eyes were bloodshot.
"Though very small, frail now, hope has truly arrived!"
Endless! Unkillable!
Blazkowicz felt himself growing weary. His thin body, repeatedly throwing punches, began to strengthen, and the time it took for him to be instantly killed by demons became shorter and shorter, but the exhaustion didn't come from his body, but from his heart.
"0000"
"0001"
"0002"
"0003"
Time here seemed to have no end; it was always a blood-red sky and a blood-red desert. Blazkowicz used relatively accurate 'second-counting' to gain a sense of reality.
Every rebirth, every death.
The demons' attacks came not only physically, but also from the corruption they emitted, the evil whispers that eroded the human heart.
Not violent, not swift, not obvious. But ceaseless, omnipresent, relentlessly wearing down like dripping water on a stone.
The physical demons were endless, wave after wave, tirelessly crashing against the defense Blazkowicz's hands and heart had jointly built.
Blazkowicz was exceptionally tired, covered in wounds, blood flowing from him—some his own, some the demons'.
His left hand was bitten off by a demon, revealing stark white bone, while his right hand gripped a demon horn as a weapon.
His nerves were constantly taut, but there were always moments of relaxation.
In an imperceptible gap, a demon like a mountain of flesh, grinning, used the cannons embedded in its arms to blast him into dust.
Returning whole again, the demons swarmed him once more!
"What exactly do you want? What do you wish to gain? What do you want me to prove?" Blazkowicz's spirit broke. In the cycle of death, his suppressed heart and taut nerves completely erupted.
He screamed, hysterically, spittle flying.
The wasteland offered no response; the demons grinned, and the whispers in the darkness mocked, urging him to let go of his fatigue and rest well.
"Screw you!"
At this moment, Blazkowicz abandoned his mind, instinct replaced thought, and his fists began to 'greet' the demons' entire family.
"Coward! ! ! ! ! !" A sky-shattering roar! It echoed across the blood-red wasteland, a primal howl devoid of any thought.
"Worthless! ! ! ! ! !" He cursed with a furious roar, his left hand plunging into a screaming demon's mouth, tearing out its chattering tongue.
"Weak! ! ! ! ! !" Another curse, and he kicked a pink dog-like demon off a pile of corpses, incidentally breaking off a demon horn and plunging it into its eye socket.
In the operating room of the real universe, terrifying howls echoed, and the roars of hatred felt familiar to the Custodians.
After an unknown amount of time, the roars and curses in the blood-red wasteland ceased.
Still demons, still that man.
The man was silent, silent to the point of numbness. Instinctively, he swung his fists and feet, striking flesh with every blow, continuously eliminating the surging demons.
From silence to numbness, Blazkowicz vented his violence. Constant slaughter made him strong, but also fragile.
He succumbed to eternal rage and a lust for killing, becoming no different from the demons, until he was beyond salvation.
Finally, anger ignited him, his soul burning with a fierce fire, consumed into a pile of ashes.
Flames gradually rose from his body, and the scent of bursting fat filled the operating room.
"He's done for!" The golden-armored Custodians shook their heads regretfully, silently dragging over a hose, ready to wash away the ashes from the operating table later.
When he burned to ashes, the next time would be a joint trial for three hundred individuals, creating three hundred warriors at any cost.
"Kill! Kill! Kill to your heart's content! Kill them all!" The evil whispers constantly urged him on.
Pain came little by little, his soul began to dissipate, gradually returning to coldness and dead silence.
"What do you truly want? What do you wish to see?"
Blazkowicz's remaining sanity questioned. He wept bitterly, sobbing uncontrollably, asking the blood-red wasteland again and again.
Still, as always, nothing, no one responded.
He gave up, kneeling exhausted on the ground. Though he didn't want to die, he didn't know how to survive in the blood-red wasteland.
Darkness assailed him, bringing with it an bone-chilling cold.
At his dying moments, Blazkowicz instinctively shivered, and vivid memories flashed before his eyes.
He seemed to see his former self, the biting, cold wind of the Himalayas, surrounding him just like this, advancing through a desolate wilderness against the bone-chilling wind.
Why advance?
With a sudden jolt, stimulated by the cold, Blazkowicz seemed to clear his mind somewhat in his daze.
To live!
To live, he moved between the Terra warlords; to live, he evaded war; to live, he walked onto the operating table.
Are you submitting to death now?
"No! No! I'm just too tired!" Blazkowicz was like a suffocating person, his consciousness hazy, struggling in water, haphazardly questioning and answering himself.
Then you submit to fatigue?
This time Blazkowicz didn't answer, only gasped, then slowly got up, staggering as he straightened his spine, bent by exhaustion.
"Come on! Demons!"
Gasping for breath, drooling. Another rebirth, still an endless slaughter.
This time, Blazkowicz had a clear goal: to kill in order to live.
"Huh!" A surprised sound from a colleague caught the Custodians' attention. The fiercely burning body, the greedily licking flames, seemed to recede somewhat.
The Custodians' observation was not mistaken; they realized that the young man might still have hope?
"9998"
"9999"
Blazkowicz began counting again. He clearly remembered how many times the number cycle had repeated.
As he restarted the count, his consciousness gradually cleared, and the feeling of physical exhaustion slowly faded.
Escaping from the brink of death, fighting back against the demons with his fists, ignoring the exaggerated, noisy whispers, he now had a glimmer of understanding: at least, there was hope as long as he lived.
The terrible things continued. No matter how he maintained his mindset, the endless slaughter still filled his heart with despair.
Ten years!
Blazkowicz recited the passage of each year; he had endured for ten years. His body felt no fatigue, and his mind was clear.
Demons accompanied him, wave after wave, group after group.
He did not succumb to fatigue, nor to death. But where was the end?
Twenty years! Blazkowicz still marked the passage of time. His body was very strong; he could now arm-wrestle with demons.
The humanoid demons that once easily killed him were now troublesome, but no longer a significant threat.
Thirty years! He had countless times wanted to give up, to end the endless resistance, to find release from the unchanging cycle of killing and being killed.
One hundred years!
"Heheheh! It doesn't matter, I'm still alive! I can still laugh! I can still kill demons!"
One thousand years!
Blazkowicz fell silent again. Day after day, year after year, he killed demons every moment. But he discovered something interesting: demons could also feel fear!
His cold, emotionless voice rang out, sweeping across the blood-red desert, sending shivers down the demons' spines: "Come! It's time to pay your debts! I will drink your fear! Trample your pathetic courage!"
Then Blazkowicz began something new: tormenting demons, torturing them to death, making them fear him!
Three thousand years!
"Demons~ demons~ where are you? Hide well~ I'm coming for you!"
A cold, deep voice echoed across the blood-red wasteland. A tall man walked through the blood-red ocean, searching for hidden demons.
When no demon could withstand his power, his torment made them feel pain and fear, gradually making them hide and no longer dare to appear.
Loneliness! Blazkowicz clearly felt it. The demons no longer played with him; only loneliness accompanied him in the blood-red wasteland.
But this time, he did not succumb to loneliness. Instead, he slowly sought out the few remaining pleasures, began to think independently, and used the demons to temper himself.
His martial arts gradually grew stronger, gradually returning to their essence, discerning the weaknesses of life, and helping the demons find release with absolute efficiency.
"9999"
Another numerical cycle concluded. Blazkowicz awoke on a rock. The demons had long since not dared to approach this place for thousands of years; they only dared to observe and worship from afar.
Actually, Blazkowicz quite liked playing with demons; they feared strength yet worshipped it.
Ten thousand years. Blazkowicz had grown accustomed to everything here. His consciousness had gone from normal to insane, from insane to normal, becoming indestructible through countless cycles.
He even kept a demon's head beside him, its chattering whispers helping him fall asleep.
He had long understood the ultimate purpose of this boundless, isolated trial.
It was forging eternal resilience, but only an unyielding will was worthy of being tempered into true gold!
Not succumbing to slaughter, fatigue, madness, death, or the cold, ten-thousand-year solitude!
"I have endured the test!"
"Boom!" The moment Blazkowicz, after ten thousand years of trials, spoke his name, the eternally unchanging blood-red wasteland began to collapse, finally entering the rune imprint on his chest.
And in the outside world, his dying body trembled slightly, and life returned!
"How long have I been lying here?"
Blazkowicz opened his eyes, confirmed he was back in the Terra laboratory, and asked in an emotionless voice.
He had expected to be excited, even overjoyed, but at this moment, he was as calm as still water, with no ripples in his heart.
The Custodians' exceptional minds paused slightly; they didn't understand how the person who was just burning and oozing oil was now standing unharmed, asking about the time.
"One Terra week and three hours, seven minutes, twenty-one seconds," said the Custodian named Plato, speaking to the awakened Blazkowicz.
Ten thousand years of trial, so real, full of pain and despair, had passed in only a week in reality.
Blazkowicz said nothing, sitting silently on the operating table, awaiting the arrival of the Custodians' master.
As he expected, amidst a golden light, the shimmering golden figure arrived again.
"An incredible miracle!"
The Emperor's voice was full of surprise. He saw through Blazkowicz's current state, exclaiming in wonder: "Your level of life has been changed!"
"Beyond the limits of biological genetic engineering." He circled Blazkowicz three times, his hand brushing over his broad shoulders and strong arms, eliciting barely concealed envy from the Custodians.
The Emperor had not revealed the full truth; he could no longer sense Blazkowicz's soul in the Warp, nor could he see through his memories and thoughts.
His soul was fused with his being, unaffected by the Warp. The soul supported the body's strength, and the body protected the soul, forming a perfect closed loop.
"Inject the remaining gene-seeds; I can't wait to see them!"
"As you command, My Lord!"
"No!" Blazkowicz warned the Emperor in a deep, concise voice: "You don't know the horror of that trial; you will kill everyone!"
The moment Blazkowicz left the trial's boundary, a strange connection formed in his mind. He sensed the other two hundred ninety-nine gene-seeds, as well as a distant star across endless void.
He knew clearly that if they created his brothers without counting the cost, even the current population of Terra would not be enough.
"Then we shall select them in an orderly fashion."
The Emperor compromised with the one who had personally experienced it, then looked at his tall, mighty physique: "Custodians, first give him armor to temporarily conceal his exact existence."
"And inform my personal artisan; I want to personally design the armor for the Twenty-First Legion."
"The Legion's firstborn." The Emperor turned to Blazkowicz, saying solemnly: "The Twenty-First Legion has a born name! I hope you do not fail it."
"Doom Slayer!"