Just then, the isolation gate of the laboratory made a soft "click" sound.

Drake personally led his "cleanup crew" into the room.


He wore white research attire and gold-rimmed glasses, appearing refined and elegant like a university professor. But the gleam behind his lenses—eyes that regarded us as mere experimental specimens—was colder than any beast's.

"What a touching scene." Drake applauded as he walked up to us. He glanced at the main console screen displaying the fabricated data of Odin's imminent "brain death" and nodded with satisfaction. "A naive avenger trying to save her enemy. A failed creation who completely breaks down mentally with the 'help' of her enemy. What excellent story material."

He waved his hand, and several soldiers in heavy power armor stepped forward, about to drag Odin away from the platform.


"As for you, Miss Thorne, it seems you won't need the poison after all." Drake turned to me with feigned regret on his face. "I was going to offer you a position as an honorary advisor on the Thorne Industries board of directors. But since you've seen things you shouldn't have... I can only invite you to become the newest addition to our 'Prometheus' project collection."

Another soldier raised his energy weapon toward me.


I looked at Drake, revealing an icy smile on my face that was completely at odds with our desperate situation.

"Drake," I said softly, "do you know what a good chess player most avoids during the endgame?"

Drake was taken aback for a moment, seemingly not expecting this question from me.

"It's talking too much."

As soon as my words fell, I gave the final and only command into the communicator:

"Now!"

Odin, who had been lying motionless on the platform, suddenly opened his eyes!

That roar didn't sound like it came from a human throat, but rather like an ancient beast imprisoned for thousands of years, finally breaking free from the last chain, directing its first and final brilliant howl toward its captor.

The entire Class A specimen storage facility trembled violently with this roar. Those sturdy glass life-support pods, capable of withstanding small tactical weapons, developed spider web-like cracks on their surfaces. The light tubes on the ceiling all shattered in an instant, plunging the entire space into a hellish dimness bathed in emergency red lights.

The "cleanup squad" soldiers who were closest to Odin found their heavy power armor suits—representing the pinnacle of Genesis Group's highest technological achievement—now as fragile as paper. Under the invisible sonic impact, the composite materials on the armor's surface peeled away layer by layer, while the precise electronic components inside sparked wildly, and their helmet visors instantly vaporized and shattered. Like tin cans struck by an invisible giant hammer, they didn't even have time to scream before being thrown backward, smashing violently against distant walls, their twisted metal encasing shattered flesh, sinking into eternal silence.

The confident, elegant smile on Adam Drake's face froze for the first time. The contempt and amusement in his eyes were instantly replaced by emotions called "shock" and "disbelief." His calculations that he had been so proud of, his supposedly perfect script, were torn to shreds at this moment by an absolute force that shouldn't have existed.

"No... impossible!" he cried out involuntarily, his voice becoming shrill with extreme fear. "His brain wave activity had clearly... clearly entered an irreversible decline!"

"What you saw was only what I wanted you to see, Dr. Drake." My cold voice rang in his ears like a death knell.

I walked out from behind the main console, holding a high-energy medical laser scalpel that I had just dismantled from the platform. Its blue energy blade emitted an eerie, ominous glow in the dim red light. At this moment, it was my only weapon.

Odin stood up from the medical platform.

He was barefoot, walking slowly, step by step toward Drake. The violent energy storm that had been emanating from him earlier was gone, all that power seemingly perfectly contained within his body now. But with each step he took, the alloy floor beneath his feet was left with a deep footprint, its edges slightly melted from the extreme heat. The air distorted around him due to the incredibly high energy density, forming a visible halo like a mirage in Harbor City.

He was unprecedentedly powerful, and also unprecedentedly... calm.

"What... what are you trying to do, Odin?" Drake instinctively stepped back, his refined face showing for the first time the most primal fear of a mortal. "I am your creator! You cannot..."

Odin didn't answer. He just raised his hand.

"Fire! Fire! Stop him!" Drake screamed in terror to the remaining soldiers.

Those well-trained soldiers immediately reacted, overcoming the fear in their hearts and pointing their energy weapons at Odin, simultaneously shooting out deadly beams. White, blue, and red energy torrents from all directions completely engulfed Odin's figure.

However, these beams, powerful enough to melt steel, were silently absorbed and deflected when they made contact with the distorted halo around Odin's body, like light rays entering the deep sea. Some beams were even refracted back toward their owners. One soldier's weapon exploded in his hands, blasting him into pieces.

Odin didn't even break his stride.

Just like that, amidst the hail of gunfire, he strolled casually through that zone of death and walked right up to Drake.

"You call me... a work?" Odin spoke, his voice low and deep, yet carrying an authority capable of freezing souls, "No, Drake. You are wrong."

He reached out his hand and easily gripped Drake's throat, lifting him off the ground. Drake's feet kicked helplessly in the air, his face turning the color of pig's liver from suffocation. His expensive gold-rimmed glasses tilted to one side, making him look disheveled and comical.

"You are merely a thief," Odin stared into his eyes, enunciating each word, "A pitiful wretch who stole power that doesn't belong to you, and presumptuously tried to use it to enslave others."

After saying this, he slightly tightened his grip.

With a crisp "crack" sound, Adam Drake's neck was easily broken by him. This supreme authority of the "Genesis Group," this behind-the-scenes manipulator who toyed with us in the palm of his hand, thus ended his sinful life in the most direct and humiliating way. On his face remained an expression of disbelief and terror, frozen in place.

Odin tossed his corpse aside like garbage. Then, he turned around, his eyes burning with golden flames, and looked at me.

The laboratory fell into a deathlike silence.

The few remaining soldiers, after witnessing Drake's gruesome death, had completely lost their will to fight. They dropped their weapons and huddled in corners, trembling.

And I, gripping the laser scalpel in my hand, stood in a distant standoff with the "god" who had just completed a massacre.

The alliance between us, with the death of our common enemy, has quietly come to an end at this moment.

Now, we are the only two enemies left in this enclosed space.

That power of "pseudo-loss of control" within him has not completely subsided. I don't know if he can still maintain his sanity.

"So, now..." he spoke, his voice still deep, "it's our turn, Evelyn Thorne."

He called out my name. This was the first time, in a conscious state, that he so clearly overlapped my identity with "Typhon."

"How should I deal with you?" he slowly walked toward me, "You deceived me, used me, treated me as a pawn in your revenge plan. Even... when I lost control, you..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but I could hear the pain and humiliation contained in his tone crystal clear.

"You can kill me," I answered calmly, raising the laser scalpel in my hand and assuming a defensive stance. "Just like you just killed him. Use your 'divine' power to judge me, a mortal. Isn't that what you've wanted to do all along?"

My words were like a needle, piercing the most sensitive part of his heart.

He stopped in his tracks, only three steps away from me. I could feel the scorching energy radiating from his body, almost burning my skin.

He looked at me, and in those golden eyes, anger, pain, confusion, and a complex emotion I couldn't understand were battling fiercely.

We stared at each other, as if a century had passed.

I was prepared to face death. I knew that in my current condition, I had no chance against him. But even in death, I would die standing.

However, to my surprise, that destructive flame in his eyes gradually, bit by bit, subsided.

The distorted halo surrounding his body dissipated along with it.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, there was nothing but a bottomless fatigue in them.

"I can't kill you," he said in a voice that was almost exhausted.

"Why?" I asked, confused.

"Because... you're right," he gave a bitter smile, one that looked worse than crying. "We're the same, Evelyn. Both of us are pitiful puppets manipulated by the Genesis Group, by that man... by fate. It's just that you chose to fight back with wisdom, while I... have nothing but this cursed power."

He turned around, his back to me, looking at the golden stasis pod in the center of the hall that contained the "Founder."

"Moreover," he continued, his voice so low as if talking to himself, "If I kill you, who... can prove that I have ever 'lived'? Not as his copy, not as a creation of 'Genesis Group', but as 'Odin', lived."

I was stunned.

I never thought he would say something like this.

Just then, the entire laboratory shook violently again. The main console emitted a sharp alarm.

[Warning! Self-destruct program for A-level sample storage has been activated! Time remaining, three minutes!]

It was Drake. That bastard had automatically triggered the final failsafe after his vital signs disappeared. He wanted us to accompany him in death.

"Damn it!" Odin cursed.

"Let's go!" I decided immediately, "This structure won't hold for long!"

We both rushed toward the alloy door we had come through, which had already been torn open.

However, just as we were about to rush out the door, Odin suddenly stopped in his tracks. He turned around and looked at the golden life support pod again.

"What are you doing?!" I shouted at him.

"Some things... must be ended by my own hands," he said.

Then, ignoring my attempts to stop him, he once again gathered the remaining, violent power within his body. His eyes, for the last time, lit up with a destructive golden glow.

Two intensely concentrated heat rays shot out from his eyes, precisely striking that life support pod.

In a deafening explosion, that "Creator" clone symbolizing the source of all evil, along with Odin's "past," was transformed into raging flames.

And Odin, due to this final overexertion of power, could no longer support himself. He fell to one knee and spat out a mouthful of golden blood.

I rushed over, grabbed his arm, and half-dragged, half-carried him toward the exit.

The chain reaction of explosions had already begun. Behind us, the entire laboratory was collapsing layer by layer, being devoured by a sea of fire.

We, between life and death.