The Dawn of the New World

Hao Xuan could feel the glyph examining every part of his body even though it didn't have a face and there was no sure way of confirming that but in Hao Xuan's mind, an image of a newborn curiously looking at something unfamiliar popped up.

It kept a distance of a few meters while moving left and right so Hao Xuan just ignored it and pretended not to even see even it. His attention refocused on the hundreds of other glyphs in his vision.

Most of them didn't bother with him one bit but every now and then one glyph would suddenly turn in his direction, slowly moving closer some distance before losing interest and stopping.

*Shhhhng*

The sound of metal striking metal came into Hao Xuan's ears, grabbing his attention. He looked towards it and saw a glyph about 300-350 meters below him. It was surrounded by bright golden light.

The light became brighter and brighter until it resembled a small sun, surrounding the glyph. A second later the light disappeared and the glyph showed itself again. Its color had changed from a shade of blue to light golden.

Just seeing it even from such a distance away, Hao Xuan could feel copious levels of energy exuding from it. It was a sun amongst a sea of twinkling stars, in more ways than one.

"Warning! Intrinsic Resonance Detected!"

A never-before-seen warning appeared in Hao Xuan's vision.

"What? What does that mean?!"

While Hao Xuan was focused on it, the golden glyph turned towards him. Visually, it resembled a solar system.

It had close to 18 planetary bodies orbiting a red sun. The planetary bodies moved clockwise around the sun as a golden mist surrounded them.

Of all the nearby glyphs, this one was quite peculiar in its visuals and was one of the biggest as well. It started to slowly move forward, displacing the nearby clouds.

It had substance!

While all the other glyphs near Hao Xuan only existed as a form of light that couldn't even be seen with the naked eye, this one had a mass and solid form that interacted with the physical world.

As if drawn by some unknown force, it moved at an angle of 30 degrees in a straight line at a constant speed. And if it continued going in that direction and at THAT speed, it would connect with Hao Xuan in less than a minute.

But Hao Xuan was too busy listening to what Baracus had to say and he completely missed that.

"What the hell does "Intrinsic Resonance" mean?"

*Beep*

"When you 'absorbed' the demonic creature's protuberance, a new mutation was detected inside your DNA, bringi-"

"Wait wait, what the hell do you mean "mutation" in my DNA? Why am I just hearing about this?!" Hao Xuan cut in, his blood pressure rising.

"Taking into account the numerous other things there are to take care of, some non-urgent matters were kept from you on purpose by the system after careful consideration. It was decided knowing such things would bring you no benefit and not improve the situation in any way."

Hao Xuan who was about to burst unexpectedly calmed down upon hearing his reason. He could see the logic in Baracus's actions and even though he didn't approve of them, there was no reason to chastise him unnecessarily.

"Then...why bring it up now?"

"The mutation was minimal. It only affected a small number of cells and did not spread from the point of origin, initially. But as of 48 seconds ago, it has been stimulated and actively starting to further mutate the affected cells. A resonance with an outside source was detected."

"Can you track the outside source?"

"Affirmative."

"Show me."

The map reappeared, covering most of Hao Xuan's vision. Only his green dot was shown along with one other grey dot with question marks above it.

Hao Xuan's brow quickly knit into a tight furrow from a single glance.

"Wait, isn't that right belo-" as he said that, Hao Xuan looked down and saw the golden glyph mere inches away from his face.

*Thump*

The glyph and Hao Xuan's body impacted. There was no explosion, no extra noise. Only a golden light that enveloped Hao Xuan completely. His vision went dark and the last thing he heard were Baracus's notifications followed by an unknown voice.

"Gene sequence modification detected."

"Attempting suppression..."

"Suppression measures unsuccessful."

*Beep*Beep*

"Incoming DataStream Detected."

"Analysing..."

"DataStream Corruption Detected."

"Attempting Recovery..."

"Recovery Successful."

"Hel- *Bzt* -lo *Kzzt* hu- *Bzzt* -man. Can you *Krrt* understand *Bzt* me?"