The Reincarnated Hitman

Liam walked out of his bathroom with a grin on his face and a towel in hand.

Even though he had just woken up from near death, he never felt more alive right now. It felt like some sort of limiter placed on his Pragma had loosened thanks to the Pragma battery.

Since Sable needed Zero to lay low for a while, Liam had a lot of time on his hands, and what better way to spend that time than running more experiments on his Pragma.

After all, he needed a way to find out where the Splinters were keeping Dr. Crew, and he had just the plan for that.

He just hoped that the battery would give him enough Pragma to let that happen.

"First things first," Liam tossed the towel and sat down on the bed, "let’s see how much Genesis can give me with something I only have vague knowledge of."

He opened his palm, and the next second, a shiny metal bar with a yellowish shine appeared above his palm.

With only a single glance, one could tell exactly what it was.....

Gold.

Liam lifted it to eye level before biting the metal, withdrawing it and looking at it again.

After a couple of seconds, the hitman admitted, "I have no idea how one tells whether or not this is real gold."

Still, given the nature of Genesis, he trusted that it really was real gold.

"Interesting," Liam said with a smile.

He barely noticed his Pragma depleting, despite the fact that all he knew about gold was that its chemical symbol was Au.

Still, creating gold was a lot less complex than what he had in mind, so he decided to go for something else.

"Let’s increase the difficulty," Liam said as he stared at the gold bar for a moment before making it disappear.

Given what he wanted to create, he decided to recreate the closest thing to it, a DNA strand.

"..."

Well, that was quite the jump from gold, but given that he intended to try and create a clone, DNA was the biggest ingredient.

He focused on his palm again, but the next second,

THUD!

Liam suddenly fell backwards, his body refusing to make a single bit of movement as he was instantly drained of all his Pragma.

But instead of surprise or disappointment, there was a grin on his face.

"I can do it after all," he said, looking at the ceiling above him.

His empty Pragma reserves was proof enough that he had succeeded in creating a strand of DNA.

Which meant that Genesis truly wasn’t limited to objects only; he could even create living cells.

Now all he had to do was either make a bigger Pragma battery, which he wouldn’t because Lea would kill him if she found out.

Or he could gather as much knowledge on DNA and cells in order to lessen the amount of Pragma he spends.

Which meant it was time for more study.

"I’ll do that later," he said as he slowly closed his eyes, "let’s just get some sleep."

***

"Did anyone manage to catch him?" Hypnos said as he sat on the hospital bed within the Splinter’s base.

His head was quite grotesque, to say the least.

Despite their best efforts, the doctors had been unable to remove the metal shards embedded within it, nor could they reverse its disfigurement.

The most they could do was remove his hair.

But just like Zero had guessed, this disfigurement didn’t only bring negatives, and even Erode immediately noticed his changes.

It felt as if she was in front of a high-ranking awakened human again, and for some reason, even though she knew Hypnos wouldn’t hurt her, she felt a bit terrified of the feeling he gave off.

It seems the amplifier tech was now permanently merged with him, forcing his second awakening and evolving his Factor.

Exactly as Zero had predicted, which meant that he was an even bigger danger than previously.

"No," She shook her head, "but a lot of mercenaries have taken the job, and most of them are awakened."

Hypnos silently looked at her for a while before saying, "Increase the reward for anyone who can bring him in alive."

His eyes seemed to glow as a smile appeared on his face. "I still have to thank him for causing my second awakening."

***

"Big brother?"

Liam slowly opened his eyes and found Eli standing beside the bed, staring at him with a confused expression.

"Hmm?" Liam let out a sigh, still half-asleep.

"You’ve been sleeping for a really long time. Are you okay?" The kid asked.

Leon glanced towards the window and realized that it was already nighttime, which meant that he truly had been asleep for a long time.

"Yeah," he answered with a smile, "I was just really tired."

"I see," Eli nodded before adding, "big sister said I should wake you up."

Liam pushed himself out of bed and stretched.

His body still felt somewhat sluggish from completely draining his Pragma, but the battery had already replenished a considerable amount of it.

Before he reached the door, his phone suddenly rang, and the moment he saw the screen, he realized that it was Sable.

"Liam speaking," he answered the call as he and Eli continued walking towards the living room.

[Your bounty has been updated,] was the first thing the grey market agent said.

"Really?" Liam asked, "What’s the new reward?"

[...] Sable was silent for a while before responding, [twenty million if anyone can bring you in alive.]

"That much?" He muttered, and for once, Sable thought the kid had realized that whoever put the bounty on him truly wanted to get rid of him.

Instead, what Liam said next caused his expression to turn completely blank, "Will they increase it if I cause more problems for them?"

[Are you not worried at all?] Sable finally asked.

"Not really," Liam answered with a shrug before his tone turned completely serious, "besides, I’ll have fun letting them think they’re the hunters for now."