MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Anthony stared down upon the world once more, and with a faint smile playing on his lips, he vanished from the sky. In that very instant, the screen of the Livestream flickered to life again, and StreamGhost appeared, his ever-present microphone clutched tightly in his hand as though it were a sacred relic.

"And there you have it, folks!" StreamGhost's voice boomed with uncontainable fervor. "He has done it once again! He has achieved the impossible! He has shattered every existing record by attaining planetary-level battle prowess at merely nineteen years of age! Can you even begin to comprehend that? He has set new standards! He has reshaped the very definition of Talent! He has become the hope of the world! He is the light that pierces the abyss! He is Heaven's Favourite Child, the blessed one, the Money God himself!"

StreamGhost's words rolled out like thunder, each phrase laden with overwhelming excitement. He raised his voice higher, straining his vocal cords as though the weight of his emotions could no longer be contained within his chest.

"He has saved us all from the Forsaken Cult! He has annihilated its leaders, wiped out their shadows, and even slain a personal servant of the Demon King! And now, now, he has accomplished what no mortal should ever dare dream, he has slain the very clone of the Demon King itself! This is not merely victory, it is salvation! Scream! Scream at the top of your lungs! Break your very vocal cords as you chant his name! Name your children after him! Raise altars in his honor! Pray to him! For only he, yes, only he, can save us all!"

StreamGhost's voice reached a feverish pitch, trembling with adrenaline and awe. He too had been swept into the frenzy of the moment, his emotions fusing with the atmosphere that Anthony had created by his unparalleled feat.

"But as all things that have a beginning, so too must all things come to an end," he continued, his tone lowering to a solemn whisper. "And with that, I bring this broadcast to its conclusion. Until next time, my ever-loyal viewers… this is StreamGhost, over and out."

With those final words, every screen that displayed him, every phone, every tablet, every television, every digital surface across the globe, suddenly went black. One moment the world had been united in the shared roar of his declaration, and in the next, it was as though a great silence had descended.

The screens returned to their regular broadcasts, their mundane channels and ordinary feeds, but the echo of StreamGhost's words lingered in the minds of billions.

Anthony and StreamGhost may have vanished, but the world did not grow quiet. No, the internet blazed alive like wildfire. Social media platforms collapsed under the weight of endless posts, streams of hashtags flooded every channel, and millions upon millions of people raved, argued, and worshipped. Anthony's name burned brighter than ever.

Far from this chaos of human voices, Anthony himself appeared within the Abandoned Desert of Ruins. Around him lay a grotesque landscape of death, endless corpses sprawled across the blood-soaked sand. Soldiers, demons, and cultists lay intermingled, their bodies numbering in the millions. The desert that had once been golden now bore the dark, rust-colored stain of collective blood. The earth itself seemed to weep crimson.

Anthony stood unmoved amidst the carnage, but his gaze was not indifferent. Though he had reversed time across the entire Blue Planet, saving every city, every structure, every innocent life, there was one thing that even his reversal could not grant: the resurrection of the fallen.

The soldiers who had given their lives here still remained dead, their noble sacrifice etched into the scarred land.

His mind flickered back to a memory that stuck with him till date: the death of Seraphim, during Anthony's very first mission in the Bleeding Hollow Zone within the Fragment World of the Executioner. That had been the first time Anthony had desperately wished to bring someone back. The first time he had felt helpless before the weight of mortality.

Now, the world rejoiced at his feats, at his saving of all race, but what of these soldiers? They had given their lives willingly for their planet, for their fleeting peace, for a cause greater than themselves. Their loyalty deserved something greater than silence in the sands. Anthony did not know their names, nor their stories. He did not care who they were in life.

But he knew this, they had died honorably.

And because of that, Anthony would bring them back. He would not ask for permission. He would not wait to be begged. He would do it because he could. He would do it because he wanted to.

His lips parted, and his voice resounded across the desolate battlefield, carrying an authority that reverberated through both earth and air:

[Quantum Manipulation: Genetic Manipulation]

The first time Anthony had used this skill, he had forcibly altered the very essence of a demon, twisting its race until it became a vampire. Now, however, he invoked the skill with a purpose far grander. He summoned the ability not to change, but to restore.

To create anew.

From the blood-soaked ground, from the fragments of flesh, from even the faintest lingering cells, Anthony would rebuild entire bodies for every fallen soldier.

It did not matter if only a single blood cell remained, Genetic Manipulation would weave it into a perfect, living form.

An unseen force erupted across the desert, flowing like an invisible tide. It sought out corpses, blood, bone, and lingering cells, anything that bore a trace of DNA untainted by chaos.

From these fragments, Anthony drew forth strands of DNA, and from them he reconstructed entirely new bodies down to their tiniest details. Fingerprints were restored, mana cores reshaped, identities preserved flawlessly.

Cells multiplied at blinding speed, bones reformed with a cracking symphony, organs reknit themselves, veins pulsed as new blood surged. Hearts reshaped once more, skulls sealed, brains sparked with dormant potential. In mere moments, the desert was filled with completed bodies, perfect vessels, but lifeless corpses nonetheless.

Anthony's smile deepened.

He was not finished.

With a simple snap of his fingers, the very fabric of reality wavered. The air blurred, space trembled as he activated another ability.

Soul Transfer

The world shifted before his eyes. Suddenly, he perceived millions of souls, brilliant motes of light, each unique in intensity and shade. They shimmered like stars scattered across a boundless cosmos.

Without hesitation, Anthony drew upon his Sense Dome, expanding his awareness to its utmost, and invoked his Thought Compartments skill to manage the colossal task of guiding each soul.

The Soul Transfer ability allowed Anthony to move his own soul or another's into a different vessel. Yet it bore one critical limitation, it could not return a soul to the very body it had just left.

That restriction had always been an obstacle, but Anthony had devised a way around it. By constructing entirely new bodies, he had created vessels into which the souls could be anchored without resistance.

Thus, his method bypassed the flaw that had bound him.

Anthony's eyes gleamed as he carefully inserted soul after soul, weaving them back into flesh. His Mental Calculation skill raced at impossible speeds in tandem with his Thought Comparments skill, processing countless variables, predicting failures, foreseeing outcomes.

He would not allow even one mistake.

The desert lay still for a heartbeat longer. Then, from among the millions of motionless bodies, one eyelid fluttered open. A soldier sat upright, drawing in a ragged breath as life flooded back into his veins.

Another stirred. Then another. Soon the battlefield was filled with motion as soldiers blinked, gasped, and groaned, rising from the sands they had once died upon.

Confusion painted their faces. They remembered their deaths, the agony, the war cry, the final moments. But here they stood, alive once more, staring around at a world they had once left.

The desert of corpses had become a sea of resurrection.