A World Bathed in Sunlight

Earth.

The stratosphere, also known as the isothermal layer, was a layer of Earth's atmosphere that was warm above and cold below. It was divided into different temperature zones, with the high-temperature layer at the top and the low-temperature layer at the bottom.

The temperature in the stratosphere rose with altitude because its upper region absorbed ultraviolet radiation from the sun and was heated by it.

Boom

At the top of the stratosphere, forty-eight kilometers above the ground, He-El suddenly appeared.

The instant he traversed worlds, He-El learned from the Traversal Vortex that it could vaguely transport him to a world matching his intentions.

At the time, He-El had only one wish: to bask in sunlight and awaken his Kryptonian gene.

Thus, in an instant, He-El appeared on Earth, at the top of the stratosphere, forty-eight kilometers above the ground. Before him lay a clear blue sky, level white clouds close enough to touch, and a gigantic, dazzling sun.

Sunlight directly seeped into He-El's body. Like a bottomless pit, he actively absorbed the sunlight, making the surrounding area seem distorted as the light collapsed inward.

"Ah!!!"

Suddenly emerging from darkness into the bright, clear stratosphere and being assaulted by ultraviolet radiation, He-El raised his head and stared straight at the sun. Just as joy welled up inside him, he let out a scream.

Sunlight was the key that unlocked Kryptonian genes, penetrating deep into He-El's body.

His body curled backward in the stratosphere like a cooked shrimp. His hands stiffened into chicken claws, while his eyes, fixed on the sun, burned with pain and filled with blurry afterimages. The sun multiplied into hundreds and thousands in his vision, his sight becoming as muddled as compound eyes. Amid the intense agony, tears streamed from his eyes mixed with blood.

The genes buried deepest within him received the sun's radiation and began operating at full force. His cells started to awaken.

Ribosomes that received sunlight synthesized sunlight-like proteins and transmitted them to the cell membranes. The cellular biomembranes, made of phospholipid bilayers, embedded proteins, and glycocalyx, seemed to erupt under the stabbing stimulation, producing an electric shock-like solar transmission reaction. The organelles rapidly transmitted it through his entire body as though electricity were coursing through him.

The vacuoles in his cytoplasm boiled as if they were on fire. Electron reactions in the fluid spun faster and faster, increasing in intensity tenfold. This was why Kryptonians could control biological magnetic fields: the cytoplasm's relentless, powerful electron activity fed back through the entire body, linking it into a whole and forming a controlled biological magnetic field.

As for the innermost cell nuclei, after the sunlight passed through the cell membranes, cytoplasm, chlorophyll light-absorption factors within the cytoplasm, chloroplast decomposition fluid, reconstruction fluid, and protoplasm, layer upon layer of external solar feedback entered the nuclei. Within the cytoskeletal network channels of the nuclei, chromosomes began separating—cell division.

Once the first cell exposed to sunlight successfully divided, it went mad, spreading the activation and differentiation of cells like an infectious disease.

After division, cells changed in form, structure, and function in different directions.

Cell differentiation formed different tissues. Cells before and after differentiation were no longer the same type.

Groups of cells with similar forms, identical structures, and certain functions were called tissues.

Different tissues combined in a certain order to form organs.

Various organs coordinated with one another to form systems.

That was why Kryptonians possessed a whole series of superpowers: heat vision, freezing breath, bodies of steel, super healing, super vision, and more.

"Pain... it hurts so much... Hahaha... Hahahahaha!!!!!"

He-El knew he was about to welcome a transformed life, but the pain still made him bite his teeth apart. It was not a figure of speech—he truly crushed his old teeth in one bite, only for new ones to grow back with astonishing speed.

He laughed amid his howls. Forty-eight kilometers above the ground, pulled by Earth's gravity, his entire body became a luminous object, constantly absorbing sunlight as he continually began falling under gravity's pull.

From afar, even in broad daylight, he looked like a bright star, dragging a long tail of blazing light as he plummeted toward the surface.

The light seemed to be chasing him.

"Ah... hahaha... ahahahaha..."

He-El laughed as his teeth shattered and regrew. His throat burned as if lava were erupting within it, and blood poured from his forcibly opened eyes. His vision turned upside down in a haze, alternating between darkness and light. His eyes were constantly being destroyed, then constantly repaired under the intense sunlight.

His descent accelerated more and more wildly. His skin violently rubbed against the air and burst into flames. Like burning paper, his skin peeled away, revealing dark-red, beautiful lines of blood and muscle, along with snow-white bones.

He turned over, curling into a fetal position with his back facing downward. The skin scraped from his face exposed crimson muscle lines. His two eyeballs lay naked and bare, his teeth gleaming white in a savage grin as he laughed maniacally.

Between agony and ecstasy, ecstasy overwhelmed the pain for the moment.

His falling speed rubbed against the air, and he burned like a meteor. The powerful muscles on his back began to burn and tear apart, exposing ribs and internal organs deep within. His blood evaporated and mixed with the scorching flames caused by friction, creating a vivid blaze of blood and fire.

The next moment, his muscles, blood, bones, and skin fought with the heavens for life. The sunlight absorbed by the Kryptonian and his super healing ability took effect, constantly repairing him at the boundary between healing and frictional combustion.

If time had stretched on, then no matter how much his descent accelerated, a Kryptonian's extraordinary healing speed would have prevailed. But now, he had reached the ground.

He-El appeared in the stratosphere like a shooting star, trailing a fiery tail chased by sunlight. He carved an arcing path across the clear blue sky and smashed toward the Pacific Rim Joint Defense Force base in Anchorage, Alaska.

"Attention, Test Training Plaza 01. Attention, Test Training Plaza 01."

"Radar has detected a small meteor that suddenly appeared. Its projected impact site is Test Training Plaza 01. All personnel, evacuate immediately. All personnel, evacuate immediately."

"I repeat, all personnel, evacuate immediately! All personnel, evacuate immediately!"

"Gipsy Danger, cease maintenance testing! Cease maintenance testing! Leave the plaza immediately! Leave the plaza immediately!"

The workers in the plaza turned their heads and saw the flames shooting toward them. They hurriedly boarded engineering vehicles and obediently, orderly followed instructions to leave the plaza.

Inside the seventy-nine-meter-tall Gipsy Danger, its two pilots, Raleigh and his older brother Yancy, had just turned the visual system around when they saw the base's defensive cannons and MGM-134A ballistic missiles shooting straight toward the meteor in the sky.

Raleigh could not help but laugh. "Looks like we can forget about maintenance today."

His older brother Yancy stared at the meteor, then saw it evade the missiles' locked trajectory as though it could avoid danger, continuing its descent toward the plaza.

Yancy's expression changed. "Quick, quick! Get out of here!! That damned meteor is coming for us."

The two had barely begun to operate Gipsy Danger and leave the plaza when the meteor fell, smashing into Gipsy Danger's knee. The joint was shattered outright, steel cables snapped, electricity flickered, and the entire seventy-nine-meter giant tilted over.

In the end, under the two pilots' control, it did not fall. Instead, it stopped Gipsy Danger in a half-kneeling position.

Once it had stabilized.

The many engineering mechanics hurriedly mobilized heavy machinery, preparing to hoist Gipsy Danger back up.

"What kind of meteor was that?"

Someone waved away the black smoke, which carried the scorched stench of steel and a strange odor, then muttered as he headed toward the impact site. The moment he saw it, his face changed, and he shouted.

"That's not a meteor! That's not a meteor! Why is it a person!"

He-El's tall figure lay curled like a baby in the crater. Blood trickling from his back filled the pit with a thick, scorching stench of blood. In the blink of an eye, broken bones were forced out from his back, muscles writhing like pythons as they healed, fibers reconstructing. Skin crawled over the muscles amid tiny sparks. Still curled like an infant and unconscious, He-El nevertheless wore a wide grin.