Startled Awake in the Throes of Death

A fragment of DNA that no human could comprehend began to activate, converting the Yellow Sun's unique wavelength into a form of energy and transmitting it throughout a body that was nearly spent.

Don't think this marrow-washing, bone-reforging transformation was a blessing. The stimulation was like pouring a basin of cold water into a vat of hot oil—the whole pot exploded!

The converted energy didn't simply elevate the body's physical strength. It started at the cellular level, massively enhancing every sense and bodily function.

When a gentle breeze struck that sensitive, fragile skin, it hit like a battering ram, driving its force deep into the body. Not only did the internal organs shudder, but cracks formed in the bones.

Yet these injuries were repaired in an instant, and the mended parts were stronger than before. This frail body was continuously reinforced through the cycle of destruction and restoration.

Sounds too subtle for a normal person to notice, along with ultrasonic and infrasonic frequencies beyond human hearing, similarly hammered and strengthened the eardrums and auditory nerves.

Then came smell, sight, touch across every patch of skin, pain—all senses exchanged with the outside world at a speed beyond human imagination.

To handle such complex sensory input, the brain's nerves constantly broke their limits, growing and strengthening again and again.

You could say the forging of an Iron Body wasn't inevitable—it was a necessary upgrade to bear the load of these supercharged senses. Without an Iron Body, the pressure from these senses would be unbearable.

It's like using a bamboo chassis and driveshaft with an eight-hundred-horsepower Formula racing car engine and tires. The result wouldn't be an amazing performance—the whole vehicle would fall apart.

These hyper-sensitive cells, through constant self-reinforcement, adapted to the aftereffects of their own extreme sensitivity.

At the same time, the repeatedly strengthened cells developed slightly different functions. But those functions awaited proper development.

It's like how, if a car's engine is strong enough and the body and parts are adjusted, the car could even moonlight as a speedboat or an airplane.

If the strengthening process had a long adaptation period, perhaps the person being strengthened wouldn't suffer so much.

But as mentioned before, this was like pouring cold water into hot oil—everything was violent and rapid. The pain was unimaginable to outsiders.

Worse still, all of this was only physical enhancement. Although the brain cells were correspondingly strengthened, the way of thinking didn't change or grow along with them.

It was like trying to run a triple-A game on a supercomputer using an old DOS operating system. The hardware might handle it, but without proper software and drivers, it was all useless.

The brain does have shutdown mechanisms—like making someone faint. But that only happens when functions are overloaded, and it's not a true brain shutdown or restart.

Yet the person undergoing the change had a super-brain and nerve cells capable of processing all this information, but his thinking logic hadn't changed. So the brain, not yet pushed to its limit, naturally didn't trigger such actions.

What was happening to him now was chaotic information weaving through his mind. Optic and auditory nerves were cross-wired. The olfactory region, memory region, and emotional region were fighting for territory.

This was different from simple memory confusion or the pain warnings that come when external stimulation overloads the nerves.

If anything, the situation the transformed person faced was even worse. The brain wasn't performing its proper function—instead, it was actively sabotaging.

It was fortunate that his already strengthened organs and muscles were tough enough, or under the command of a chaotic brain, they might have rebelled too.

Thankfully, the worst didn't happen. His entire body operated as if driven by instinct, allowing him to function like a normal person.

But this was still maintained at a minimal level, not outwardly visible. So the few young Russians carrying the 'corpse' didn't notice that the thing in their hands was about to rise from the dead.

The switch came when they reached their destination and roughly threw the 'corpse' to the ground. Several of them started looking for a spot and tools to bury the body.

Whether it was the air movement during transport or the places the young men grabbed, everything brought horrific stimulation to the unconscious man. And that impact? For an ordinary person, it would be no less than a heavy bomb detonating right beside them.

If that couldn't wake the dead, then the man was probably truly dead. So unsurprisingly—well, surprisingly for the young men—the 'corpse' thrown to the ground sat up with a jolt and roared!

This sudden turn nearly made the young men piss themselves. Among all the strange legends and inhuman enemies, none were more troublesome than 'zombies.'

Because if someone was already dead, who knew how to kill them again?

Shoot them in the head? If that didn't work, then they'd be the ones dead!

Before the young men could figure out what to do, the risen corpse ran off... leaving a group of living people staring at each other.

The awakened man's mind was still in chaos. What controlled him now was pure body instinct—like how tapping the knee or elbow makes the limb jerk on its own. Nothing to do with the brain, just a nerve reflex.

So his running was just instinctive pursuit of energy—the Yellow Sun's light. Like a hungry person chasing a scent, or a thirsty person wanting water.

This chase naturally didn't involve deliberate destruction. Any place that cast a shadow wasn't part of his running route.

So there was no sight of him crashing through trees or smashing rocks. Just a man, racing away at astonishing speed.

By the time he reached the land's end, the runner was completely naked. His cotton hospital gown couldn't withstand the wind pressure—it had been torn and shredded during the run.

The land's end wasn't his finish line. With a great leap, he jumped from the cliff onto the sea, running across the water. His speed barely decreased compared to on land.

The shockwave from breaking the sound barrier sent massive waves crashing to either side, like a speedboat cutting through the surface—except this 'speedboat' carried at least ten thousand tons of impact.

But as the waves grew lower and lower, the runner's speed also gradually slowed.

Finally, he stopped on a shore, collapsing onto the sand soaked by cold seawater.