"At Last... I Can Rule You!"

Ba Di smiled as he watched the elevator doors close, watching Colonel Slade and old Dean Bo Li disappear from sight before him. The moment the doors shut and they vanished, Ba Di thought he would burst into wild laughter.

Even if he did not laugh out loud, his heart should have been surging with excitement over the opportunity he had planned for so long finally arriving.

But he did not.

He smiled.

His heart was like an ancient well, its waters utterly still.

After all his experiences on Krypton, after coming to Earth, enduring one year and three months of imprisonment, and exhausting every means to scheme his way to this moment—

He realized that he was terrifyingly calm.

Or perhaps this calmness existed only to fuel the explosion in the next moment.

The stillness before a storm was much the same.

The elevator rose slowly, its steel cables creaking tautly as they hauled the heavy car upward.

There were five people in the elevator: Ba Di, Jenny, and three soldiers.

Two soldiers had come along to monitor Ba Di. The other was the elevator operator; no matter which floor they went to, he had to press his palm against the scanner.

Ba Di suddenly had a feeling that this operator would not live much longer.

The atmosphere in the elevator was silent and still.

Jenny stood beside Ba Di's wheelchair. Her tall, beautiful figure kept gazing at him affectionately, unwilling to look away even for a moment.

She, too, felt nervous, happy, and excited. As the elevator rose, her palms began to sweat slightly, and her heartbeat was much faster than usual.

Yet whenever she looked at Ba Di, she calmed down gently.

Ba Di sat there like a sovereign upon his throne, calm and composed, making her fall for him all over again.

The elevator doors opened. Jenny guided the wheelchair out, with the two armed soldiers following behind them.

After passing through several turns, they arrived at a glass-lit area. It was something like a warehouse.

Through the reinforced glass, the morning sunlight—no more than around nine o'clock—refracted downward. In the otherwise dim surroundings, it appeared as intense as a flashlight beam, and the floating dust within it became clearly visible.

Anyone who raised their hands beneath that beam of light would feel as though Jesus himself were ascending to heaven.

"We're here, Ba Di," Jenny said softly. She knew this sunlight was like a sacred baptism to Ba Di, and it should be treated solemnly.

The two soldiers stood some distance behind them, guns in hand, keeping watch.

"Mhm."

Ba Di gave a faint response and raised his head to look at the sunlight refracting through the reinforced glass. The light illuminated the dust drifting through the air.

After so much hardship and so many twists and turns.

At last, this moment had come.

"Move forward!"

Ba Di said. The more it came down to moments like this, the more composed he became, calm without the slightest ripple.

It even gave Jenny and the two monitoring soldiers a solemn, sacred feeling, as though simply basking in sunlight were something holy.

Jenny answered quietly and pushed his wheelchair forward.

At last, the sunlight spread across him.

It began at his feet, then climbed to his knees and thighs. As Jenny pushed the wheelchair onward, the sunlight reached his chest and face.

The sunlight covered his entire body.

He raised his head, his eyes facing the sun.

In an instant.

It was as though heaven and earth had exploded.

The first change was the excruciating pain in his eyes. His pupils contracted into tiny points, as though someone had sucked in far too much air at once. The fierce sunlight stimulated his eyeballs, and they began to change.

His pupils kept expanding and contracting. The pain was like needles being driven deep into them, and tears naturally streamed from Ba Di's tear ducts.

As his pupils continued to dilate and contract, the dust motes floating in the sunlight suddenly grew larger, then smaller, over and over. Finally, his gaze passed through the reinforced glass, and he could see the white clouds in the sky with perfect clarity.

He had gained telescopic vision.

His hearing began to change drastically.

"Buzz, buzz, chatter..."

Chaotic, disorderly sounds flooded in—the faint friction of the two soldiers rubbing their fingers together, slight shifts of movement, metal clinking, Jenny's violently pounding heart.

There were also the sounds from the military base on the ground: the whistling wind, tank treads grinding over the road, the smooth mechanical noises of the road wheels, return rollers, and idler wheels.

The roar of jeep engines thundered in his ears.

The soldiers' conversations sounded as though they were shouting directly beside him.

"What did Colonel Slade call us here for?"

"Don't know. We just follow orders."

"How was that chick last night?"

"Damn it, I need to piss."

"I'm getting married next month. My leave starts tomorrow..."

Countless jumbled noises roared in his ears, while his eyes ached until afterimages and flashes appeared again.

His nose suddenly became so sensitive it was suffocating. All kinds of scents rushed into his nostrils at once, making him grit his teeth.

His sense of smell, sight, and hearing had suddenly become hyper-sensitive, plunging Ba Di into a state that felt like his head was exploding. A constant buzzing filled his mind, as though it were about to burst apart.

There was too much information. His brain had not had time to change yet, and it could not process or receive it all. It was like setting off firecrackers inside a small jar.

"Damn it."

Veins bulged across Ba Di's face, extending from his neck up to his cheeks. He looked horrifyingly ferocious.

He clenched his teeth, shut his eyes, and desperately began using the Meditation Technique.

The so-called Meditation Technique was really just a method of mental control that focused one's attention and calmed the mind. It was particularly effective for enduring pain and directing concentration.

It calmed him slightly, allowing him to focus and reduce the agonizing changes brought on by suddenly being exposed to the sun.

When the pain in his head lessened a little and the buzzing was no longer so severe—

Sunlight slipped through the tiny gaps in his white fiber hospital uniform. Through those minuscule openings, fine rays shone upon his skin.

A complete transformation began within his body.

It was as if every pore in his body had been pierced by sunlight. The heat contained within the sunlight instantly entered his body and spread through his bloodstream.

His heart pounded like a great drum, like the most powerful engine roaring to life with earth-shaking force. In an instant, his entire body resembled an ancient beast awakening from slumber.

The transformation went deeper.

Every cell in his body began to change drastically.

Solar energy seeped through the cell membranes and into the cytoplasm, causing earth-shaking changes within the nuclei. Cells that had absorbed sunlight began to divide, and as old cells died, the new cells transformed by sunlight became increasingly powerful and resilient.

The slight excess flesh that had appeared on his once-paralyzed body while he sat in a wheelchair seemed to evaporate beneath the sunlight, restoring his broad, powerful physique and clearly defined muscles.

Everything! Began to change—or rather, evolve!

At that moment, a faint halo appeared over the exposed skin of Ba Di's tightly clenched face.

Jenny's eyes widened as she stared at Ba Di in shock. Bathed in sunlight, he looked as holy as a god, and for a moment, she was completely transfixed.

The solar energy penetrated his genes and chromosomes. If anyone could observe Ba Di's body, they would discover that his genes and chromosomes were glowing faintly as they underwent increasingly intense change and evolution.

His body cells operated at full activity. Each cell released a faint cellular magnetic field, and as those fields linked together, they balanced his body weight against that of an Earthling, giving him a feeling of lightness.

The magnetic fields of his body cells slightly repelled Earth's gravity. This was also why Kryptonians would be able to fly in the future. Even now, a single leap could send him ten or twenty meters into the air.

Neural cells continuously transmitted electrical signals. Powerful currents of information converged from every part of his body like a surging river, rushing upward and smashing through the dam. They forced the Pulse Radiofrequency Needle out of his body, and the tiny wound rapidly healed as cells divided at an extreme rate.

The neural information reached the central control system of his brain.

Control over his body returned!

The brain cells stimulated by sunlight were activated to their highest efficiency, allowing him to think and control his body at unprecedented speed and flexibility.

All of this happened within mere seconds. Before anyone had time to do more than stare in surprise, Ba Di had completed an evolutionary leap in his life genes.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes. A dark radiance seemed to erupt from within them.

Thanks to the Meditation Technique from Krypton, he could already begin controlling his sharply enhanced vision, hearing, and sense of smell.

Ba Di felt the strength in his body and muscles growing wildly, while his powerful heartbeat roared like a great drum, giving him the illusion that he could punch apart the Earth.

Of course, he did not possess such overwhelming strength.

He was merely a humanoid tyrannosaur with super strength, telescopic vision, super smell, and super hearing. One dose of sunlight had brought out his power; he now possessed nearly fifteen tons of strength.

"At last... I can rule you!"

Ba Di clenched both hands, crushing the wheelchair's stainless steel handles inward and leaving behind two handprints.

With a light pull of his hands, he twisted off the steel cuffs binding his wrists. He tore away the restraints around his waist, then violently exerted himself with both legs and broke free of the steel cuffs around his ankles.

Ba Di stood up, facing the sunlight. He raised both hands and split his face into the wildest grin.

Jenny and the soldiers stared at his back in stunned disbelief.

They watched him beneath the sunlight, as though a god had descended into the world.