Sixteen years earlier...
The makeshift laboratory vibrated with the sun's energy. The walls were covered in ancient symbols, calculations and hand-drawn anatomical diagrams. In the center of the room, a man with intense eyes and a body marked by small luminous cracks was writing everything down in an old leather-bound notebook.
His name was Darius Yun.
- The key is not outside... it's inside us. Human cells... can absorb sunlight like a plant. But if they are trained, they can store it, shape it... transform it.
He wrote furiously:
"Internal solar fusion is possible. The secret lies in the frequency of the light and in breathing. The energy must be guided like a river through the meridians of the body. When the mind is calm and the body aligned, the sun does not burn. It liberates."
Darius barely had time to finish the last line when the sirens sounded.
HelionTech.
They had found out.
- They came too soon... - he whispered, closing his notebook and running to the crib hidden at the back of the lab.
There was Kael, still a baby, sleeping as if the world wasn't about to collapse.
Darius looked at his son, then at the book in his hands. He knew he couldn't win. But he could protect the future.
With trembling hands, he wrapped the baby in a dark blanket, tucked the notebook between the folds and hid them both inside an underground chamber - sealed by stone and solar codes that only someone with an affinity for light could open.
- One day, my son... you will understand what you carry inside you. You will burn brighter than any sun... and then they will fear you.
Explosions echoed above. The doors were blown off. Darius turned to face the HelionTech soldiers, eyes alight like embers.
- Where is the project? Where's the child? - shouted the officer.
- The sun has risen... and you're blind.
And with that, Darius activated the collapse of the laboratory, disappearing into the light and dust.
The book and the child were safe.
The legacy, intact.