The surrounding countryside was still smoking.
Kael Yun stood in the center of the destruction, panting, his body covered in traces of golden energy that were slowly dissipating into the air. The surrounding trees were scorched. The ground was cracked. And the bodies of the HelionTech mercenaries lay on the ground, scattered like leaves in the wind.
He had won. But he felt no victory.
His chest burned. Not from the pain, but from the intensity of what he had awakened.
- What... was all that? - he muttered, looking down at his hands, which were still shaking.
Time seemed to have slowed down during the battle. He could see the movements before they happened, hear his enemies' heartbeats like war drums, and his muscles responded with almost inhuman precision.
It was as if the sun itself had fused with his body.
"Solar energy... it's alive inside me."
Kael had no time to reflect. A metallic sound rang out in the distance - the hum of drones. He looked up at the sky and saw three spherical units slicing through the air, rapidly approaching. The machines' red eyes glowed as they located the still-active life signs.
- Analysis complete... target identified: Kael Yun. Order: Capture alive. Elimination permitted in case of resistance.
Kael took a deep breath. The heat in his body was still unstable. He didn't know if he would be able to use that burst of power again. But he also knew one thing:
He wasn't going to surrender.
The drones fired first - beams of blue energy cut through the air. Kael dodged by instinct, rolling on the ground, then leaping behind a cracked rock. One of the shots grazed his shoulder, burning his skin like ice.
"I can't rely on raw power alone... I need to understand that."
He concentrated. He closed his eyes for a moment. And there, inside himself, he felt the heat respond. A spark. A controlled spark. It was possible to tame the light.
Kael opened his eyes. And when he did, they shone like two tiny stars.
In a leap, he launched himself upwards, spinning in the air, dodging projectiles with fluidity. His right hand lit up and he fired a concentrated solar beam straight at the first drone. The machine burst into flames.
The second was destroyed by a kick with enough force to break steel. The third tried to retreat, but Kael appeared in front of it with a move impossible for an ordinary human.
- Go back to hell where you came from.
With one last blow, he shattered the drone in midair.
When it was all over, silence reigned again. But it wouldn't last.
Kael knew that HelionTech wouldn't stop. He was too valuable an asset, too great a threat. And now that he had used his power in the open, the world would begin to take notice of his existence.
With his eyes fixed on the horizon, he clenched his fists.
- If they want a war... they'll feel the heat of the sun.