"You look like a corpse crawling out of a grave, Axel," Mr. Hen, the neighbor next door, greeted him as they crossed paths in the dim apartment hallway.Axel’s steps halted for a moment. He pulled the hood of his jacket lower, hiding the dullness of his skin and the deepening wrinkles on his face. Mr. Hen stepped back, his face paling in horror at the sight of Axel’s dimmed gaze. Axel did not respond. He continued dragging his heavy feet toward the emergency stairs. His knee joints creaked painfully with every step on the concrete. To him, every second wasted felt like the last grains of sand in an hourglass running out. He had to leave before those heavy footsteps in the corridor found the door to his unit.The night air greeted him with a biting chill that pierced through his thin jacket. Axel got into the old car he had prepared in the dark alley behind the building. His hands trembled violently as he gripped the steering wheel. The rearview mirror reflected the image of a stranger

“Father, can you hear me?” Vayu asked, his voice trembling with both emotion and anxiety.The glass of the incubation tank shattered into pieces. The cold chemical preservative flooded the laboratory floor in an instant. Dr. Adrian collapsed onto the wet concrete with a dull thud. Vayu rushed forward, ignoring his own safety. He paid no attention to the sharp shards of glass slicing into his knees until they bled, all for the sake of embracing the body of his father who had just risen from ten years of death.“Talk to me, Father, it’s me, Vayu,” he said, holding the old man tightly.Dr. Adrian made no sound at all. His pitch-black eyes merely followed Vayu’s movements without the slightest trace of recognition. There was no glimmer of love or emotion in them. The figure only stared blankly, like a machine that had just been powered on without complete software. Axel stood a few steps away, his breathing uneven. His head felt as if it had been struck by a massive hammer as the bionic i

[ SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROGRESS: 48 HOURS REMAINING ][ STATUS: HUMAN MODE ACTIVE ]“Look at that mirror, Axel. Do you still recognize yourself?” Arlo asked, his voice heavy as he helped Axel sit upright on the edge of the bed.Axel slowly turned toward the reflection in the dull glass wardrobe. He was not surprised, yet a bitter taste still crept up his throat. He had realized this change from the very first moment Dr. Adrian’s chemical preservative touched his skin in the laboratory. Reviving the dead scientist had drained the last of his biometric energy, leaving behind a body that now resembled that of a seventy-year-old man. His hair had turned completely white, each strand dry and brittle. Deep wrinkles framed the corners of his eyes, which now looked hollow and sunken.“This is the price I have to pay for a meaningless resurrection, Arlo,” Axel whispered, his voice hoarse, far from the baritone he once had.Arlo let out a long breath as he dressed Axel in a white shirt. The man’s b

"Why are you wasting your time hauling sacks of wheat when a single touch could restore your youth?" a man’s voice echoed along the dim apartment corridor walls.Axel stopped right in front of unit 402. His heart pounded violently, sending a dull ache through the ribs that now jutted from his thinning frame. Slowly, he turned toward the end of the hallway. Arlo had just parted from him downstairs to check the parking area security, leaving Axel alone to face the one person he most wanted to avoid. At the corner of his vision, the system interface pulsed red, offering a choice that could end his physical suffering in an instant.[ STATUS: AWAITING ABSORPTION AUTHORIZATION ][ CELL RECOVERY ESTIMATE: 98% ]Vayu stood leaning against the cold concrete wall. He wore an impeccably tailored black suit, starkly out of place in the rundown, lower-class apartment building. The flickering corridor light illuminated his thin smile, sharp as a blade. He stepped forward slowly, his leather shoes c

"Stop everything or I’ll destroy this system along with my life right now!" Axel shouted with the last of his strength, his voice resembling the rasp of a dying wolf.Vayu halted his movement just as his fist, wrapped in a black leather glove, was about to land on Arlo’s bloodied temple. Arlo lay sprawled on the cold concrete floor of the parking structure, his breath ragged, one eye swollen a deep bluish purple. Vayu slowly turned his head, revealing a face completely untouched by sweat despite the series of brutal movements that had far exceeded normal human limits. A faint smile returned to his lips as he lifted his foot from Arlo’s chest. He looked at Axel as if assessing an antique object on the verge of breaking, yet still carrying high value."At last, you’re speaking in the right tone, Axel," Vayu said as he straightened the slightly crooked collar of his suit, disturbed earlier by Arlo’s grasp."I’ll give you that authorization. I’ll follow your method, but not with that dock