Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Monsters are straightforward and simple-minded, Samuel thought, at least that's how it was with Bats. (Monthly fee (group 69493) 6135)

He suddenly moved, and just as the pillar of light grew brighter and brighter, making the surroundings seem like daytime, the silver giant crashed into the Thunder Prison just as he had when he was in a frenzy.

Now that he had a free hand, he clenched his fist and smashed his opponent to the ground with a dull thud. Bats' horns were still releasing lightning, so the giant grabbed his lightsaber and cut off its horns, then sent energy to heal the wound.

Batz's lightning was interrupted. It twisted its body from side to side in an attempt to struggle, but the giant punched it in the head again, making it dizzy. At the same time, the external energy seeped in, and the cool air helped it quickly wake up.

It stopped struggling and lay on the ground as if it had been beaten senseless.

"Sadness? Regret? Self-hatred?" Samuel roared at the monster. Who knows what's wrong with him, shouting at a monster whose language he couldn't understand? But the monster seemed to understand, its crimson eyes staring into the milky white eyes.

“Debts can never be repaid, but if you die, they truly can’t be repaid!” He continued, “Go find who controls you! Then use your lightning, teeth, claws, everything you can to tear him to pieces!”

"You've killed so many of your kind, so use the rest of your life to protect those who are still alive. If you can't pay it back in one lifetime, then pay it back in another! If I ever see you trying to burn yourself alive again, I'll chop off those useless horns of yours!"

Bats roared like thunder. Samuel couldn't understand its language, but he held onto its struggling paw: "Don't just go into any passage you see! You'll end up in an unfamiliar place. Don't panic like a coward!... Do you understand?"

"Aww..." Bats slowly extended his other claw, which was not restrained, and touched his newly healed horn.

Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Residing Dragon

On a planet in the M91 nebula, Bats's settlement has returned to the tranquility of the night.

The scorched earth was eroded by the wind, and the dust rose into the air, drifting for thousands of miles.

The lone beast staggered back, its faint shadow reflected in the dazzling starry sky. Parting is always bitter, but there is always someone waiting for you.

The giant gazed at the distant mountains, where Cepheus hung on the horizon. He thought that soon the white sun would rise and dawn would dispel the long night.

"The sun and moon revolve, dawn will come, and dusk will arrive as scheduled."

The thing residing in his body was either the resentment of an ancient creature or the person he had spoken to earlier, someone who enjoyed playing tricks. But their habit of making sarcastic remarks would never change.

The more attention he paid to this guy, the more excited he became. Samuel pretended not to hear it; after all, with time, these sounds would eventually disappear. He headed towards the designated entrance to the spatial passage, wanting to stabilize it quickly so he could return to Earth as soon as possible.

“You should have gone sooner,” the ethereal voice said. “Curiosity is the ladder of evolution, and it is of great interest to Earthlings.”

Before Samuel could wonder why He had given the warning, He chuckled to himself, “They should have arrived by now.”

……

It was late at night in Tokyo.

A cool breeze seeped into the ancient bricks and tiles, and a man dressed in a patterned haori sat on the roof of his shrine, "overlooking" the city night view.

Many years ago, the place where people worshipped him was located in what is now Ueno Park. No one knew that the old-fashioned statue they were worshipping was actually another "deity".

Renlong, the guardian of the earth's veins, should be sitting peacefully in his underground abode, but now he resides on the surface.

"The fireflies' light flickers intermittently, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, within a foot of each other..." He tapped his folding fan, then suddenly stopped: "There are no more fireflies now."

This location used to be a great viewpoint. From the gentle breezes of Heian to the mists of the Shogunate, he could see the end of the city from this "Daiseiden" hall.

A warrior in a black hat rode past on horseback, while a woman in full regalia sat gracefully on the steps, the wind ruffling her hair like a lover's hand. Time passed, flowers bloomed and faded, and back then, even the rain falling on the pond sounded like elegant rhythms to Renlong.

He still sits in the same spot he has used for centuries, too lazy to change his position.

He should be able to see the mighty river, a stolen Milky Way from the mortal realm; and further still, if he were willing to expend some effort, he could see even farther. It is said that a man who loved plum blossoms planted a vast expanse of plum trees in Kyoto. Later, he left, and the endless plum blossoms followed him, becoming known as "Flying Plum Blossoms." People remember his talent, revering him as the "God of Learning," and Renlong would occasionally recite the poems he wrote.

“The flowers fade with time,” he sighed, “I can’t even see them anymore.”

Cement buildings replaced wooden structures, making people's dwellings more sturdy and allowing them to build higher. Renlong sat in the "Dacheng Hall".

"It's no longer possible to see the entire city from above; when the wind blows through the buildings that obscure the view, it seems to carry the dust of cement ash with it."

The times keep moving forward, but he alone remains in the same place, like an ancient person who is nostalgic. The bright lights and bustling city life are irrelevant to him; he only loves cherry blossoms and the moon, drinking wine or tea depending on his mood, like a lonely fish swimming in the Milky Way.

He himself had almost forgotten how long this kind of life had lasted. At night, he would worry about the increasingly noisy city, and during the day, he would habitually listen to people draw lots. If he liked someone, he would wish them good luck, and if he found someone annoying, he would give them an ominous lot.

People truly worship the deity who governs knowledge, but Renlong does not concern himself with knowledge. Many years ago, occasionally one or two outstanding individuals would appear who could see him. When Renlong pointed to someone accompanying him to appreciate flowers and the moon, and to drink wine and tea, those outstanding individuals would always mistake his true form for the Yamata no Orochi at first glance—his tail looked somewhat similar.

He wasn't the true owner of this Tangdao Sanctuary, but he received people's prayers. Renlong thought about it and expanded his business beyond protecting the ley lines.

Over time, this became a habit. Sometimes he would think about when he could travel far away and see if there were any flowers, birds, wind, moon, rivers, or fireflies outside. But instead, he would walk into the main hall, shake the divination sticks and say, "I want to guess the question correctly." He would casually comment, "Your luck is too weak, you won't guess correctly." The divination sticks would then automatically throw out an unlucky one.

He is a dragon of the earth's veins, yet he yearns for freedom; he yearns for freedom, yet he always stays in the same place, doing things that don't require his attention.

The construction of the city naturally disturbed his physical body, and his underground residence in Marunouchi was not very stable. It was not a troublesome thing for the owner of the ley lines to send some bad luck to those who disturbed him. Renlong hated it a million times, but he never did anything, letting the construction team dig up the earth above his head.

"My temples are as white as the first snow of spring, and my heart is as gray as the last of the year." The person who followed Fei Mei wrote this poem, "Thoughts on the Year's Day." Now, when Ren Long thinks of these lines, he feels that his heart has probably accumulated ashes for who knows how long.

When the monsters from outside destroyed Tokyo, he was both pleased that the ugly thing blocking his view was finally gone, and also ready to unleash his power. If the giant couldn't stop the monsters, he would send his true form up—after all, he didn't want anyone, whether sincere in their fortune-telling or cunning, to turn to ashes.

"Sigh..." He let out his fourteenth sigh of the night. The little monsters who "taught them a lesson" were defeated by the little immortals who "had encountered too many monsters recently." Renlong sat lazily in his exclusive spot on the roof of his palace, as if he would sit there forever until he took root and the world ended.

"Knock, knock." A knocking sound suddenly came from outside.

Renlong refocused his scattered attention and looked toward the source of the sound.

Late at night...who comes to draw lots?

Renlong found it strange that the Tangdao Temple did not accept tourists at night. Let alone come to draw lots, you would probably be turned away by the security guards if you didn't even get close to the main entrance.

And those tourists... if he remembers correctly, they came here during the day.

The students were wearing school uniforms but their hair was messy, as if they were sleepwalking.

It's rare to see a young person fall for a goatee-bearded conman's tricks and actually spend money to buy an ema (votive plaque).

There was also a middle-aged man who ran out in his pajamas, his lips turning blue from the cold wind, yet strangely beaming with a happy smile.

"I drew a very lucky fortune stick!" Hitomi Onodera seemed to be really shaking the fortune stick container. The security guard looked at them warily, and his idea of ​​calling the police came to an abrupt halt. Instead, he decided to call the mental hospital.

The student and the middle-aged man also acted as if they had encountered something good. One was like he was showing off an award certificate, with his parents standing in front of him praising him; the other squatted down, his hands clasped in a gesture of embracing, and he had just uttered "good luck" when he started celebrating his child's successful exam. It's unclear whether he noticed the timing issue.

The three of them acted as if possessed by gods and ghosts, then walked towards what they thought was their destination as if nothing had happened, even watching the traffic flow across the road.

"What kind of monster is causing trouble again?" Renlong tapped the side of his head with his folding fan: "What a nuisance."

Chapter Seventy-Nine: The Ocean of Illusions

Hitomi Onodera witnessed a golden sea of ​​fireflies descending from the sky, a rare sight indeed. At least in Hitomi Onodera's understanding, fireflies were distant, almost legendary creatures.

"Thinking about me day and night, the fluorescent light is like my body. My soul is lingering in my dreams, and every bit of it is my jade."

When the teacher was talking about the waka poems composed by Izumi Shikibu, a student raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, what do fireflies actually look like?"

The teacher answered the first time, "It's a flying star."

Then the student asked, "But stars can fly, can't they?"

The teacher then answered: "Slowly, like a sleepwalking star, it fell to earth."

The student seemed to get excited: "But teacher, stars are giant fireballs of nuclear fusion. If they fell to Earth, we would all be burned to death!"

The teacher remained calm and composed; he had seen plenty of such troublemakers in his teaching career. After thinking it over carefully, the literature teacher pulled out biology materials in class, and a delicate insect appeared on the holographic screen with a pale blue halo.

As the ambient light dimmed, the golden spot on the insect's tail grew brighter and brighter.

The teacher said, "It's about summer, the countryside, and the dreams of the earth that were active in the pens of writers many, many years ago."

The holographic projection in that class recreated a sea of ​​fireflies. Hitomi Onodera was still young then, and after seeing it, she always felt that the fireflies might have a tiny, tiny star inside their bellies that wouldn't burn them to death.

star.

When she arrived here, she realized that the "sea of ​​fireflies" recreated in class was an exaggeration. In reality, they were more like clusters of fireflies, with one cluster here and one firefly there.

But the scene the teacher showed the children was met with unanimous praise. One inquisitive student asked, "Teacher! Does Lord Uranus live with such beautiful fireflies?"

The teacher's voice became soft and gentle: "Yes, he is on our most beautiful home planet, where there is an ocean of fireflies and walls covered with ivy. In the morning, the dawn appears with Lord Uranus. He has been protecting us and the Earth."

“Why doesn’t he go traveling?” The student tried to count on his fingers, but then realized the number he was about to point out was too large, so he gave up: “How many light-years is SuT1376b from Earth?”

“742 light-years,” the teacher said. “Good. You remember the official number of our planet and know the concept of a ‘light-year’ distance. Continue with the literary works of the Earth era—do you prefer reading descriptions of scenery on Earth?”

The entire class of students gathered together via a timed virtual projection. Some were on a shuttle traversing the asteroid belt, some were at home, and some had gone to the far side of the planet with their parents. They were all only five or six years old, and they all nodded to their teacher.

Actually, it's already quite good that they can recognize all the characters at their age. The teacher's talk about waka poetry is completely beyond the curriculum of many grades. However, since the theme of this lesson is the Earth Age, he unconsciously started talking about his beloved works—those magnificent worlds that, in the eyes of modern people, seem even more mysterious and beautiful because they are separated by the vast sea of ​​stars.

So far, the results seem good; the students are listening attentively, although most of them are probably attracted by the novel creatures and the legendary guardian deity of humanity in Earth's early days, Lord Uranus.

"It's good that you're attracted," the teacher nodded and continued, "Besides fireflies, when describing summer, poets at that time also liked to use images such as lotus flowers and stars. Hmm... they would also write about their daily habits when enjoying the cool air. For example, in SuT1376b, when summer came, we needed to regulate the indoor temperature, but at that time we didn't have such equipment, so they would do it on the stone steps, by the stream, or in the courtyard where there was a cool breeze."

"Does Lord Uranus also seek shade here?"

The teacher couldn't help but laugh when asked, "Maybe? You can ask him."

“Teacher, Lord Uranus is 742 years away from us,” another student said.

“It’s light-years,” the teacher said, tapping his projector as if he were angry. “When there are more spots available on the intergalactic shuttle, I can ask around for you.”

The students' eyes lit up instantly, and they all craned their necks, like a flock of fluffy baby birds that had just seen their parents return with food in their beaks.

The teacher then naturally assigned today's homework: "So, today try writing a letter to Lord Uranus. You can talk about things related to Earth, about your own lives, and anything you want to say to Lord Uranus—make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors! The teacher will check it carefully."

When she wrote that letter, Hitomi Onodera was convinced that what she wrote would be seen by Lord Uranus.

As she grew older, she learned that thousands of children wrote letters to Uranus. On SuT1376b alone, students were organized by their teachers to write letters every year as assessment data on the completion of teaching objectives in the Earth era.

Those innocent words written earnestly by the children are probably piled up in the archives, gathering dust. No one will actually open them; they will only be taken out and destroyed when their preservation period expires.

The so-called "beautiful home planet" described in textbooks is simply a fantasy, or a past illusion.

……

But now Hitomi Onodera seems to have come to believe the "illusion" that she once scorned.

Upon seeing the golden sea of ​​fireflies, she experienced a moment of mental confusion. After regaining her composure, she decided she should continue her trip for the day, planning to draw a fortune stick at Yushima Cathedral, then visit Ueno Park to see the cherry blossoms, before returning to her apartment to await a reply from headquarters.