Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"An alien? Is it an alien?" Daigo desperately wanted an answer.

"Perhaps, I was unable to get involved in the research at the time, and all I knew were the speculations circulating among the ancient Earth Guard Corps. First of all, it was about modern humans. I didn't find any hypotheses about artificial intervention in the TPC's database. The Life Science Research Center didn't have much controversy about the origin of modern humans—that is to say, the problem lies in the ancient civilization."

Daigo froze. The Spark Lens lay quietly in his chest pocket. He looked at the closed door; there was no sound outside. He remembered the night he received the time machine, the moment Yuzare's projection suddenly appeared as he passed the command room. It was as if the world had fallen silent. A large door opened, and a desolate yet mysterious aura rushed out.

“Soruka rarely mentions these things, perhaps for fear of provoking Paradia,” Aiba Yu said, mentioning the giant inside the pyramid. Daigo remembered the name Soruka, whose statue stood behind Tiga: “Researchers of the ancient civilization have speculated about their own origins, which caused a great uproar within the upper echelons—'The Earth is a petri dish, and we are all flagellates swimming in it.'”

"Was the ancient civilization an alien invasion?" Daigo took a deep breath. As Aiba Yu finished speaking, the room became so quiet that only his heartbeat could be heard. "Then what about the Titans, and Tiga?"

“You know, when someone plays the game of ‘raising civilization,’ there will always be people who will not approve. Raising ‘dangerous items’ in a laboratory will inevitably attract trouble,” Aiba Yu said. “The tallest human is no more than three meters tall, and the strongest weightlifting world record is around 300 kilograms. But monsters are often hundreds of meters tall and weigh tens of thousands of tons. How can nascent humans coexist with monsters and develop an advanced civilization?”

Daigo fell silent. If Tiga hadn't been revived, TPC would probably have pressed the nuclear launch button around the time Golza appeared. But you can't use a nuclear weapon every time a monster appears that you can't handle. For example, a monster that was born from mutation. Who knows if some strange species will emerge from its remaining tissue after it has been exposed to radiation?

"Was it the Titans who protected the ancient humans?" Daigo asked.

Aiba Yu nodded: "The Earth Guard Corps, together with the power of the giants, that is, the Ultra Warriors, achieved a delicate balance on Earth at that time. The aliens dared not make a move, and the monsters were driven to fight as the vanguard against the Ultra Warriors. Then everything was destroyed after the guys in the South Pacific woke up."

"What the hell is that?"

“Gatanothor, the ruler of darkness, no one knows its origin. It may be a ‘being’ that has existed since the birth of the universe, or it may be an aggregate of some kind of will, but its power is undeniable.” Aiba Yu rolled up his sleeves, and Daigo’s eyes widened slightly when he saw it clearly.

Scales. Dark-colored scales.

“I tried to absorb its dissipated energy to slow down the monster’s activity, at least until the Magus Power System of TPC was implemented,” Aiba Yu said. “As you can see, it calmed down a bit, but I also underwent a mutation.”

Chapter 50 Mustard is the Bond

Daigo was in a daze when he returned to the GUTS team.

"Where did you go? I couldn't find you for dinner. If you haven't eaten, I have some instant noodles here," Ye Rui asked with concern.

Daigo's expression was indescribable: "Ah, I went to visit other departments, and I ate dinner there."

"What's going on? Did they feed you frogs?" Lina straightened her posture, wondering if she should bring him a bowl of ramen to improve his meals.

"To put it simply, it was yesterday, the department's... team leader's birthday," Daigo said. "I had a great chat with him, and it happened to be lunchtime, so he gave me a piece of cake, saying that he hadn't finished it last night because it was frozen. I thought it was a matcha cake, since the food from the base's canteen is very safe."

The others nodded. The base's head chef had the skill to "serve whatever the client asks for," and as long as it wasn't a protected species, he could even carve a cabbage into a lifelike dish.

"That's wasabi!" Daigo's mind was still filled with the lingering, unforgettable feeling of wasabi hitting him right in the head.

The audience members adopted a look of sympathy.

"Is there something wrong with their air force?!" the honest man exclaimed angrily. "Wasabi cream! I was too embarrassed to throw it away right then and there, so I had to peel back the cream and eat the cake underneath..."

"Wasabi isn't cheap, but the cafeteria really went all out." The anger faded, and Daigo's face turned pale.

Horii succinctly stated the key point: "Did you see how much of their cake was left?"

Daigo was taken aback: "There's quite a lot. Even after taking my piece, I only ate a quarter of it."

The expressions of the others changed from sympathy to concern.

"I'll just have some water," Daigo said, feeling uneasy under the stares of the group. He changed the subject, "Why are you all still here at this hour?"

Zongfang coughed: "We are discussing... discussing a crucial matter. With the votes of the intermediary captain, it's a tie of three to three, and we're just missing yours."

Daigo then noticed that the people who had been sitting in their usual places were now clearly separated into two sides: on one side were Shinjo, Munakata, and Horii, and on the other side were Rena, Nozue, and...

It's less of a "discussion" and more of a debate, according to the host.

It seems that when the door opened, Lina was almost slumped over the table saying something...

“That’s right, you see, we’ve met the giants many times,” Lina said, and Daigo suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

“But monsters all have code names, like Golza, Melba, and Gakuma, and aliens also have names, like Raichuran,” Horii continued.

“We’ve been calling him ‘Giant,’ ‘Giant,’ but it feels so pitiful. So we’re thinking of a name for him. It needs to be meaningful, majestic, and catchy, so that people will immediately think of the messenger of light who has saved us so many times!” Nori cast a hopeful glance at Daigo: “You’re the one we’re missing. Your vote is crucial!”

Zongfang waved to him: "Here, we approve of men's names."

Daigo felt something was amiss.

Shin-chan clenched his fists and struck a bodybuilding pose, then said in a deep voice, "Giant Mountain Super Powerhouse!"

“There are more candidates,” Horii said, sticking his head out. “Whirlwind Flashman, that sounds smarter than the previous ones! ... We also have an unnamed monster we plan to vote for this time, the one that saved Shinjo. We’ve come up with two very, very cool names.”

Daigo felt his brain trembling, as if the aftertaste of wasabi was returning.

Xincheng racked his brains to save his benefactor, and when it came time to give his name, he didn't hesitate: "Giant Whale Black Wind Monster! Dark Emperor Star Devouring Beast! I think the latter is better, like a legendary great demon. What about you?"

“...I’ll be killed.” Daigo said what was on his mind.

Air force base.

Aiba Yu stared at the refrigerator door, looking troubled.

"I can't finish this cake... Why did I order the wasabi flavor?" Sometimes there are things that "assimilation" can't solve, like wasabi, or extremely spicy curry.

Suddenly the phone rang, and Aiba Yu's eyes lit up when she saw the caller ID.

"Captain Aiba, do you have time? There's a meeting at the General Staff tomorrow morning about aliens. There's new information from Raichuran," said Staff Officer Nanbara Masayuki, speaking fluently on the other end of the phone. "The police department's interrogation efficiency is indeed high. After Chief Yoshioka reviews it, he should pass the relevant information to you."

Wasting food is a sin against heaven. Aiba Yu said, "I have time. Also... is anyone in the General Staff still working overtime and needs some 'tools' to keep them awake?"

……

hours ago.

At the police station, Tetsuji Yoshioka frowned as he looked at the transcript brought from the interrogation room.

"Why is there only one person? I remember the Delta Space Station transferred three Reicurans down." He flipped through the papers, wondering if he had missed something or if the interrogation room's methods were inadequate, and he had run into two tough guys.

“The Reicuran aliens can use their abilities without weapons,” the reporter said. “Like… superpowered individuals. Those two Reicuran aliens committed suicide when they knew they were going to be interrogated. We could only tie their hands; we couldn’t stop them from using their energy to shred their own internal organs.”

"Then why didn't this one die with them?"

"He said he would live until the Kirielods were also imprisoned."

"Kirieloids?"

“Yes, sir, this is the key point I wanted to report to you,” the subordinate stood ramrod straight and handed him a separate document: “According to the testimony of the Reicurans, their fusion of the ‘unknown life form’ in Jupiter’s orbit was actually thanks to intelligence from the Kirieloids.”

Tetsuji Yoshioka sneered, "Interesting. So the aliens have colluded?"

"The Kirieloids and the Reicuran aliens have reached an agreement to divide Earth. The Reicuran aliens need resources, but he refused to say what those resources were. The interrogation room is working on the next steps. The Kirieloids, in turn, have agreed to take only the 'faith' of the Earthlings."

"Faith?" Where did they get their religious civilization from? It's easy to have faith; just recite a few lines without spending any money.

The subordinate turned to the middle page of the document, pointed to a line of records, and said to Tetsuji Yoshioka, "They have a special channel to contact the Kirieloids, which is nothing special. The main thing is the source of intelligence he provided... In addition to what the Kirieloids provided, they also obtained the information they needed from an alien trading market called 'Starlink'."

"Furthermore, according to the testimony of the Reicuran aliens, the Kirieloids are skilled at disguise. We suspect that the citizen who lost several days of memory during the Silizan and Lightning Man incident was controlled by them."

……

That night.

In an ordinary household in Beichuan City, a middle-aged man with an unremarkable appearance, easily lost in a crowd, skillfully clicked on the "Starlink" trading page.

“Boss, just a friendly reminder,” he typed rapidly, “If you have base stations on Earth, I suggest you run away as soon as possible. The idiots in Reichuran have been caught. You know they can’t stand seeing others do well, who knows how many they’ve betrayed. Boss, if your Muzhen security isn’t enough, you can ask Kirieloid for support services.”

“You’re the one who should run first,” the Manonian replied quickly. “Don’t think I don’t know you have an agreement with them. If anyone’s going to surrender, it’ll be you first. I’m just a trading company.”

He laughed at the screen, skillfully stirring the milk powder with one hand: "What does the agreement between the Reicuruan aliens and the Kirieloids have to do with me? I'm an 'Earthling' now, working nine to five, with elderly parents and young children to support."

He took the freshly prepared formula out and handed it to the little kid crawling around on the floor, then came back and continued typing: "The Raichulan aliens have caused this..."

"I've got some pretty important information. If you haven't detected it, I have a detailed observation report. How about it, interested?"

Chapter 51 Creation

Powerful species can inspire fear while they are alive, but when they die, they can easily become a breeding ground for curiosity and the desire to conquer.

The Center for Life Sciences Research has recently acquired its second sufficiently complete set of research materials.

No one knows its name, where it lives, or what its habits are. It was packed down along with its outer "glass jar" and was said to have almost destroyed the Delta Space Station's orbiter because it was too heavy.

It came from the power bay of the Reicuran aliens and was considered the core of the power bay—the surviving Reicuran alien remained silent about it. No matter what methods the police interrogation room used, he only said some trivial information at the beginning, and then he acted like a dead pig that was not afraid of boiling water, only saying that he would wait for the Kirieloids to come and join him.

The Life Sciences Research Center also hopes that more extraterrestrials will join him, but until then, the researchers may be so captivated by the strange creatures in the "glass jar" that they won't have the energy to observe anything else.

"A miraculous life." Kosuke Kubota, the head of the giant stone statue research group, has temporarily shifted his focus to the monster corpses, which seem to yield more results, due to the thwarted experiments.

He stared almost obsessively at the creature, its wings folded, sleeping peacefully. "Tango! Tango Yuji!" he cried. "Haven't you always wanted to achieve something? I understand your eagerness to polish the stone statue, but it's an extremely rare material. But this monster... look, ready-made cloning material! As long as you can analyze its DNA!"

“This is truly a godsend,” Tango Yuji exclaimed sincerely. “Otherwise, I might have taken some extractable stone powder with me to conduct underground research.”

"Are you suggesting I report you to the inspection office and have you arrested for saying such things?" Kosuke Kubota handed him a pair of gloves: "Even if it's a 'glass cover,' you can't just touch it."

"This is... a radiation protection interlayer?" The Life Science Research Center rarely uses gloves made of this material; it is usually found in the New Energy Development Center. Tango Yuji tried on it, and the thick texture made his fingers feel less flexible.

"Yes, radiation protection. We detected excessive levels of radiation, which were obediently sealed in this 'glass jar.' So before that, we need to contact the guys at the equipment development center to check the material of this jar; otherwise, we can't even open it."

"So, why did you have me book an appointment with Dr. Yawei at the New Energy Development Center yesterday?"

“Because the Reicuran aliens use it as the core component of the power reactor,” Kubota Kosuke moved closer and placed his hand on the “glass dome”: “Isn’t it amazing? The sophisticated spaceship and the almost primitive bio-power, two seemingly completely opposite research paths, are linked together by these crystal pillar-like devices.”

Tango Yuji then focused his attention on the crystal pillar-like components. Only when he got closer could he see what they were—they were extremely thin, sheet-like components, layered and pieced together, wedged into the monster's bones one by one.

The crystal-smooth surface is merely a visual illusion; each component is engraved with fine lines, comparable to those etched in nanometers for electronic components. These lines allow them to fit together tightly and occasionally "sip" something from the corpse.

He recalled the pre-technical era, when people were still superstitious and believed in witchcraft. There were rumors that when an ominous person died, people would lock every joint of him with long nails stained with blood and cinnabar before closing his coffin. Those nails were resolutely driven into the bone marrow, and some even into the brain.

These crystal pillars served roughly the same purpose. At first, Tango Yuji thought they were seeping substances, similar to green "flowers" growing on bones, a type of amino acid crystal.

“When the giant’s statue was first brought in, I looked up at it like this all night, and I couldn’t sleep after I got back,” Yuji Tango said. “It felt like… like you’ve lived your whole life with an AK47, guns, gunpowder, and roses are all you need, but when you arrive in a new city, a superhuman descends from the sky, greets you, and asks why you can walk instead of fly.”

“You need hundreds of thousands of parts to assemble an airplane to touch the sky, but these…” He raised his arm, pointing towards the monster’s drooping head: “They can easily ride the atmosphere by flapping these disproportionately large wings!”