Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Reilos was fascinated by the fact that someone could talk to it inside its head. It stopped laughing, swam toward Samuel with its sturdy tail swaying, and stared at him with curious eyes.

"Why is your head so small?" Reilos looked everyone up and down. Its own brain had bulged out due to the mutation, but it thought its own condition was the normal standard, so it thought everyone else's head was small.

Then it asked, "Are you sick?" It had seen fish that shed their scales one by one before dying, so its tone was inevitably worried.

Its simple logic led it to categorize other creatures with scales, tails, and "dorsal fins" as its own kind.

The Meta Realm, filled with radioactive material, was very comfortable for Reilos, but extremely agonizing for Samuel. The high-energy particle stream tried every means to riddle the realm that imprisoned him, but how could Samuel let these things out? He could only endure it for some time and wait for it to slowly decay.

As Reilos approached, influenced by his surroundings, he discovered another source of radiation—the monstrous fish.

Its brain tissue bulged out of its body, with only the posterior half connected to the skin, while the front end was bare and covered with a layer of hardened, transparent mucus. Samuel could clearly see the sulci and gyri of its brain. The scales were indeed very sturdy and dark green, but they were actually "plates" formed by the fusion of several normal scales, covering the entire body in small patches, like a pile of flattened stones covering the surface of the body.

The normal gills were gone, perhaps hidden under the scales, and Samuel did not see any structure that could filter oxygen.

Reilos himself was unaware of it, but Samuel clearly felt that an equally terrifying stream of particles was crashing around inside its body, constantly tearing at its cells.

Reilos is probably the true "chosen one." It has mutated to have an extremely fast self-healing ability, which allows it to survive in a high-concentration radiation environment. Radioactive material accumulates in its body, and it is unknown how many years it will take for it to decay to a harmless level. Reilos is constantly healing itself, and mutations are also happening every moment.

Perhaps in another month, this monster fish will change its appearance—the most fortunate thing is that fish do not have pain sensations similar to humans.

Samuel's initial anger vanished, and he replied, "You're the one who's sick."

"I'm perfectly fine!" Reilos said, completely oblivious. "A large part of our tribe died of illness, but I survived because I was strong and healthy. I'm not sick."

"Where do you live?" Samuel asked.

Reilos scratched himself with his "arms" that resembled both fins and webbed claws, and after thinking for a while, said, "First in the north, um... there are ice blocks upstream and coral reefs downstream."

It felt its description was too vague, and that its "kind" might be asking because they wanted to visit it. Reilos gestured as it went: "Anyway... it's to the north of here! You have to swim across a very narrow river!"

Samuel guessed it was referring to the North Atlantic, the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, and the narrow river the Panama Canal.

Seeing that he didn't answer, Reilos thought he was thinking about how to get there, and quickly said, "You mustn't go! Although that's my hometown, the water doesn't seem to be very good. I don't think it's a big deal, but my people all died! Just like you, first they lost their scales, then they couldn't grow back properly, then small bumps started to appear, and finally they couldn't swim anymore."

Samuel didn't know what to say, so he could only reach out a paw much longer than its own and pat the skin on the side of its head.

“Your fins are longer than mine,” Reilos muttered, then added, “I also have a home, which is to the north of here. There’s an island there, and it’s strange… The kind people who fed me called me out to play, but then they just put me in a place full of ice and left me there! They made me swim here on my own!”

"I'll bite her once I find her... I'll ask her first." Considering that she always fed him, Reilos decided to try eating her first, and only take action if he wasn't satisfied with the answer.

Samuel realized the problem: even if a lot of nuclear waste was dumped on the seabed many years ago, it shouldn't have given birth to a monster like Reilos, whose body was radioactive and whose accumulated substances hadn't decayed for long.

Its radiation was surprisingly similar to that of the surrounding area.

The seawater that was exposed to the nuclear explosion was extremely compatible, and it didn't seem like it had been ingested polluted sediment from decades ago.

"A 'good person' is feeding you?" Samuel asked. "Breadcrumbs or something else?"

"What are you talking about? Can breadcrumbs even get stuck between your teeth?" Reilos looked at his "fellow human" with pity, wondering if he had lived on breadcrumbs or plankton all his life: "She will bring me canned food."

"can?"

Reilos nodded vigorously: "These messy canned goods are tasty, but there are always a lot of metal bits in them. You can bite into them, but I don't like the metal bits. There's a lot of 'sauce' mixed in, and I like those 'sauces'—want to try some?"

Samuel was taken aback.

Reilos pointed with his short fins at the surrounding area, where steam slowly condensed and then returned to seawater: "I really like it here. It smells like 'sauce' everywhere. Is this your house? Would you mind if I drank some of your water?"

“I don’t mind, but you’d better not drink it,” Samuel said, using the length of his claws to hold it back. “I’ll take you out; there’s someone who can help you get better.”

Reilos is a silly fish; it will eat anything that's available, just like a goldfish kept at home that will eat itself to death if its owner keeps feeding it.

Reilos didn't eat himself to death, but he ate himself into a mutated monster that couldn't be stopped.

Samuel speculated that the "good people" it was referring to were actually feeding it newly produced nuclear waste. The "canned" part meant solid waste, and only an extremely high level of enrichment could turn a fish into such a monstrous creature with every cell filled with radioactivity.

That person probably discovered the incompletely transformed Reilos at the time, kept it in captivity on an island, and fed it radioactive material every day, which led to the birth of the monster Reilos.

The "good person" it mentioned sent it here, so it certainly didn't have any kind intentions: perhaps it wanted to devour the South American branch's ocean patrol team. The nuclear warheads in the submarine were a fatal attraction for Reilos. If it swallowed them all, who knows how much it would mutate?

Given Reilos's obvious affection for the breeder, won't he be able to attack wherever he's told in the future? Is keeping such a monster just for research purposes?

Reilos was reluctant to leave the home of his "kind".

Samuel said gently, "Now that you're like this, many 'people' are afraid of you."

Reilos nodded: "Yeah, yeah, only the 'good guys' play with me! The other fish run away when they see me, and I get so angry that I don't want to talk to them anymore! In the end, I can't even find any fish to play with when I'm blowing bubbles..."

“Ah,” Reilos leaned closer, “Can you blow bubbles? If you don’t like that, we can play with water guns.”

Samuel didn't understand, but Reilos had already bent down, taken a big gulp of water, and sprayed it onto the open ground with a "whoosh": "Like this, this is a water gun, and then there are bubbles..."

Samuel reached out and pressed his paw down on its head to stop it: "I am not a fish."

“I understand, losing scales is a painful experience for every fish; it's ugly and painful, but you can't deny that you are a fish just because of that…”

“I’ll take you out!” Samuel interrupted. “I’ll find you a new playmate.”

Reilos wanted to speak, but the other's claws pressed down firmly. Samuel was squatting on a block of ice, while Reilos was in the water. The other was taller than him. Reilos thought for a moment and said, "Alright, you're tall and have long fins, so I'll listen to you for now."

……

The alarm startled Ye Rui, who was waiting for data calculations and had been trapped inside.

"Monster reaction! In the Pacific Ocean!"

Samuel dragged Reilos out of the sea, and amidst the stunned "attention, send them off" of the ocean patrol, they sped off at an incredible speed toward the northwest.

The person in charge froze for a few seconds. Samuel and Reilos had already become black dots in the distance before he grabbed Masaki Keigo and shouted, "My God! The monster flew away! It wasn't killed! It even flew away with another monster fish! 2000 million tons of explosive yield, and the temperature at the explosion center was no less than 5 million degrees! How did it survive?!"

Masaki Keigo was too lazy to pay attention to him anymore. When the difference in their knowledge levels was too great, their conversations were like interspecies communication. He felt that the person next to him was no longer someone labeled "fool," but a moving cuckoo clock, and when they argued, it was as if they had a whistle in their mouths.

He walked silently out of the cabin under the subtle gaze of the person in charge. The person in charge thought that he was also confused by the change and needed quiet. Meanwhile, Masaki Keigo immediately connected with Tsukishiro Aya's phone.

“International calls are expensive,” a soft female voice came from the other end. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“Your little darling Reilos went with the target,” Masaki Keigo said without hiding his schadenfreude. “There wasn’t the earth-shattering monster battle you imagined. They were all in love, like two old friends who made a pact to go on a long trip together.”

"Ah!" Tsukishiro Kasumi hastily put the nail polish back on and found a piece of paper to wipe away the oil that had accidentally been applied. "What did you say? My little darling and that monster, Samuel, left together?"

Reilos was practically the king of the sea at the breeding farm. Tsunezuki Ayaka initially prepared fish, which also lived in the radioactive waters, as its food. However, the fish would hide whenever they saw Reilos. At first, Reilos would chase after them, but later it simply became too lazy to move. Tsunezuki Ayaka concluded that the fish were not to her liking, and finally had no choice but to switch to feeding it directly from waste containers.

Little did she know that Reilos's diet had actually changed along with the mutation; the big fish no longer wanted to eat the small fish, but only craved radioactive materials.

.

Leilos showed no friendliness towards the fish that avoided him. He was annoyed by their ignoring him every day, so he simply ignored them in a fit of pique, only becoming happier when Tiaoyue Xuansha appeared.

Therefore, in Tsuneyuki Ayase's view, Reilos is a wild beast that is only close to its keeper.

Samuel seemed only friendly to humans, but who would have thought Reilos...

“It was my oversight,” Tsukishiro said, thinking she had figured it out: “The target itself is a monster, and it’s normal for monsters to be close to each other. Reilos doesn’t have the concept of protecting its territory, so they didn’t fight.”

Masaki Keigo waited patiently for her to continue.

Tsukishiro Ayaka said, "Next, the GUTS team will definitely appear, and Ultraman Tiga will also show up..."

She then changed the subject: "How's your data collection going?"

“Special components were detected in some seawater, but we’ll have to wait until we get it back for analysis,” Masaki Keigo said slowly. “Deep-sea robots are collecting biological tissues from the vast ocean.”

Tsukishiro smiled and said, "Then I'll wait for your good news."

……

While the two were talking, the Victory Team had already prepared to set off.

Two Flying Swallow aircraft departed from the base.

"The monster is heading towards the sea near the equator! What kind of speed is that?" In the GUTS command room, the light indicating the monster's reaction was moving in a straight line to the northwest, covering an extremely long distance with almost every flash. Nori suspected that the satellite had detected an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“Calm down,” said Megumi Kijiro, whose flight path was clear. “Is its destination Japan?”

"That's how it looks for now. At this rate, it won't stop until..." Ye Rui paused, "...it stopped!"

Daigo and Shinjo were piloting the Flying Swallow No. 1 at a relatively high speed. When they arrived at the sea area near the equator, they saw Samuel crouching on a reef, yawning, with his wings covering him.

Another monster swam around him, sometimes blowing bubbles, sometimes spitting jets of saliva at him, which drew a helpless glance from him.

"Is it waiting for us?" Xincheng exclaimed in surprise.

Daigo stammered, while Samuel telepathically communicated with him: "There's a fish here that eats random things and turns itself into a monster. Do you remember the technique to restore Lightning Man?"

“I do remember, but now…” Daigo replied softly, “I can’t transform.”

"It's alright." The crouching monster stood up, and the oppressive force of the huge creature caused Shinjo to control Flying Swallow No. 1 to retreat a distance.

Blinding light streamed into the cabin. Samuel said, "Remember to tell the GUTS team that you were saved by Tiga again."

Chapter 90: The Textbook of Resurrection (5K)

"That's all utter nonsense!"

Shinjo slammed his fist on the table, making the newspaper tremble: "What kind of trashy tabloid is this? Tiga has helped us so many times. If he hadn't been revived, we would have been eaten by Golza long ago!"

The newspaper was twisted into a crumpled mess in his hands, the headline in bold black font reading: "Savior or Destroyer?"

The others kept quiet and went about their own business, while Daigo kept his head down.

It all started two days ago.

Samuel used a bright light to obscure his vision, giving Daigo the opportunity to transform. To deal with the "witness," Samuel used his tail to wrap around Flying Swallow No. 1 and performed a thrilling, death-defying windmill stunt. Shinjo fainted on the spot, while Reilos patted his stomach and cheered, shouting, "I want to play too!"

A few minutes later, Reilos transformed back into an ordinary sea fish under Tiga's light and was released back into nature. Samuel and Daigo returned to their respective teams. When the Flying Swallow II arrived, they only saw one of the two diving back into the sea and the other squatting on the Flying Swallow I, waving to them.

Two days later, newspapers and rumors flooded the media: Tiga had twice encountered monsters and yet he let them go so easily; there must be some inside story. The monster in question was Samuel; he first appeared in the reports when the Reicuran aliens invaded the Delta Force station, and the second time was regarding the restoration of Reilos.