Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Chapter 160 "Satan"

"Either the world has gone mad, or I have."

Sato thought to himself.

As he was driving his bumper car, crushing bizarre, mutated objects like bowling pins, he suddenly heard the sound of glass cracking and exploding overhead.

He instinctively thought the skylight had been smashed by some powerful monster, so he quickly looked up and saw a familiar yet somewhat different face staring out of the skylight, waving its paw and greeting him: "Are you alright?"

He recognized the face; it belonged to his good colleague, Aiba Yu, who seemed to enjoy extremely high benefits, with his meal card balance inexplicably increasing to the point that he wondered if a rich woman had taken a liking to him. At the same time, he was an air force idiot who had been toughened up by life and had taught himself sewing.

"Hiss—" Zongfang gasped, then fell silent. Perhaps stunned, Sato was just as stunned when he first witnessed the "disappearing act." Countless questions swirled in his throat, and after a long, drawn-out ordeal, he could only manage to stammer, "You're losing scales, does it hurt?"

He didn't know if the other person was in pain; Sato only remembered that his arm was swollen for a day—from being bitten. He strongly suspected that the other person was only a big monster on the surface, but was actually a dog in real life.

Now this monster, who seems to be born in the Year of the Dog, arrives, blinking its golden eyes in greeting, while simultaneously tearing open the car window with its claws. Its technique is skillful and precise; it's clearly a seasoned pro.

Strangely, the shadowy figures that had been rushing forward were now as quiet as chickens.

The birds, which had been rushing towards the car like fervent believers rushing into the Lord's embrace, were now all obediently motionless. Those that hadn't yet surfaced were probably slipping away. Sato heard the rustling footsteps fading into the distance. Those that had surfaced sat still, and a three-legged bird had buried its head in its wings. Sato had no doubt that if his good colleague had...

Even if we settle here, this strange bird could be used as a sculpture for ages.

"Th-thank you?" Zongfang finally managed to utter his first words.

“Although you’re infected, you seem to be in pretty good spirits,” Aiba Yu said. “Sato, go out and take them to the Life Science Research Center later.”

Before Munakata could even process what was happening, Sato was startled and exclaimed, "Life Science Research Center?!"

Shouldn't infections be handled by the medical authorities?

“There’s no precedent for this kind of case in the medical department, but Dr. Tsukishiro might have a way to suppress the infection. He drew a large tube of blood from me.” Aiba Yu threw away the skylight, and Sato then noticed that there was indeed a monster outside the skylight that had bravely broken through the barrier—it looked like an aquatic octopus or an eight-legged spider. In any case, it was motionless and probably dead. The monster and the skylight shell were thrown aside together.

Zongfang was completely bewildered by their conversation. Xiangye You knew that he probably had a million questions swirling in his mind, but there was no time to waste on their leisurely conversation.

He stood up from the roof of the car, and before he could even utter the word "get lost," the monsters pretending to be sculptures outside "came back to life" and ran away, like a medical miracle.

"I'll deal with you guys later," he thought to himself, while saying to Sato, "I'll send you out to find the Flying Swallow II. Also, contact Commander Yoshioka and tell him not to let the outer troops open fire."

"Should we just not fire and wait for the monster to run away?"

“Once the fire starts, the monster will truly ‘go out,’ and it will turn everyone else into monsters as well. This is a trap set by the operators of the Demon Realm.”

After he finished speaking, the world illuminated by the flames was replaced by a huge shadow, with only occasional glimpses of firelight peeking out from the gaps in the shadow.

The gloomy environment should have been oppressive, but Zong Fang felt slightly better—just now, especially when the monster approached, he felt as if a snake was slithering inside his body. It was alive, eager to devour something, like an insatiable ouroboros.

The snake was gone now, perhaps it had fled like the monsters. For a fleeting moment, as the shadows obscured the firelight, he felt an unprecedented sense of peace.

The truck took off, and the people in the back couldn't see what was happening due to limited visibility. They only knew that the view outside the monitor window suddenly changed to a different altitude, with the charred forest below and wispy clouds drifting around them.

Sosuke obediently squatted on the back of the great monster, craning his neck to look down.

He still hadn't found Paradia, or even seen his "kindred spirit." The giant was nowhere to be seen either; all he could see were the shadowy mountains, the forests twisted and gnarled from the fire, and the river filled with the corpses of fish monsters. Those corpses were slowly melting, decomposing into azure particles, and the murky river occasionally spewed out a bubble, displaying a satisfied expression.

This was the first time he had looked down from such a height at the place where he had lived for a period of time.

His house should be to the northwest. A little further ahead, by the river, is where they often amuse themselves with the fish monster. The river is circular, and in the middle of the raised terrain sits a spire—like an ouroboros coiling its jewels. The spire is inlaid with stained glass on all four sides, and from a distance, it truly looks like a fine gem.

The overall structure looks ingenious. Considering that the designer is an alien, he must be a master among aliens who understands the aesthetics of Earthlings.

But Sosuke felt very uncomfortable. The area embraced by the river, except for the mountains where the spire was located, was flat or even sunken. The outer ring presented normal mountain terrain, so the core area became a basin, like a petri dish.

He was completely unaware while living there!

After racking his brains for a while, Sosuke patted the "ground" made of scales with his claws and looked down, saying, "Am I the 'infected' you just mentioned?"

……

Unbeknownst to Sosuke, the Twelfth Paradya and the Eighth Amui he was searching for were actually on the riverbank filled with dead fish. The fish, heated by the fire, were charred and the river water had turned into a thick soup, mixed with a strange, fishy stench.

Paradia was surprised to find her "father" in front of her and quickly lowered her hand from her mouth and nose.

“That brute did a good job,” the wool coat-wearing man, unusually appearing outside the spire, spat at the short man who was now ashes, then paused and said to Paradia, “I’m glad you’re back. I thought you would be killed by the enraged Tomb Keeper when he found his men.”

“He spotted us,” said Amui, number eight. “I didn’t feel his gaze, but I’m sure he spotted us.”

“It seems that naive kid holds a high place in his heart, so high that he has no interest in coming to you, wasting all the good materials I prepared,” he said, twitching his hand in his pocket and pulling out a cigarette, seemingly nonchalant. “What are you doing with your head down? Number Twelve, report what you ‘saw’.”

Paradia has eyes that can see through the fog.

She knew she couldn't get away with it. If she tried to lie or if her story contradicted what Number Thirteen "saw," her "father" would definitely get rid of her.

She cannot be disposed of; she has a goal now—a goal that belongs only to herself, not one given to her by her "father" and one that the real Paradya "should" have.

“I saw all the monsters kept in the Demon Realm cry out in submission,” said Paradia Twelve. “Their former master was you, my ‘father,’ but the moment the Tomb Keeper appeared, they turned against us. May I ask, you were the one who created them…”

"

"Even test subjects diluted countless times are affected," the man in the wool coat exhaled a puff of smoke. "But it doesn't matter, it's better this way."

“Paladia.” The wool coat, unusually, abandoned the code name and addressed her by her mother’s name, which made Number Twelve’s heart stop for a moment. She had a feeling that she was in trouble. If “Father” was going to give her a piece of candy next, it would definitely be filled with poison that would rot her inside.

“Our activities can be more aboveboard,” the wool coat said. “Go to the publicity team, as Paradia.”

Paradia bowed her head deeply.

Then the "father" continued, "You must be thinking about number sixteen, that kid named Cangjie. You feel sorry for him."

"No! I..."

“Your denial is meaningless. It’s only right that Paradia sympathizes with him,” the “father” said, shifting his gaze to look down at her calmly, as if examining an object. “Work hard, Paradia. Number Eight and Number Thirteen will miss you while I’m here.”

Number 8 Amui showed no reaction, as if he were detached from the matter, only glancing at the "father" when he was mentioned.

“Let’s go,” the father said, turning around as his robes billowed in an arc. “Satan has appeared, but the Lord has mercy on mankind.”

Chapter 161 People cannot be generalized

What exactly is in the Demon Realm?

Perhaps only Keigo Masaki can give the most heartfelt answer—besides the Kirielods and the Silverguns, there is something ubiquitous that makes one feel uneasy.

He rescued Tsuneyuki Ayaka from the tomb keeper, but after flying in giant form for only a short time, he suddenly deactivated his transformation. The two of them, like two meteorites, plunged straight into the mountain from a height of a thousand meters.

"Ah... weren't you so amazing when you successfully transformed? Saying things like 'I am your god'!" Tsune Aya was forced to flip over to maintain her balance, pulling Masaki Keigo behind her, and then landing on her legs, which were the most solid part of her skin.

The forest was plowed by a "meteorite," and the sounds of broken branches and overturned soil startled flocks of birds.

A hard landing always comes at a price. Tsuneyuki Ayaka lay prone in the trench she had dug herself, her face dark as she shoved Masaki Keigo down into it, pointing at his nose and saying, "If you're not dead, contact Dango and the others to come pick you up! It's all because of you! My leg is broken again!"

“Ignore it, it will heal itself,” Masaki Keigo stood up, dusted himself off, sent a signal, and then slowly said, “There is a special substance in the Demon Realm that I, in my giant form, am very uncomfortable with, but you don’t seem to be acting normally.”

"Is this why you prematurely deactivated your transformation, almost causing us to fall to our deaths?" Tsui Tsukishiro cursed the man for his lack of manners, not even bothering to comfort the woman who had just saved his life, or at least offer a few words of concern.

Masaki Keigo didn't think the woman who could strangle an alien with her bare hands needed comforting. He was more concerned about what he had observed in his giant form: "In that environment, your aura actually became stronger, and combined with those strange animals, so... I guess it's a substance that can trigger mutations?"

"Yes, it triggered mutations, making me more and more like a lizard!" Thinking of that lizard-like creature, Tiao Yuexuan felt waves of anger rising within her, but she didn't lose her mind after all. She rummaged in her tattered pockets and pulled out a box.

The contents of the first aid kit had been emptied and replaced by Tsukishiro Ayaka.

“I’ve collected some specimens, Sanada will be very happy,” said Tsui Ayasa. “Your giant pose isn’t entirely useless. Next time, don’t cover it too tightly with your palms, so I don’t have to climb up and crawl out to collect air samples.”

Masaki Keigo's expression wasn't good, and Tsukiko Ayaka happily added fuel to the fire: "A normal person would have been suffocated by you long ago, 'our god'."

……

What exactly floats in the air of the Demon Realm?

Fujisawa Sousuke only had a vague guess—he hadn't noticed it while living in the Demon Realm, but his feelings became more and more apparent when he went out to clear out the Naga stronghold and when he went out with the captain to hand over the GUTS team to Iruma Megumi.

When Aiba Yu said he was going back to search the Demon Realm, Sosuke shouted that he wanted to go with him without even thinking.

"Captain, I feel like I can only be 'normal' in the Demon Realm," Sosuke finally dared to speak after being separated from the main group. "Outside, I always feel uncomfortable, I always want to, always want to..."

Meeting Aiba Yu's gaze, Sōsuke said nervously, "I keep wanting to attack... something."

"Alien Beast Factor".

"What... what factor?"

Aiba Yu turned and walked towards the spire. Sousuke quickly followed, asking, "What's that? What do you know about it?"

“You can think of the Alien Beast Factor as a kind of ‘virus’,” Aiba Yu said in a deep voice, “except that the symptoms it causes are that people turn into monsters—Alien Beasts naturally have a strong instinct to eat, and even devour their own kind.”

Sosuke felt a lingering fear when he thought about how he felt when he met that person of his kind.

"In the Demon Realm, there are alien beast factors everywhere, and you are constantly replenishing them, so you feel comfortable. But when you go to the outside world, the greed of alien beasts cannot be satisfied, and you will crave to attack everything you can see."

"Then...then..." Sosuke looked around at the scorched earth. "Would it be better for me to stay here? Can't I go back? If I go back to TPC, I can't stay in the air force anymore, right? Ah...I can't even pilot the Beta with my claws anymore..."

Where should I go, Captain? Am I going to be locked up with aliens? Will Commander Yoshioka send me to the Life Science Research Center? I don't want to go there, Captain, please just…

“If you dare to say ‘Let’s pretend Fujisawa Sousuke is dead,’ then,” Aiba Yu thought for a moment, “I will play the video of you praying to the teru teru bozu in the cockpit on a loop at your ‘funeral.’”

"Captain, you're not human!!!"

"There are also videos of mistakes during training, videos of people being punished by standing, our surveillance cameras can capture a lot of things." Aiba Yu stretched out his hand, and Sousuke remembered that this hand used to have the same claws as his own, feeling both puzzled and envious.

That hand grabbed his collar again, and the familiar feeling of being airborne rushed over him. Sosuke grimaced, his face contorted by the wind pressure, and stammered, "I forgot you can change shape like that. Teach me! With my current physique, piloting an Alpha is definitely no problem! You can also teach me how to fly. If others can't fly, I'll fly the Alpha; if the Alpha can't fly, I'll carry it and fly!"

Are there any alien beasts that can transform into human form at any time?

Aiba Yu only remembered that the changes in the alien beasts were almost irreversible. Those who could revert to humanoid forms were mostly dying, their life force fading, their alien beast genes ceasing activity, and thus their original form took over – "Tatsumi" could maintain his sanity and devour the power of other alien beasts, but he couldn't conceal the mutation within himself. Therefore, no one remembered his codename afterward; they only knew him as a monster with ferocious bone horns and very peculiar behavior, and they called him "Samuel."

Yu Aiba couldn't bear to tell Sosuke this fact, especially since his path forward wasn't limited to "becoming a monster."

Isn't there a precedent of his own successful shedding of the alien beast body? Aiba Yu thought, with him around, Sosuke wouldn't repeat the same mistake.