Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

“There’s no need to care about appearances,” Aiba Yu said.

"I care!" the lizard-faced man cried. "I still want to see my girlfriend! You know what? I met a 'kindred spirit' and I genuinely complimented her on looking like Aya, and she thought I was insulting her! She probably thinks a lizard's girlfriend must be a lizard!"

"..."

The wind whipped up by the wings howled, and the spire drew ever closer. Aiba Yu was silent for a moment, then said, "Then you'll have to become stronger." We'll see if the transformation device works then.

"Huh? Get stronger? A super giant lizard?" Sosuke felt completely overwhelmed.

"If you believe you are human, you won't turn into a 'super lizard'."

“It sounds like a mental victory,” Sosuke hesitated, then suddenly realized, “Ah, Captain, you’re comforting me, right? Like, ‘As long as you believe in yourself, you will never fail,’ that kind of motivational platitudes.”

"Do not……"

“It’s alright, Captain, I understand your good intentions. I will restrain myself and not cause trouble for everyone,” Sosuke said, sounding more and more aggrieved. Aiba Yu felt that the thing he was dragging had become heavier: “You’re right, I need to become stronger, and I need to be stronger mentally... at least I need to accept reality.”

"No, I mean..."

“Go talk to Ralf, go talk to Yota and the others!” The lizard-faced man looked like he was about to cry: “Sousuke was drugged by the aliens and turned into a giant lizard. He keeps calling me Ralf, he’s dangerous and terrifying. I will willingly accept ‘treatment,’ even if it’s just to provide research, I will…”

"It means special training."

"I accept... huh?"

Chapter 162 The Nest (4K)

Special training? Can special training turn a lizard into a human?

Sosuke was completely baffled, and the spire was getting closer and closer.

Sosuke had never been to this place before. Only Paradia and Amui would occasionally run into the tower to listen to the lectures of their so-called "father." Sosuke always felt that the tower was probably inhabited by an orphanage director, the kind old man with gray hair and a benevolent face.

Paradia always looked grumpy after listening to her "father's" lecture. Even Sosuke could tell that she was trying hard to control her temper, so he always asked Paradia if she wanted to go fishing.

As everyone knows, fishing is a way to cultivate one's mind and character. In the rivers of the Demon Realm, even if you use a smelly sock as bait, you won't come back empty-handed—those mutated fish with mouths full of fangs will bite anything, and you have to pull the fish up before the hook is bitten to pieces.

Paradia would gradually recover her mood while chatting with him... It was really fun to bully the fish monster.

Sosuke also learned a lot about the inside of the tower.

“Many followers of the Kyrierod God live here. Paradia told me that some people who are poor and homeless are taken in here after becoming believers and are made to do chores like cleaning,” he said. “Captain, if you encounter them… they are innocent. The Kyrierods are collecting faith and deceiving people under the guise of charity. They may not even know that they are worshipping the gods of aliens.”

"Sousuke, is the 'Paradia' you mentioned an old woman or a girl? How old is she?" Aiba Yu asked an unrelated question.

Sosuke rubbed his chin together, making a rustling sound. "I don't know how old she is, but she looks very young... She's a clone, I mean number twelve, and there's also 'Paradia,' number thirteen."

He heard the person above him exhale heavily, followed by a sharp whistling sound that vanished in an instant.

The stroking of his chin suddenly stopped, and Sosuke struggled to hold it up so it wouldn't fall.

The spire has fallen.

To be precise, the top floor space was cut away, leaving half a cannon-like structure. The cut was at an angle.

As a result, the top layer that was cut off fell down along the cut.

But before it could even fall into the forest, the first broken brick sparked a silver flame, and more and more of the building collapsed, the fire raged, and the chain reaction spread rapidly.

Looking down from the air, Sosuke saw the ball of silver fire rushing towards him; it was the captain leading him down.

Since the captain dared to charge forward with him like that, he certainly wouldn't burn him to death, so Sosuke wasn't flustered. They passed through the wall of fire, the stained glass softening into droplets in the high temperature. The air currents swirling around them stretched the droplets into long, thin strands, drifting towards the black charcoal forest.

"She told you that believers live here?" Aiba Yu stood on the broken wall, pulling Sosuke to his feet. A fireball strong enough to block out the moonlight raged behind them, and strands of molten wall debris fell, turning into a scorching red rain.

Sosuke craned his neck to look down. Facing them was a spiral staircase. He strained to see inside as he climbed the stairs until he felt dizzy. After a while, he hesitated and said, "They might have been... they might have been moved away. That's right! 'Father' ordered Paradia and me to evacuate the base. We decided to stay here until the blockade was lifted because of the blockade outside."

“Listen carefully,” Aiba Yu said, “it’s crying.”

Cangjie was slightly taken aback. He had indeed heard crying, but only in his dreams—when he lived in the Demon Realm, he had difficulty falling asleep due to the intense pain caused by the mutation of his body. After a while, he would be able to fall asleep, but he would always hear faint crying in his dreams.

The crying was truly torturous, like Kayako making Toshio practice his singing, second only to Ralf's cry after seeing his ex-girlfriend and her child at the amusement park, running to the dormitory to wail and cry, reminiscing about the so-called "love across the ocean" of the past.

Sōsuke suspected that he was just using the excuse of being heartbroken to skip training legitimately, because he really did grab a lot of meat when he was eating skewers that night, and no one else would let him pay!

Sosuke's thoughts drifted further and further away. He seemed to really hear crying. Fine, mournful sobs seeped from the walls, from the windows, from every crack in the bricks and tiles, rising up the spiral staircase and pricking his ears like thorns.

He seemed to hear a slimy, wriggling sound, as if there was a snake's nest hidden below. A chill ran down his spine, and he instinctively looked at the captain. But the captain's face was also grim; clearly, he hadn't been hallucinating.

"They went to great lengths to lure TPC into a massive encirclement. It's impossible that they only fought one battle with Tiga and then left. The legend of the 'Fairy Forest' in Lion's Nose Tree Sea didn't just appear out of nowhere; they've been cultivating it for a long time... How could they easily abandon such a base?"

"Gulp," Sosuke swallowed hard. He always felt sleepy when he heard such troublesome convoluted stories, but this time it was related to him. Recalling the days when he lived in the demon realm without knowing it, he felt a chill run down his spine.

Aiba Yu jumped down, and Sousuke, though hesitant, followed suit. The sound of their landing echoed through the narrow walls and into the dark depths of the tower.

The place was deserted, and the two walked in along the spiral staircase.

“Stay close to me,” Aiba Yu grabbed Sousuke’s wrist, calming the two-meter-tall giant down. “Don’t run away from anything you see later.”

“A real man never runs away,” Sosuke swore first, then lowered his voice, which still sounded a bit loud in the overly quiet environment: “Is it haunted?”

"Your magnet will be saved by the gods."

"Captain, can you please forget about all this?"

"I have a good memory."

"It's okay to have a bit of dementia occasionally." Sosuke was talking nonsense. Some people are silent under pressure, while others talk abnormally much, and basically without thinking. Sosuke was the latter. As soon as he said it, he mentally slapped himself a thousand times, thinking he was doomed.

But Aiba Yu didn't turn around and glare at him. There was a moment of silence in the air, so quiet that you could hear Sosuke's careful breathing.

The deeper they went, the darker it became. The sound of breathing was gradually replaced by sobbing. Sosuke no longer had the mind to talk nonsense. The dense, writhing sounds rushed into his ears, like a group of ghosts from the deepest hell chanting a dirge.

“You’re right, sometimes having a good memory isn’t a good thing.” Aiba Yu led Sousuke to a large door and stopped. Flames melted the lock, and the dark door creaked.

What might be inside the door? Sosuke imagined it would be a bunch of slimy snakes, with some white-clad ghosts floating among them, one responsible for crying and the other for flicking its tongue to scare people.

All he could see was emptiness. Sosuke swallowed the "Hey, evil spirits, begone!" that was stuck in his throat. There was nothing in front of him, but the sound remained!

“They’ve thoroughly analyzed Hilbargon’s abilities,” Aiba Yu said. He raised his hand and threw a punch, and cracking patterns, like broken glass, appeared in the air.

A gentle breeze blew in from the crack, accompanied by a tremendous roar!

The sound waves surged through the dark corridor and up the spiral staircase. They were chaotic and incomprehensible to everyone, and no one wanted to listen to them. The high-decibel noise was like a sharp sword being drawn from its sheath, and Sosuke felt as if his eardrums were about to be pierced!

The captain, with one hand prying open the newly smashed opening, still held onto him with the other, seemingly unmoved.

He could indeed remain indifferent.

The sound abruptly ceased the moment he kicked aside the last obstacle and stepped into the cabin. Sosuke tilted his head slightly, and countless murky gazes came from all directions.

The owners of these gazes were all strangely shaped, resembling monsters or several different animals.

The synthetic objects all stared intently at the newcomer. Anyone would feel uncomfortable being stared at by countless eyes. Sōsuke instinctively wanted to back away, but was held back by Aiba Yū, leaving him rooted to the spot.

The wriggling sound also came from them; the bulging, proliferating lumps squeezed together and pushed each other, so the soft sound was like spring rain pattering on leaves.

"The outer layer of the demonic realm is meant to protect this place. If the TPC orders an attack and flattens the outer facilities, it will expose this place... The spire will suffer the most severe blow, and this barrier will not be able to withstand it. In this way, the 'monsters' they are truly raising can get out."

Aiba Yu turned his head and looked around, and countless eyes followed him. Sosuke wondered if he was seeing things, but those eyes seemed to convey a sense of adoration, like a herd of fawns staring intently at their elder.

“I don’t think going out would be of any use,” Sosuke said cautiously. “They look… very weak. I think I could kill a whole bunch of them with one claw.”

“Of course they’re weak. They’re only half-monsters,” Aiba Yu released his hand and walked forward. “They don’t need living specimens. As long as the monster factor spreads out, with the amount stored here, in a week or two, TPC’s focus will shift from ‘dealing with aliens and monsters’ to hunting down monsters.”

As the mother creature drew near, the "alien beast" in front of it let out a joyful whimper, struggling to move closer. It squeezed to the left and right, extending four arms—without hands, but something more like fins.

Seeing this thing will give you nightmares for the rest of your life! Sosuke, disregarding his fear, followed after him, trying to stop his captain.

“Gazot’s hand,” Aiba Yu told Sosuke to calm down, then crouched down, his gaze level with the “monster”: “They transplanted Gazot’s hand into you, and then… ah, this is Gadi’s horn.”

Sōsuke finally understood that, strictly speaking, this place should be a "trash can," a place to discard failed experiments. Unable to recreate their original form using the alien beast factors that had deteriorated for countless generations, the Kirieloids turned to the path of fusing with monsters—whether alien beasts or ordinary monsters, ultimately, the Kirieloids simply needed a tool to conveniently collect faith.

These failed products also have a purpose: the Kirieloids utilize their ability to infect normal organisms, using these failed products as a medium to spread alien beast factors, like "dirty bombs," stored here, waiting for the TPC, eager to wipe out the dangerous alien stronghold, to open them themselves.

“The best soil for spreading doctrine is chaos.” Aiba Yu stretched out his hand, and the “monster” with Gazot’s arm transplanted into it stretched its neck and pressed its face against his palm, making humming noises.

If it were a kitten or puppy, it would be very cute, but for an alien to make such a move is just creepy.

Aiba Yu was stunned for a moment, a sense of absurdity welling up in his heart.

This place is less of a "garbage can" and more of a man-made miniature primordial nest. The alien beasts born here naturally yearn for their mother, so even though these "alien beasts" are composites mixed with other monsters, they wholeheartedly support him. Aiba Yu believes that even if he were to snap their necks, these "alien beasts" would gladly stick out their heads and wait obediently.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, similar things will always converge infinitely—no matter how he tries to escape the influence of Dark Lucifer, fate always finds something labeled in the shadows, reminding him of the original origin of this power.

So sometimes having a good memory isn't a good thing.

"Hey."

This was the third time today that Sōsuke had heard the captain sigh, a rare occurrence. In his memory, when the captain encountered troublesome things like team members making mistakes, his blood pressure would spike. He would either punish them by making them copy something on the spot or temporarily write it down, leaving the person who was written down to be careful for many days afterward.

“Sousuke,” Aiba Yu stood up and suddenly asked, “Did that ‘Paradia’ really tell you that homeless people are taken in and made to do odd jobs like cleaning?”

“I’m just repeating her words,” Sosuke said, rubbing his head. “Although she lied to me about ‘treatment’ because of the Kirieloids, there’s no need for her to lie to me about something like this. They’re so rich, they wouldn’t owe me wages, would they?”

Aiba Yu turned around: "Have you ever seen anyone pay 'test subjects'?"

"what?"

"The ground here is full of alien beast factors. Apart from people with antibodies, how could an ordinary person found on the street possibly survive here? In just three days, or even less, their body will start to mutate from the skin, and eventually they will become a monster that no one can recognize."

If the alien beast factor was somewhat understandable, the word "antibody" confused Sosuke again—could the alien beast factor really be a kind of "virus," and could his mutation be solved by injections and vaccines?

No, it seems there really are people who have antibodies!

"Does Paradia have antibodies?" Sosuke thought of the group of clones. They were all perfectly normal. If Paradia were willing to change out of her black robe, she would probably be mistaken for a student. "And Amui, they live in the Demon Realm and are completely unaffected!"

“Amui?” Aiba Yu noted the name down and replied, “The specific reason is still unclear, but if ‘Paradia’ is indeed a complete clone, then it should also possess the original owner’s abilities.”