Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"Abilities? She... the original owner she cloned was an alien?"

"No, it's the ancient era."

"She's human; her father was once the human form of an Ultraman, so she received care from that Ultraman from a young age, which allows her to become a very strong human form... if nothing unexpected happens."

Sosuke seemed to understand but not quite. To him, the terms "human host" and "Ultraman" sounded like fluid mechanics—both were mystical concepts.

The solution to this mental straggling problem is to ignore it. Sosuke pointed to the aliens that were eagerly trying to rush up and embrace the mother: "What should we do with these alien beasts?"

“Don’t you understand yet, Sousuke?” Aiba Yu sighed for the fourth time, “They’re not alien beasts, they’re humans.”

Chapter 163 The Road to Restoration (5k)

An ancient civilization. A civilization for which the academic community has yet to provide a definitive and reasonable explanation.

According to the normal evolutionary system, modern Homo sapiens emerged, and then various brilliant civilizations gradually developed. Thirty million years ago was the Tertiary period, the era when dinosaurs went extinct and mammals took center stage. At that time, apes were nowhere to be seen, let alone humans.

However, TPC scientists have unearthed numerous traces of ancient humans from around the world, not to mention the already discovered Rulya, which sank in the South Pacific. The intricately carved buildings and clearly systematic writing systems all indicate the existence of an "ancient civilization."

Where did they come from?

How did a civilization capable of inventing a time machine and accurately transmitting information 30 million years in the future disappear?

Giants, monsters, aliens—was the Earth in the Tertiary period a documentary of "animal world" or a mythological drama in which all sorts of gods, ghosts, and demons took center stage?

Cangjie had read many speculations about ancient civilizations online, mostly legends like the Bermuda Triangle. But today, in the magical realm of the Lion's Nose Tree Sea, he truly touched a corner of the ancient world.

"They were originally...humans?" Aiba Yu's words were like a bucket of cold water poured over his head. Sosuke was stunned for a long time, and although he had a lot to say, he couldn't say a word.

“This is the Alien Beast Factor, which turns normal people into monsters. Someone always has to pay the price for ambition, but it shouldn’t be these people,” Aiba Yu said to Sosuke, pushing away the strangely shaped arm that was reaching out to him. “Alien Beasts grow stronger by preying on other creatures, especially by devouring their own kind, which allows them to experience a brief leap in power… until they are infinitely close to their mother.”

"Like the game Snake, growing from a tiny snake into a giant python?" Sosuke forced a smile. "Cannibalism sounds really perverted."

“Yeah, it really is disgusting,” Aiba Yu’s eyes were calm, but what he said made Sosuke want to run away immediately. He said, “How did you end up fighting the infected person who was rescued by another giant during our battle?”

Sosuke must admit that he was blinded by greed at the time. On the one hand, he heard that the other party was a henchman of the Naga, and on the other hand, he was indeed tempted. He believed that the other party was also eager to devour his blood and flesh, like a starving beast. Whether they were of the same kind or not was completely unimportant. Even if they were his own children, he would bite off the other party's throat without hesitation.

Alien beasts are just that unreasonable creatures. Some infected individuals, out of emotional attachment, actively seek out their relatives, but the encounters often turn into murder scenes.

Sōsuke's silence gave Aiba Yū the answer: "When we get back to TPC, you'll need to spend some time alone."

“But Captain, I still want to…” Sosuke looked at him nervously: “I really want to go back to the air force.”

"Indeed, it's really hard to ask someone to go back in my current state, but you know, after the old captain and the others had that accident, I swore I would stay in the team and become an excellent pilot to show them! I'm not so bad now, right? Look at all these 'fellow travelers' here. I have absolutely no desire to eat. Maybe I was just too angry when I encountered that infected person before."

He leaned closer and asked eagerly, "The captain will help me, right? How did you manage to regain your human form?"

……

"It will take four more days for a full recovery."

Inside the car heading to Kumamoto City, Tsukishiro Ayaka squeezed herself sideways into the back seat, her scaly claws bracing against the window, the tips of her claws tapping against the glass, making a series of clattering sounds.

"Be careful not to scratch the glass." Tango Yuji, who was in charge of logistics, driving, and vital signs monitoring, glanced at the rearview mirror and was met with an angry glare from Tsukishiro Ayaka.

"You can see as much as you want when we get back to the experimental table!" She slammed her hand on the back of the seat in front of her, waking up the drowsy Masaki Keigo and making his head throb. "Aren't you guys copying the Naga's gene inhibitor? How's it going? I'm fed up with having to ask those two dinosaur men for medicine every time after a mission!"

Tango Yuuji coughed, then subconsciously glanced at the rearview mirror, where Tsukiko Ayase was glaring at him through the mirror.

“Because of the active presence of the tomb guardians, the dinosaur people haven’t contacted the Naga people for a long time, and the stock of gene inhibitors is not enough,” Tango Yuji carefully chose his words: “Our development still needs some… work. What I just gave you was the last tube.”

"You mean if I use this power again, there will be no more medicine to help me recover, and I'll have to live with a lizard-like appearance?!"

Masaki Keigo went from leaning back in his chair to resting his head against the window. The giant posture was more exhausting than he had imagined, so he spoke in a low voice, almost in a murmur: "Perfect, you can stop using your identity as a dancer to swindle people."

"That's not fraud, it's earning funding!"

"With my company, I don't need your little bit of money."

"Open source and cost reduction, do you even understand open source?!" (Tiaoyue)

Ayaka wished she could shove those money-grubbing guys through the car window and throw them out right then and there: "You, Tango, and Sanada, you're all money-devouring beasts! All you do is say 'I have a new idea to test,' and then the organization just keeps burning through your money! Seriously, the boss should keep an eye on you guys. I've never seen you so generous with TPC funds!"

“TPC funding requires approval,” said Yuji Tango, who was very experienced. “Applying for a project is like defending a thesis. It’s better to come here. They are very supportive of our research and never interfere too much.”

"If the New Human Project ever goes bankrupt, it will definitely be because you burned through the funding chain." Tiao Yue Xuan Sha wanted to tear something, such as the train car and the two humanoid money-devouring beasts, but for the sake of her bleeding wallet, she obediently retracted her claws and waited for the drug to slowly take effect. The tingling, numb feeling, like ants gnawing at her, surged from every vein to every part of her body.

Silence fell over the carriage, the shadows of trees and lamplight stretching from the hood and windshield to the rear. Tiao Yuexuan stared blankly at the ceiling; if the organization's leader were present, he would know she was homesick again.

Thinking of the old house in the black and white photo from a hundred years ago, missing her mother and brother who, despite their lack of education, took better care of her than anyone else, she now has another home to think about—the TPC's Flying Swallow engine development team, and that fool in the air force.

It's already difficult enough to accept a disabled person, Tsukishiro Ayaka thought. He's such a kind-hearted fool. I just wonder if he can accept a lizard man? He might be so frightened on the spot that he'd hide behind Ralf or Captain Aiba and pray to the teru teru bozu (a Japanese doll-shaped object believed to bring good weather).

After a while, Masaki Keigo, whom everyone thought had fallen asleep, suddenly spoke up again: "The transformation of life forms from humans to giants has been successful. The next step... can be to try the monster project."

"You don't need to report to me what topics you choose, just tell me how much you want to spend," Tsui Tsukishiro replied lazily, snapping out of her reverie.

"How about starting with you? We need to get the opinions of the parties involved."

Tsukishiro Ayaka raised her chin slightly in disbelief: "Hey, are you planning to use your own colleagues as guinea pigs?"

"Don't you want to recover?" Masaki Keigo said. "I just have a new idea. The Naga can't find substitutes for the materials they use to make potions, so we won't look for them. The New Human Project is about exploring new paths—or are you excluding yourself from the 'New Humans'?"

"This is not like something you would say. When did 'cyborgs' ever catch your eye?" Tsune Aya said sarcastically. She knew Masaki Keigo's evaluation of her as a "dancer who doesn't do his job properly," and she also knew that he was not actually regretting that she was wasting her time on something of low value, but rather he looked down on "cyborgs" who were somewhere between humans and monsters from the bottom of his heart.

“Those who willingly degenerate, regardless of their kind, are not worthy of my attention.” Masaki Keigo said this with his eyes still closed. He rummaged in his pocket for a moment, then threw a prop to the back seat. Tsukishiro Ayase caught it reflexively, but was immediately forced to let go by the scalding heat on it.

With a "clang," the sound of metal hitting the ground echoed as the short, rod-like prop rolled under the seat.

“You can’t hold it now, which is a good thing. It means that the giant’s strength is related to the genes that caused your mutation,” Masaki Keigo said. “Don’t misunderstand, this research is not specifically for modifying humans.”

“I never misunderstand that,” Tsuneyuki Ayaka said irritably, rubbing her burning palms.

Yuji Tango listened nervously from the side, feeling that they might start fighting at any moment, staging a live version of a giant fighting a monster.

But Masaki Keigo didn't mind her unfriendly tone: "The base in Lion's Nose Forest will definitely be uprooted by the TPC, but there is no intelligence to suggest that this is the only research base the aliens have. If the 'substance that triggers mutation' you mentioned does exist in the air of the base, then even if the TPC destroys this place, the aliens have countless ways to spread these dangerous substances to other places... No, perhaps they are already doing that, and this can even be traced back to a hundred years ago when the Kirieloids took you in."

“The Naga are indeed fulfilling the principles of the ‘God of the Universe’ by helping ‘modified humans’ suppress their physical mutations free of charge, but they obviously don’t know how to reverse the situation. So, saving the modified humans depends on humanity itself,” said Keigo Masaki. “We cannot guide everyone onto the path of the new humanity, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon some people.”

“Ha, how great and compassionate,” Tsukishiro Ayaka replied dryly, “Do I have to bow down to you, ‘our god’?”

“You can support us in a more practical way.” Tango Yuji understood the intention behind Masaki Keigo’s unusually lengthy explanation.

"Don't you have your own company?"

“You said it yourself, this is called open source,” Yuji Tango, a participant in the research, quickly chimed in, “Once it’s developed, it might be the time when we can stand up openly and honestly.”

Tiao Yuexuan almost burst out laughing: "So this is how a mere penny can stump a 'god-like man'?"

……

As Tsukishiro and the others discussed new research, in the crumbling Demon Realm, Fujisawa Sousuke was so shocked by what the captain had said that he wanted to scratch the wall.

"You just said the way to recover is... to throw away your body and create a new one? Huh?" Is this really not some mythical era where people are made from mud, but modern society? Throwing away the body and creating a new one, even deleting and rebuilding an account requires system support! Is the captain going to say that humans have souls, and that...

Two ounces, and what about the Wild Soul and Soul?

“This is my method. In the battle against Gatanothor, I was turned to stone and sank with R'lyeh,” Aiba Yu’s words sent chills down Sosuke’s spine. “Then the power of Dark Lucifer and Solka went out of control, and the light of the giants sealed Gatanothor. I was reborn at that time.”

Aiba Yu's narration is always brief. No matter how magnificent the scene is, he can describe it in just a few words as if he were going downstairs to buy an ice pop and Dark Lucifer riding over on a shared bicycle to ask him how to get to the market.

Sōsuke carefully examined the man from head to toe, trying to discern whether the captain's body was formed from stone or was a 30-million-year-old fossil.

"What is the Dark Path? Who is Soluda? And who is Lulu?" The newbie, his head full of questions, felt like he'd just learned about linear equations in two variables and been dragged into a calculus class: "What does this have to do with the 'cannibalism' we just talked about?"

“The relationship is that if you’re not strong enough, you might just die and never have a chance to rebuild your body,” Aiba Yu replied. “Your previous question is a long story… Dark Lucifer, well, a mentally ill person who’s lived too long.” A doctor named Noah was trying to get him into a hospital for treatment.

He tried to explain in the easiest way possible: "Solka is not Soluda, he is... a good person, an Ultra Warrior. As for R'lyeh, it is an ancient city, the ruins of which are on the seabed of the South Pacific Ocean."

Sosuke barely managed to remember it, then asked, "If someone dies, they're dead. Is it the same as them?" Sosuke looked at the "alien beasts" surrounding him from all directions. Being surrounded by aliens piled up to the ceiling was really creepy. Fortunately, their movements were terrifyingly docile. Aiba Yu pushed away an outstretched arm once, and then no longer waved his hand within a meter of them.

“For each individual, actively approaching the mother is tantamount to accepting the fate of being devoured… Only the alien beasts have such thoughts. As humans, we would definitely want to get rid of the mother as soon as possible,” Aiba Yu said. “So they are already dead, in every sense of the word.”

Even the dumbest person should understand what Aiba Yu means. Sosuke looked around at the obedient "monsters". The alien skins piled up to form a wall and almost filled the entire space were actually people who had once lived.

Paradia said that the people being taken in were homeless, but Sosuke couldn't fully believe her—whose daughters and whose fathers were these unrecognizable faces?

"Why... What did we do wrong? Captain, these people, what have we done to offend the aliens?!" The docile nature of the "Alien Beasts" now seemed incredibly irritating to him; there was nothing more disgusting than this! Even if Earthlings unintentionally offended the aliens, what did that have to do with these civilians? If being weak is a crime, then come at TPC!

“There are many races of aliens, but just as most people don’t differentiate between them, some aliens don’t differentiate between ‘which Earthlings have offended them’,” Aiba Yu said. “Moreover, whether there is enmity or whether there is a desire to harm is irrelevant.”

“But these people, they…” Sosuke clenched his fists, making a cracking sound. “I want to take revenge on the aliens, to become stronger, I have to devour them, right?”

Aiba Yu didn't answer, only staring at him quietly. Sosuke, panting heavily, shouted, "I don't want to! Absolutely not! I'm not a monster! I'd rather stay home and be a lizardman! Even if I can never recover, I'd rather not be a man-eating monster!"

Sosuke's voice grew louder and louder until it was almost a roar. The "monsters" seemed to be frightened and shoved each other back half a step. Countless pairs of eyes rolled around, scrutinizing their "kind" who had suddenly roared from all angles.

But Aiba Yu's smile grew more and more pronounced. Sosuke stared with a ferocious expression. Aiba Yu raised his hand, and Sosuke hesitated for a moment before bending down and bringing his head closer. His hand then rested on the bone horn on the top of his head.

"Okay, I won't be a monster."

The silver flames circled around and then roared to life, like a blizzard of goose feathers, obscuring the entire white world.

The "Alien Beasts" let out another piercing cry, a mournful wail of those unable to return to their mother. Azure particles tumbled and danced in the vast roar, flames swept across, and the particles vanished. The Alien Beasts couldn't understand why any of their kind would refuse the nourishment needed to grow stronger; their scorched and disintegrating bodies heralded death. Thus, their wail slowly turned into a curse, like a raging sea. You are on a small boat, tossed and pounded by countless furious waves, storms and rain lashing your face, the roars of the deepest hell echoing in your ears.

They could only roar, the thin flames firmly separating the two people in the middle from the "alien beasts," as if they were from two different worlds.

Sosuke lowered his head and listened to his captain say softly, "Go back to TPC. You need to spend some time alone to adapt to the environment outside the Demon Realm until you can control yourself."

"Yeah, it's not like we've never gone hungry before."

"Pretty much," Aiba Yu smiled. "Don't worry about anything, I'll always be here. When you feel like giving up, just think..."

"You want to treat me to barbecue skewers after we get out?" Cangjie muttered. "Let me make this clear first, I don't eat grilled fish." It reminded him of the fish monster in the Demon Realm, which made him feel nauseous.

“It’s not me who invited you, it’s the entire air force celebrating your return,” Aiba Yu said. “Sousuke isn’t alone, his teammates in the air force are all waiting for him.”

"……team leader."