Chapter 19
It was a colossal thing whose edges could not be seen!
It had appeared just like that, without warning!
It blocked the strongest attack they had launched with the combined might of the entire Ultra civilization!
And it blocked their final hope!
At that moment, everyone fell silent.
On the monitor, they could not make out what had suddenly appeared and blocked their attack.
Nor did they know how this thing had appeared.
Because the Eye of Ultra simply could not take in the whole thing. It could not possibly see it all.
They could only dimly make out enormous rifts like mountain ranges and ravines, along with endless cracks stretching across the land.
Magnified, they were indeed mountains, gullies, and rifts, but on the Ultra Empire's screens, those mountains, rifts, and assorted patterns looked more like a person's-
Or rather, a god's palm lines!
It also resembled a new continent, or an impassable chasm!
An impassable chasm the Ultra Empire could never cross!
It stretched between Blue Star and that moon, brutally extinguishing the Ultra Empire's final hope.
The laser beam fired with the strength of the entire Ultra Empire carried terrifying might and the power to destroy everything, annihilating everything ahead of it.
This was the Ultra Empire's strongest strike, possessing the power to destroy a planet, even if it was only a moon, and the moon closest to their Blue Star at that.
The terrifying power scorched and distorted the air within five thousand meters of it.
Even the tiniest bacteria were destroyed by this terrifying power.
The vacuum shattered and all things warped, yet this terrifying force capable of destroying everything struck the impassable barrier that had appeared out of nowhere without stirring so much as a ripple.
After a long while, Ultra V staggered and collapsed to the ground. He knew the Ultra Empire was finished.
This time, it truly was finished!
Before this, he had kept comforting himself that all of this was merely coincidence, merely an accident, that the apocalypse was a god's trial for them.
Even though he himself did not believe those words, and had even told others that a terrifying existence was watching their Ultra civilization.
But how could he not have hoped deep down that all of it was merely his imagination?
When he learned of these things, or guessed at them, he had been like a gambler at heart.
He constantly warned others that gambling always ended in defeat, while constantly telling himself that their civilization had no hope left.
Because they could never possibly stand against that being!
Not long after Liu Dajun's appearance, when he first saw a portion of that existence through the Eye of Ultra, he had already known the answer.
Yet he had still taken the entire civilization as his stake and entered this gamble he was certain to lose.
Inwardly, he had prayed again and again that his guesses were wrong. But he had guessed correctly.
The god had truly never intended to let them pass this trial!
Nor would a civilization lasting more than a thousand years ever appear on this planet.
He knew he was finished, and the entire Ultra civilization was finished too.
He had lost his gamble, and the price was the entire Ultra civilization-eight billion lives!
Now she only hoped-only hoped that Zoffy and the others could find a new home and never return here!
This was Ultra V's final wish.
Ultra V's body fell heavily backward. Only then did those around him finally come to their senses and hurry forward to support him.
Cries rang out one after another through the Ultra Empire's highest laboratory.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
"Your Majesty, what's wrong? Someone, hurry! Someone, hurry! His Majesty has fainted..."
"Your Majesty..."
Yet Ultra V could no longer hear them.
Ultra V, who had occupied the Ultra Empire's throne for five hundred years, who had striven to excel all his life, led the Ultra Empire toward wealth and strength and up the heights of technology, sought to stake his life against heaven and lead his civilization into the future, had finally fallen.
Even as he died, he was still praying that Zoffy and the others could find a new home.
The impassable barrier that had appeared out of nowhere and blocked the Ultra Empire's strongest attack vanished.
Two pinpricks of starlight appeared in the sky. No, those were not stars, but meteors-or rather, a meteor shower.
That was not right either, because the meteors were growing larger and larger, trailing terrifying streams of flame as they rapidly descended upon Blue Star.
They broke through Blue Star's atmosphere, and the entire planet trembled!
Inside the laboratory, no one was paying attention to anything in the sky anymore.
The scene they had just witnessed had dealt them far too great a shock.
Besides, what good would paying attention do?
Could they possibly fight back?
They had already lost all hope when Ultra V chose to stake everything on blowing up the moon.
Perhaps there had never been any hope to begin with!
It was only that Ultra V had brought them hope time and again, making them feel there was hope, however little.
Only because Ultra V was there, only because he was the backbone of the entire Ultra Empire!
As long as he was there, the Ultra Empire's citizens would trust him unconditionally, because he was the hope of the entire Ultra Empire.
But now, the hope of the entire Ultra Empire had fallen.
And so, they had no hope left either.
Thunderous rumbling rang out incessantly above the Ultra Empire, and heaven and earth began trembling at that moment.
The meteor shower had merely appeared-the meteors had not even landed yet-and it had already altered the gravity of all Blue Star, sending terrifying tsunamis spreading in every direction.
The meteors trailing long tails of flame through the sky finally collided with the Ultra Empire's strongest defenses.
[Bang~]
The enormous meteor instantly shattered, exploding into fine dust that spread through the air.
Then came the second, the third, the fourth...
Most of the meteors did not strike the protective shield, instead crashing straight into Blue Star's surface, creating terrifying mushroom clouds and enormous impact craters.
Under these repeated meteor impacts, the continental plates also began deforming, fracturing, and shifting...
Groundwater gushed out, volcanoes erupted, seawater flowed backward, and smoke and dust swept across the land...
In mere moments, the sky was covered in dust, making this once azure planet look as though it had been veiled in brown.
Apart from the eighty-one fortresses still enveloped by the protective shield, the outside world had long since become a hell on earth.
Although most of the meteors had not struck the protective shield, tiny cracks still began appearing. Ten minutes later, under this endless, terrifying barrage, the shield began flickering.
Finally, with an explosive bang, the Ultra Empire's ultimate defensive system shattered.
But even so, all eighty-one protective compartments inside were also covered by defensive systems like the one outside.
They were not as powerful, however. After all, that outermost protective shield had drawn on all the power of the entire Ultra Empire.
The protective shields within the fortresses relied on nothing more than the hundred million citizens in each city.
One fortress after another was destroyed beneath the meteors, and the Aote citizens inside did not even let out a single wail.
All because they had given their entire contribution to the Ultra civilization.
They had locked themselves securely inside individual cultivation pods, and even in death, they did not know what had happened outside.
Terrifying, pitch-black monsters a thousand meters tall rose from enormous impact craters, stretching their immense bodies.
They were like the demon gods of this world, its destroyers!
They moved among the fortresses, pounding incessantly on those the meteors had not shattered.
Thousand-meter heights, terrifying strength, and sharp mouthparts destroyed everything.
The few remaining fortresses began fighting back, but the methods they had previously used against the Starry Sky Giant Mosquitoes seemed so powerless against these terrifying, thousand-meter-tall monsters.
Monster after monster rose from the deep craters, their numbers growing until they finally reached as many as six hundred.
They stood upon Blue Star like true demon gods!
Merely standing there, they exerted an incomparably terrifying pressure, let alone in such numbers.
One after another, fortresses that had escaped destruction by the meteors were torn apart under the monsters' attacks.
The Ultra Empire's imperial palace was now the last fortress in the entire Ultra Empire.
Its defenses were the strongest, but more and more monsters were gathering around it.
Countless people watched everything outside and succumbed to despair and collapse.
After learning of Ultra V's death, the researchers also completely lost the will to resist.
As some of the wisest people in the Ultra Empire, they now even seemed somewhat dazed and witless, the scene they had witnessed earlier still surfacing endlessly in their minds.
That terrifying palm, comparable to a continent-or rather, a planet.
In the starry sky, red lights flashed incessantly on the chests of the Giants of Light piloted by Zoffy and Original Ultraman.
The eighty-one seeds of the Ultra Empire originally under their leadership had now all fallen.
The corpses of Starry Sky Giant Mosquitoes and severed limbs of Giants of Light littered the starry sky.
"We won..."
Zoffy nodded, panting heavily. "Yes, but we also failed. Everyone else is dead, and the power we have left isn't nearly enough for us to find a new home.
"Even if we found a new home, the two of us alone couldn't reproduce."
"Then what do we do now?"
Zoffy slowly rose and looked toward that azure planet, which already seemed somewhat dim. "Since the mission has failed, let's go back. Better to return to our homeland than die out here."
Original Ultraman nodded. Without saying anything more, he flew straight toward Blue Star.
Looking at Blue Star, which had already been stained an earthy yellow, all he wanted now was to go faster, faster, and faster still!
He did not even have time to gather the bodies of the other Ultra Clan members they had brought out with them.
Deep down, perhaps he felt that as long as he returned a little faster, the Ultra civilization could still be saved.
The two flew in silence. Half an hour later, they had returned to Blue Star's region of space.
Just then, Original Ultraman said, "You go back. I can't make it back."
Hearing this, Zoffy abruptly turned his head, only to discover that the power indicator on Original Ultraman's chest had gone completely dark.
"Original Ultraman, Original Ultraman! How are you doing? Original Ultraman!"
The Giant of Light piloted by Original Ultraman did not respond, merely continuing to fly forward under the momentum of its earlier flight.
Watching this, Zoffy's eyes nearly split with anguish. They were already on their doorstep, already about to reach home, and this fellow had wanted to go home more than anyone.
But this fellow, this fellow had...
He wanted to bring Original Ultraman back. If he brought him back, perhaps he could still be saved. Perhaps, perhaps this guy's Giant of Light had merely run out of power. As long as its power was replenished, he could come back to life.
But after glancing at the remaining power of the Dark Tiga he piloted, he fell silent once again.
If he went back alone, perhaps he could still reach Blue Star.
But if he brought Original Ultraman along, there was a very good chance neither of them would make it back!
Finally, he shook his head sharply and flew toward Blue Star again.
After entering Blue Star, he saw smoke and dust filling the sky, ruined fortresses, terrifying giant beasts, and the Ultra Empire's royal capital, still barely holding on despite being besieged by hundreds of monsters.
After Zoffy entered Blue Star, Su Mo, who had been watching everything all along, took out a bucket of water. "The last fish to slip through the net has come back too. Now the world-destroying flood can begin!
"A promised world-destroying flood means a world-destroying flood. As the Creator God, I don't lie. Although I wasn't the one who said that, it doesn't really matter.
"Are you ready to welcome the world-destroying flood?"