Chapter 20
Zoffy watched everything before him, his eyes nearly splitting with rage. Mustering the last energy in his body, he plunged straight toward the Ultra Empire's last and only remaining fortress.
His enormous body carried an unstoppable momentum, and his dive whipped up a terrifying blast of wind, scattering some of the smoke and dust that had already blotted out the sky.
As he hurtled through the air at tremendous speed, deafening booms rang out one after another, like roars, like thunder.
In midair, Zoffy kept adjusting his direction to aim at the enemy, finally killing three ants outright with an Ultra Flying Kick.
[Boom!]
At the same time, the Dark Tiga Zoffy controlled finally slammed into the ground, gouging another enormous crater into Blue Star, which was already riddled with wounds.
The towering blast of wind from the impact sent dozens more ants flying, even killing several outright.
Zoffy wanted to get up again, but he had just exhausted every last bit of energy inside the Giant of Light.
He had finally returned to the Ultra Empire, just as he had wished.
But it seemed he could no longer hold on.
Inside the Ultra Empire's imperial city, the citizens who had already lost hope and were quietly awaiting death saw the Giant of Light descend from the sky, and the light of hope flared in their eyes once more.
Ultra V was already dead. In fact, fewer than a hundred million of them remained of the entire Ultra Civilization.
But it seemed they had also survived the world-ending calamity!
As long as-as long as they killed all these monsters, there really seemed to be hope for the Ultra Empire!
For a moment, this thought sprang into countless minds.
Before, when the Giant of Light had yet to return, they had harbored no such thoughts.
But things were different now. Although they still had only one Tiga, and he had already run out of energy, this was the Ultra Empire!
As long as Tiga and the others could buy some time, then, with the fortress's firepower and everyone united as one, they could destroy these monsters and win victory for the Ultra Empire!
They would have survived the millennial world-ending calamity. Then they would have endless time and would never again need to fear the threat of annihilation.
For a moment, the hearts of everyone in the Ultra Empire burned with fervor.
As the first ball of energy floated out of an Ultra Empire citizen's third eye, countless glowing balls of energy swiftly poured into Dark Tiga, without anyone needing to say a word.
Under the radiance of this energy, Dark Tiga's body even erupted with dazzling light.
At that moment, he shone even brighter than Glitter Tiga!
Zoffy, who had already lain down in the cockpit to await death, suddenly discovered that the energy light on Tiga's chest had lit up again.
In an instant, he understood everything. Without the slightest hesitation, he sprang to his feet with a kip-up, throwing off two ants that had climbed onto him.
At that moment, Zoffy felt incomparably powerful, stronger than ever before!
At the same time, a mountain of pressure weighed on his chest!
Because he was the last hope of the entire Ultra Civilization!
And his opponents were over three hundred monsters nearly his own size, with hard armor and tremendous strength!
But this time, he had to win!
Because he bore the hopes of everyone in an entire civilization!
He had already disappointed Ultra V once. Now, he could not disappoint everyone else too!
Out among the stars, Su Mo, who had already been about to unleash the world-ending flood, froze at the sight.
These fellows had some tenacious faith.
But since you want to play, I'll play with you a little longer.
With that thought, Su Mo stopped what he was doing and instead watched the show with relish.
Ultraman fighting little monsters. No, this should count as a monster army invading the Land of Aote.
I just wonder whether this Tiga can beat so many monsters.
If he loses, that's fine. But if he wins, would unleashing a world-ending flood while they celebrate be bullying them a little too much?
Forget it, forget it. Never mind. I'll watch the show first.
[Kill!!!]
Zoffy let out a furious roar, drawing over all the ant monsters attacking the fortress.
In an instant, more than three hundred terrifying beasts, each a thousand meters tall, charged toward Zoffy.
Facing this sight, Zoffy showed no fear whatsoever. He traced a semicircle in the air with both hands, then crossed his arms into a cross.
[Boom!]
A terrifying torrent of energy blasted toward the monster army ahead, carrying the might to destroy everything.
[Bang, bang, bang~]
Wherever the Ultra Beam passed, giant ants exploded in an instant.
In a single exchange, Zoffy instantly killed over thirty giant ants!
After unleashing that ultimate move, Zoffy did not hesitate in the slightest, charging into the monster army with another Ultra Flying Kick.
[Boom!]
Three ants exploded under Zoffy's kick.
What followed was an unparalleled battle of Zoffy alone against two hundred.
However, both Ultraman and the ants were enormous. Although it was described as Zoffy fighting three hundred alone, he actually only had to face a dozen or so ants at a time.
Although each one was roughly Tiga's size, neither Tiga's internal combat systems and weapons, nor Zoffy's years of training, nor the conviction in his heart at that moment allowed him to retreat even a step.
Although the ant monsters were enormous, they had no intelligence at all. The only reason they had looked this way when Zoffy shouted "kill" was that Su Mo was controlling them behind the scenes.
Otherwise, these ants would not even have bothered with him.
If an ordinary person faced two hundred burly men his own size, even if he could fight ten at once, he would eventually die of exhaustion.
But as long as Tiga had energy, he could keep going.
That was also what gave Zoffy the confidence to charge straight into the swarm of monsters.
Zoffy punched through an ant's head. The headless ant still clung tightly to one of his arms, only to be kicked away.
The ant that had lost its head blundered around like a headless ant-uh, not like one, but as an actual headless ant.
It even collided with several of its own kind before they kicked it away. Even so, the headless ant continued crawling around on the ground for a while before finally going still.
Like a man possessed, Zoffy kept punching and kicking, firing his weapons the moment their cooldowns ended or they finished charging.
Again and again, as though he knew no fatigue, he was even tackled to the ground by a dozen or so ants several times.
Or the ants rammed him and sent him flying, but every time, he climbed back up with strength and tenacity.
Su Mo pulled a chair out of the cosmos and watched the battle below with relish.
This was far more entertaining and blood-pumping than scrolling through videos of pretty girls on his phone.
He watched the steadily dwindling ant monsters on Blue Star, and Zoffy, who was already gravely wounded yet still holding on.
Su Mo rubbed his chin, wondering what expressions these people would wear if, just as they were cheering after painstakingly killing the entire ant army, the world-ending flood suddenly descended from the sky.
I'm really looking forward to that.
At this thought, Su Mo's expression suddenly froze.
Wait, I'm a creator god. How can I have such evil thoughts?
As time slowly passed, the ants bit off one of Tiga's legs. Yet through Zoffy's reckless fighting and frantic use of energy attacks, after blasting apart another ant's head, he looked around and could no longer see a single ant.
There were only enormous ant corpses and a ruined fortress.
The protective barrier around the Ultra Empire's royal city had also shattered at some unknown point.
Although the people inside had hidden themselves away long before, there were still widespread casualties.
"We... won!"
A cheer rang out from somewhere, and the entire City of Ultra suddenly erupted in earth-shaking cheers.
Those cheers were mingled with joy, jubilation, and sorrow.
Of the Ultra Empire's 8.1 billion subjects, fewer than ten million remained. How tragic that was.
One citizen after another rushed out of their shelters, tears on their faces, running about and telling one another that they had won.
They cheered ceaselessly, venting the emotions in their hearts.
Zoffy tilted his head toward the sky and seemed to see Ultra V smiling and nodding at him. "You did it. You saved the entire Ultra Empire. You preserved our Ultra Civilization. I'm proud of you!"
He also seemed to see Liu Dajun giving him a thumbs-up. "This is the highest honor we give someone when praising them back where we're from!"
Original Ultraman nodded gently at him. "I knew you could do it..."
At that moment, Zoffy merely felt a little tired. Then the Giant of Light's body collapsed heavily onto the ground.
Watching the cheers below, Su Mo rose from his reclining chair with a smile. "It's over? Good. Then let me wrap things up. It's time to end this, too. The world-ending flood you've been thinking about for seven hundred years is here. Are you ready?"
As Su Mo's words fell, a bucket of water tipped toward Blue Star under his control.
The terrifying flood descended from the sky. Terrifying droplets struck the ground, gouging enormous pits no smaller than meteor craters.
The immense flow swept away mountaintop after mountaintop, turning into a mudslide capable of destroying and engulfing everything.
Zoffy was awakened by the noise around him. At some point, the cheers had turned into screams, and peals of rumbling thunder came from the sky.
By the time Zoffy opened his eyes again, the water had already submerged most of his body.
He tried to make Tiga spring up, forgetting that one of Tiga's legs had already been bitten off by the ants.
The terrifying flood descended from the sky, and even the air, polluted by countless clouds of smoke and dust, became much cleaner at that moment.
But there was only despair in Zoffy's eyes.
The world-ending flood had arrived!
The world-ending flood they had been thinking about all this time had come.
But it was nothing like what they had imagined!
"No, this isn't how it was supposed to be! None of this is!
Why is there still a flood? Why!"
"Didn't we... didn't we already pass the test?
Why is this happening?
We clearly worked so hard!
We... we prepared for seven hundred years!
Why? Why are you doing this to us!"
Zoffy shouted, hurling question after question at heaven and earth. All that answered him was the ever more ferocious flood and mudslides.
With difficulty, he controlled the one-legged Tiga, staggering upright in the great flood.
He wanted to pull up the ordinary people swept away by the flood, but now he could barely keep his own footing in the water, much less save anyone.
"You damned heavens, answer me! Why are you doing this to us?
God, come out! I know, I know you've been here all along! You've been watching us all this time!
Come out! Come out!!!"