Chapter 100: All Is Ready, Only the Final Breeze Is Missing

A tsunami struck the coastline of the Heli Xu region in the Americas, and magic appeared.

In a very short time, the news spread across the entire world.

People everywhere who had once envied China were suddenly aflame with excitement.

So it had not been China alone that had won Ultraman’s favor; in other countries, among other peoples, there were chosen ones too.

In an instant, the Heli Xu region drew the attention of countless eyes. Teams dispatched by various nations set out directly to investigate the area, while countries and wealthy magnates openly declared that they were willing to speak intimately with the sages who had received Ultraman’s guidance. Whatever they possessed, whatever demands were made, all could be granted.

Yet no matter how great the commotion became, there was no response at all, just as with the sages on the Chinese side, as if they were utterly indifferent.

This, too, was understandable to every nation.

After all, how could mortal things ever catch the eye of those people? They had inherited extraordinary power, so what could they possibly lack? What they desired must surely be things no country dared even imagine: immortality, for instance, or might beyond all measure.

But how could the nations be willing to resign themselves to that?

An opportunity like this, one that granted transcendent power without going through the House of Earth, was exactly why those thirty-six people were the best possible choice.

And yet, over the next month, all sorts of extraordinary powers with no trace of Chinese style began appearing one after another around the world.

Such as battle qi.

An old foreigner who looked honest and harmless raised a wooden staff and burst forth with a beam of light a hundred yards long, pulverizing a massive falling boulder into dust.

Or in a certain stretch of tropical rainforest, countless snakes appeared in dense, writhing swarms. These snakes were actually under the command of a Black man, and they came and went so quickly that no one could trace their origin.

Then came Japan.

The Tsuburaya clan, dozens of descendants in all, had already had several people beaten to death, and yet they still kept their mouths shut, refusing to say anything.

But while the interrogations there were still using every brutal method available, on one street in Japan a terrifying scene unfolded: dozens of street thugs were cut down one by one by a single blade, slaughtered to the last man.

There were cameras on that street, and the footage captured everything in perfect clarity.

That swordsman looked like one of the legendary Japanese blade masters: swift as lightning, his swordplay ferocious, and he even seemed to know ninjutsu, able to leap three or four meters into the air and five or six meters through space.

In front of him, those dozens of hooligans were no different from watermelons, all mercilessly split apart.

The incident caused a huge sensation, yet the truth of it left everyone silent.

It was a case of school bullying.

An innocent young girl had been tormented at school and even dragged out and gang-raped. Unable to endure the humiliation, she jumped from a building and took her own life.

But her family was ordinary, with nowhere to turn and no way to seek justice, and they lived in misery and anguish day after day.

The people killed by the swordsman were those who had bullied the girl. Though some of them had not directly taken part, each of them had other crimes to answer for.

After this happened, schools all over Japan changed overnight. No matter how arrogant someone had once been, at that moment they all turned into meek little quails, not daring to so much as fart. Some, in their fear, even withdrew from school altogether.

It was too terrifying.

The flashing blade, the severed bodies, the scene left almost no intact remains.

In an age that had been almost entirely removed from war, such a gruesome scene appearing in reality was enough to make anyone who fancied himself fierce and formidable shrink back and live with care.

But for most of Japan, it was deeply heartening.

Because their nation truly possessed extraordinary power.

A single man and a single blade, cutting down dozens of people with ease, and who could say that this was not supernatural?

Though it was not as astonishing as the magical power in the Americas that could stop a tsunami.

But who could be certain that the swordsman was the most powerful of them all?

After all, the swordsman seen in the video was very young, seeming to be no more than in his early thirties. Compared with the old men in the Americas, that was a difference of several decades.

Perhaps he was a second generation, or even a third generation, inheritor of that extraordinary legacy.

Then came the investigation into his identity.

When the results came back, the people who had been torturing the Tsuburaya clan for more than a month were so furious they nearly burst with rage.

So they still dared claim their clan had no transcendent power.

What the hell was this?

The face of that extraordinary swordsman was identical to that of a descendant of the Tsuburaya clan who had vanished more than ten years earlier.

Back then, he had disappeared while climbing a mountain, and not even a body had been found. Everyone had said he had been dragged off by wild beasts.

But now, looking at it again.

Damn it, what wild beasts? He had clearly hidden away to cultivate.

Perhaps he had begun cultivating from the very moment he vanished. In just over a decade, he had become this formidable.

If he had cultivated for several decades, he probably would not need to go through all this trouble to kill dozens of people; one stroke would be enough.

The legendary ninja of our great Japan truly exist. In the name of Amaterasu, this was simply the best news of the entire period.

And in China, Zhang Kai watched the developments in Japan and revealed a strange smile.

Naturally, this young man was Zhang Kai, and the reason he had deliberately chosen the image of one of the Tsuburaya clan’s missing descendants was to strengthen the impression that Ultraman truly existed, and that he had already appeared on Earth long ago as proof.

Even Zhang Kai had not expected this.

Because of that decision.

The Tsuburaya clan, imprisoned as they were, felt rage, grief, and sorrow all at once, emotions tangled into a single torrent as they howled in despair.

Our ancestors, we ordinary people are also descendants too. Why choose only a few of us to inherit it? Even if you did not choose us, you could at least have told us.

Those several deaths were far too unjust, far too unjust!

And the parents, younger brother, younger sister, nephews, and nieces of that Tsuburaya descendant immediately received the very best treatment. They were freed from confinement, attended with every possible care, and even the Prime Minister and the Emperor personally came to visit them, offering concern and kindness. The gulf in treatment left the whole family dazed, yet thrilled beyond measure.

With Zhang Kai stirring up trouble everywhere in this way.

At last, the chosen directors had all prepared their scripts.

Each one was brimming with confidence.

Because these were the crystallized wisdom of countless elite minds gathered from many countries.

Most of all, every nation declared that money was no object. Go all out, spend whatever it takes, and as long as the work was good, they would pay any amount.

This would absolutely produce a martial arts drama that surpassed every television series ever made.

And under Zhang Kai’s arrangement, the Flood Dragon began the second round of evaluations.

Unexpectedly, every one of them was excellent. The settings were rich and full. Even from the scripts alone, it was clear that these would be outstanding productions.

What was more, every series had followed the requirements and fully brought out the importance of martial cultivation. Yet this also opened the storylines wide, with a minimum of one hundred episodes and no upper limit set.

After seeing them, Zhang Kai made the decision at once: all of them would be filmed. He would let each country show what it could do. As long as the result was good, the rewards could be issued in multiple copies. The best and most widely recognized work would receive double the reward, along with the right to choose other assignments.

Once the news spread, the nations were overjoyed.

At the same time as they breathed a sigh of relief, they also informed the directors and everyone involved that whatever they wanted would be granted, but under no circumstances could they fail the third evaluation. They had to outdo every other director, seize the first prize, and strive to win a second chance at cooperation with the Ultraman clan.

And the happiest of all were, of course, the onlookers across the globe.

During this period, they had been bombarded in turn by all sorts of experts, and their curiosity had long since been stretched to breaking point. They were impatient beyond measure.

They all looked forward to seeing just what kind of martial path the Ultraman clan would offer, and which one would suit them best, which one they would like most.

And in the shadows, Zhang Kai was even more satisfied.

After all those shameless maneuvers, the fish had already fixed its eyes on the bait. All that remained was for it to bite.

The loan plan had already succeeded by more than half. Before long, he would become the creditor of all humanity, binding the entire species to his own ship as they sailed together toward an unknowable future.