Ultraman: It turns out this is the easy mode.

In the Seth team's operations room, Cui Ming looked at the live footage sent by Kenichi on the screen, his fingers unconsciously tapping the table, his tone full of lingering fear: "I really didn't expect something like this to happen. The tectonic shift flipped Gaelan's eggs onto the school playground, and they just happened to hatch... Luckily, Kenichi reacted in time and prevented the kids from making a big fuss."

The operator next to him nodded in agreement: "Yes, if we had been any later, either the cubs would have been injured, or the children would have been frightened by the cubs' movements and caused chaos. Either way, it could have alerted Galan, who was still underground. If that guy really rushed out, we would be in big trouble."

“It’s more than just troublesome.” Cui Ming frowned, pulled up Galan’s data file, and the screen instantly displayed Galan’s various ability data, especially the attack method of “magma infusion,” which was highlighted in red. “Don’t forget, Galan is not a monster that acts alone. It lives in a family. Adult Galans guard the egg colony, and after the cubs hatch, they learn survival skills from the adults. If the cubs are in danger, they are very likely to attract the help of other adult Galans. When the whole family comes out together, even Ultraman will have a headache dealing with them.”

These words instantly made the atmosphere in the operations room tense.

Everyone knows that dealing with a single Gelan is troublesome enough—it can move through lava, its scales are as sharp as knives, its back horns can fire beams of light and be used as missiles, and most deadly of all is its tail; the lava filled with spikes can burn the internal organs of an enemy once injected into its body. Just thinking about this kind of attack sends chills down your spine, let alone actually facing it.

“That’s right. Who would like to fight an enemy that can fill your body with magma?” Misato leaned over to take a look at the data and couldn’t help but shudder. “Besides its fragile eyelids, Ran has almost no obvious weaknesses. If a few more adult individuals come along, attacking with beams, flames, and magma all at once, even an Ultra Warrior would have to be on guard at all times, and could be seriously injured if they are not careful.”

Cui Ming closed the data file and looked out the window at the fighter jet formation approaching the school: "So this time we must act quickly and decisively. First, we need to safely transfer the cubs deep underground, and at the same time monitor the movements of the Gelan family, trying our best not to let it notice anything unusual. Kenichi has already bought us time, and we can't afford to mess things up. If the entire Gelan family really mobilizes, not only will we be unable to protect the school, but the surrounding cities will also suffer."

Everyone nodded in unison—they were all too aware of the threat posed by Gelan, and they understood the key to this mission: not to eliminate him, but to appease and relocate him.

After all, when faced with a monster clan that can make even Ultraman struggle with its family power, a peaceful resolution is the best option. Once a battle is triggered, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The reason why Cui Ming never intended to use force against Galan from the beginning, and even specifically instructed his team members to "prioritize the transfer of cubs to avoid conflict," is actually quite simple—Galan is a native monster of Earth, and the relationship between humans and Earth monsters is no longer one of "either friend or foe," but rather a state of coexistence that is carefully maintained.

This coexistence is a tacit understanding gained after countless crises: humans no longer blindly regard all monsters as threats, and monsters mostly operate within their own territories, without actively harassing human cities.

Just as giant beasts in the mountains don't easily invade villages, and strange creatures in the deep sea don't capsize fishing boats without reason, Gelan's hibernation underground to protect its eggs is simply its survival instinct as an Earth creature, and it has never intended to be an enemy of humans. Cui Ming knows better than anyone that once this balance of coexistence is broken, if they attack Gelan today, more Earth monsters might attack humans out of fear tomorrow, and the resulting chain reaction would be far greater than the threat posed by a single Gelan. More importantly, Earth monsters are no longer simply "potential dangers" to humans; often, they are allies who need protection. Take Gelan, for example. It stores a large amount of magma heat energy within its body, while Ultraman—especially Ultra Warriors like Taro and Ace who are skilled in fire-based abilities—while capable of releasing high-temperature attacks, are extremely vulnerable to cold. Low-temperature environments would significantly weaken their combat power. Once, when monsters caused an ice storm in Antarctica, Ultraman Taro was almost unable to move in the low temperatures, and he only regained his fighting power and successfully defeated the enemy thanks to the heat energy provided by an underground monster.

Gelan happens to be a monster that can provide heat energy, and it is also afraid of the cold. This creates a wonderful "commonality" with Ultraman - in a sense, the two have long been implicit allies.

How could Cui Ming possibly attack an ally who could help Ultraman in a critical moment? If he were to kill Gelan because of a momentary misunderstanding, and Ultraman were to lose this potential source of thermal energy in the future when he encountered a low-temperature crisis, the consequences would be unimaginable.

"We're dealing with alien cosmic monsters and invaders, not these 'natives' born and raised on Earth," Cui Ming emphasized at the war council. "Galan didn't do anything wrong; it was just unlucky to encounter a tectonic shift. What we need to do is help it send its cubs back, not force it into becoming an enemy. Protecting our allies is also protecting ourselves."

With this in mind, the members of the Set team carefully surrounded the cubs, without using any offensive weapons. Instead, they prepared incubators that could simulate the underground environment. What they wanted to do was not to "eliminate the threat," but to "restore the balance of coexistence."

When it comes to the issue of human expansion, in today's Earth where monsters and humans coexist, there has long been an unwritten "survival rule"—want to expand into new territories? Sure, but only if you have the ability to deal with the local monsters.

If you can't even defeat the monsters that inhabit that land, and you still insist on forcing your way in and expanding, no one will help you. After all, monsters have a very strong sense of territory, and humans recklessly intruding disrupts the balance of coexistence. If you are eventually driven back by the monsters, or even suffer losses, you will have to bear the consequences yourself.

Don't expect the defense force to be mobilized for something like this—in the Seth team's operations room, Cui Ming had emphasized to his team members more than once: "Our mission is to fight against cosmic invaders and protect the Earth from being destroyed by external threats, not to help humanity fight with native monsters for territory."

That's absolutely true. The universe is far from peaceful right now. We just repelled a cosmic monster that tried to invade today, and tomorrow an alien fleet with advanced weapons might approach Earth. Who knows what new trouble the remnants of the Star Guides might cause the day after tomorrow.

The defense force's fighter jets, weapons, and personnel are constantly engaged with these "external threats," barely having time to catch their breath. How could they possibly have the energy to deal with the conflicts between human expansion and native monsters? (End of Chapter)