Ultraman: It turns out this is the easy mode.

Suddenly, Misato's voice, clearly showing her discomfort, came through the communicator, accompanied by the howling sea wind and the coughs of her teammates: "Cui, you need to think of something right now! The smell at sea is so damn strong, the fishy stench is wafting right into our noses, and the team members can barely stand it!"

Cui Ming's knuckles turned white instantly as he gripped the communicator. His already grave expression darkened completely, and anger surged in his eyes. He abruptly stood up and kicked the coffee table leg, spilling most of the ice water from the glass. "The smell of the sea is so strong it's nauseating, and no one's called the police? What are the environmental protection departments here in Japan doing?!"

"Damn bastards! A bunch of absolute bastards!!!" he growled into the communicator, his voice filled with barely suppressed frustration. He had witnessed the local authorities' sluggishness when dealing with Ligadron before, but this time, with a marine ecological crisis at stake, they were still tolerating it to this extent—red tides produce seawater with a fishy, ​​foul odor, known in the industry as "stinky water." How could they possibly ignore such an obvious anomaly?
Miri was silent for a few seconds on the other end, then the sound of the testing equipment being turned over came through: "I had the team take water samples. At first glance, the seawater is tinged with a light red, somewhat like a red tide, but strangely, we can't detect any signals of harmful plankton gathering using Agul's power. Moreover, the dead fish are of a very mixed variety, not just farmed fish, but also wild sardines and mackerel."

Cui Ming's brows furrowed even more as his fingers rapidly typed on the computer, pulling up recent marine monitoring data from Japan. The news headlines that popped up on the screen stung his eyes—"7-kilometer dead fish belt appears off Hokkaido coast," "Red tide in Nagasaki kills millions of fish"—each vaguely overlapping with the timeline of the nuclear-contaminated water discharge. He gritted his teeth and said, "Could it be the nuclear-contaminated water causing this? Last year, after the Fukushima discharge, 110 million fish died in Nagasaki due to a red tide. Experts say that the discharge will deplete the seawater's oxygen and trigger red tides. This stench might be the smell of rotting fish carcasses mixed with algal blooms."

“But if it’s a red tide, I should be able to sense the energy fluctuations of the algal bloom.” Misato’s voice was filled with confusion. “And just now, the dissolved oxygen content in the water sample wasn’t low, so it doesn’t seem like a case of death due to lack of oxygen.”

Cui Ming's gaze swept over another document: a case of unexplained fish deaths had occurred in Florida, USA. Red tides and oxygen deprivation had been ruled out, and the cause was ultimately traced to ciguatera toxin produced by benthic algae. He immediately advised, "Don't just check plankton; look for traces of benthic algae, such as Gambian algae, and also test the carcasses for neurotoxins. Additionally, contact the TPC laboratory and expedite radioactive material testing, especially for strontium and plutonium."

"Understood!" Miri responded crisply, and then her instructions to arrange for team members to take samples came through the communicator.

Cui Ming put down the communicator and scratched his head in frustration. He dreaded situations like this where local authorities would hold him back—after the Nagasaki red tide outbreak, the government didn't announce the damage until two weeks later, focusing on compensation rather than investigating the cause. Who knew what they might be hiding this time? He opened his communication window with Sawai, his fingers tactilely pressing the keyboard: "Immediately contact the Japanese Ministry of the Environment and the Fisheries Agency. Tell them that TPC suspects harmful algal blooms or radioactive contamination in the sea area, and demand they immediately provide recent discharge records and water quality monitoring data. Any further delays will have consequences they can't afford!"

After sending the message, Cui Ming walked to the window and gazed at the gray sky in the distance. Even the sea breeze seemed to carry a faint, fishy stench. He couldn't help but mutter a curse under his breath: "This isn't India. Do they really have to turn this beautiful sea into a stinking ditch?"

A new notification suddenly popped up on the computer screen: photos from Misato showing the scene: layers upon layers of dead fish floating on the sea, the water tinged with an eerie pale brown, and a layer of slippery foam clinging to the rocks along the shore. Choi Myung zoomed in on the photos; the pungent, fishy stench seemed to waft out even through the screen—the smell was exactly like the "stinky water" of the red tide described in the documents. Yet Misato had said there was no algae accumulation, and this contradictory situation made his unease grow stronger.

"Whether it's a red tide or nuclear contamination, we must get to the bottom of this." Cui Ming sighed. This place really stinks. "If anyone dares to cover it up, I don't mind letting them taste this 'stinky water' too."

The static in the communicator suddenly decreased, and Misato's slightly urgent voice came through clearly, with the suppressed gasps of her teammates audible in the background: "Choi! We've found the source! There's a huge monster carcass on the shallows three kilometers from the shore, and that disgusting stench is coming from it!" Choi's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, immediately tightened again. He strode to the map, his finger emphatically pointing to the location on the shallows Misato had indicated: "Describe the carcass—its size, shape, and any distinctive features?"

“It was enormous, probably sixty meters long, covered in dark brown slime, and its skin was wrinkled like rotting tree bark,” Miri’s voice was clearly uncomfortable, as if she was still struggling to suppress the stench. “The strangest thing is that its body had already begun to rot, and the surrounding seawater was stained blackish-brown. Dead fish were almost all gathered around its carcass, as if they were attracted by something.”

Cui Ming's brows furrowed into a knot, his fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the map repeatedly. The sixty-meter-long corpse of the unknown monster continued to emit a foul stench, polluting the seawater. This was more troublesome than the "red tide" or "nuclear contamination" he had anticipated—natural pollution could be dealt with using technology, but no one knew what pathogens or toxic substances the rotting matter from the unknown monster might carry.

"Was there a close inspection? Were there any wounds on the body? Or any traces that could determine the time of death?"

His biggest worry now is whether the monster died of natural causes or was killed by some other, more powerful being. If it was the latter, is the thing that killed it still nearby?
“We didn’t dare get too close. The stench was too strong, and the slime looked dangerous. The team took a sample of seawater with a sampler, and the preliminary test showed that there were unknown microorganisms in it, which were multiplying rapidly,” Miri paused and added, “Judging from the degree of decay, it should have been dead for a while. But what’s strange is that when we checked the marine surveillance footage, we didn’t see any monster approaching here in the past few days. It’s like it suddenly appeared on the shallows.”

"Appeared suddenly?" Cui Ming paused, his hand gripping the communicator, and his tone suddenly turned somber.

This is even more bizarre—such a large monster carcass couldn't have appeared out of thin air on the shallows; it must have been washed ashore by the sea, or someone had deliberately placed it there. Either way, it carries an unusual air about it.

He immediately emphasized into the communicator: "Have the team members evacuate to a safe distance immediately and avoid contact with any suspicious seawater or slime. I will contact TPC's biological laboratory right away and have them send a professional testing team there. In addition, seal off that area of ​​water and prohibit any ships from approaching to prevent the spread of pollution."

"Understood!" Miri responded crisply, and then her voice came through the communicator, instructing the team to evacuate.

Cui Ming put down the communicator, leaned against the wall, and took a deep breath. His knuckles were still white from clenching his fists so tightly. He had initially thought it was just a simple environmental issue, but it had unexpectedly led to the discovery of the corpse of an unknown monster. Looking at the still-hot weather outside the window, a chill ran through him—just what kind of monster was this? Could its death be related to the previous dead fish incident? And what were Japan's environmental protection agencies and monitoring systems doing? How could such a huge hidden danger only be discovered when the corpse was rotting and stinking?
"Damn it, a bunch of paycheck thieves!" Cui Ming cursed under his breath, turning to walk towards the computer. He had to find out the monster's identity and the cause of its death as soon as possible; otherwise, if its decaying matter caused more serious marine pollution, the consequences would be unimaginable. He opened TPC's monster database, his fingers flying across the mouse, comparing the characteristics of known monsters one by one, but after searching for a long time, he couldn't find one that matched Misato's description. (End of Chapter)