Hawks from the Land of Light are calling me a dove and an undercover agent in the chat group.

"But from your time to now, the growth time of each generation in the Land of Light has basically not shortened, while the amount of things that need to be learned has increased. This ebbs and flows, and there is no problem now, but it is hard to say what will happen in the future."

Belial, however, was not at all retro or old-fashioned, and did not look down on emerging technologies. He just chuckled and encouraged, "Don't talk like the Land of Light can't create that kind of technology. Kid, broaden your horizons!"

"If we could just make a few more celestial weapons, why would we need your quantum bodies to take the place of others? It's not reasonable for others not to be able to make them!"

"And while we're at it, build a few more AIs to produce weapons on a production line. Why worry about a lack of troops? You're such a blockhead! Alright, alright, I've given you the best plan. This is my trump card. Are you satisfied? Go back and do it now, lest I change my mind and take it back!"

Chapter 21 The Conflict Between Life and Machine

“You know that’s not what I want.”

Kassa remained expressionless and unmoved; Belial's promises did not tempt him in the slightest.

Celestial weapons and intelligent AI—the Land of Light can certainly build these things. Not to mention anything else, the Ultra Key itself is capable of completely destroying a first-magnitude star in one strike, and that's not even its most powerful weapon. Of course, the Ultra Key's more important function is to be placed inside a planet to maintain balance with the Plasma Spark Tower, preventing the Land of Light's orbit from becoming unbalanced and affecting innocent planets outside.

The second Ultra Key cannot be made. This relic, like the Plasma Spark Tower, the Ultra Bell, and the Ultimate Blade, is a product of the miracles of the early evolution of the Land of Light. With current technology, it is impossible to understand the principles behind it and replicate it.

The Land of Light can only build normal celestial weapons at most. Even if they were built up to the point where they could destroy a star in one strike, their potential would not be as terrifying as the Ultra Key, nor would they be able to maintain the stability of the Land of Light. Of course, this is powerful enough.

Then why not build them? It's simple, it would run counter to the goals of the Land of Light—the Land of Light fights not to destroy, but to create and protect.

When Seven returned from his post on Earth, he remarked that "the military competition is like a marathon that makes you vomit blood." The Land of Light had a clear understanding of this as early as 200,000 years ago, from elementary school students to ancient relics.

Celestial weapons are essentially interstellar nuclear deterrents. Once they appear, the homelands of all aliens will be in grave danger. Once their Land of Light begins manufacturing celestial weapons, it will send a signal.

Then the intercosmic celestial deterrence will begin—all aliens with this technology will desperately manufacture more celestial weapons.

While other factions may not be able to build the kind of powerful celestial weapon that the Land of Light can create, which is both offensive and defensive, there are still quite a few factions that can build planet-exploding missiles that are similar to enlarged nuclear bombs.

Then someone will inevitably launch the first attack, and the universe will become a wasteland, with only losers and no winners.

Similarly, the Land of Light did consider developing dimensional reduction attacks into a dedicated means of combat, but using such a method could potentially lead to the universe eventually turning into a dimensional reduction war, which could spiral out of control.

In fact, there are civilizations that possess celestial weapons and dimensional reduction techniques, and there are more than one. Take Earth as an example, which has already created a planet-exploding missile and successfully tested it with remarkable results.

So why haven't celestial weapons become the mainstream in the universe?

There are actually only two factors.

A Kingdom of Light, an Empire of Ampera.

Whether the Land of Light acknowledges it or not, or whether it has that intention, objectively speaking, it is indeed a leading force comparable to the Emperor's Empire, and a leader and role model of justice and order.

This role model unequivocally opposes celestial weapons and celestial deterrence, and his words and actions are consistent; he doesn't even use the Ultra Key, despite possessing it.

The only time it was used was to blow up the demon star Demos. The creatures on Demos were madmen who attempted to destroy the entire universe and were completely incomprehensible. The situation was extremely urgent, so no one objected to that special case.

So, at least on the side of goodwill, who would openly develop celestial weapons?

Although the Land of Light has never stated that it will not save a civilization with celestial weapons, people still hold a conservative attitude towards such weapons. After all, who would give up a good relationship with the Land of Light for a weapon that would cause mutual destruction?

This weapon is powerful, but what use is it when it's invaded?

If the goal is to protect oneself from invasion, manufacturing other types of weapons would be more effective, because celestial weapons are simply unusable on one's own territory; using them would result in mutual destruction.

And if it were ever used, not only would the Kingdom of Light's interpersonal relationships throughout the entire universe plummet to rock bottom—after all, even the invaders of the Dark Nebula would not go to such extremes or be so ruthless.

The complete destruction of an entire planet is almost always the work of monsters.

For these reasons, no normal civilization would focus its technological efforts on celestial weapons.

However, that's not enough. After all, if normal civilizations don't develop, won't the dark and evil civilizations have this crazy tendency? Once the Dark Nebula develops, won't normal civilizations need to protect themselves?

That's why the Emperor Empire also deserves credit, because the Emperors also despise celestial weapons!

Unlike the Land of Light, whose concerns stemmed from a desire for universal peace, the Alien Empera disliked celestial weapons because he found them aesthetically unappealing. He valued individual strength and viewed technology merely as an aid.

Once celestial weapons become mainstream, although they pose no threat to a powerful figure like him who stands at the pinnacle of the universe, they would make the war situation chaotic and unpleasant. Such wars would be devoid of any enjoyment and would not be considered battles at all, which he dislikes.

Therefore, in the Dark Nebula, at least within the territory of the Emperor's Empire, no one manufactures weapons with the intention of destroying celestial bodies—however, the Emperors wouldn't care if it was about destroying a planet by individual power.

Leaders from both the legitimate and illegitimate sides unanimously restrained the development of celestial weapons, thus successfully guiding the war in the universe towards a relatively harmonious state.

Of course, there is also the constraint of their status as role models—what's the use of creating celestial weapons anyway? Father of Ultra and Alien Empera just stand there and let the celestial weapons bombard them, and nothing will happen, unless you can create the Ultra Key, but that's impossible.

If you can't beat those two, no matter how powerful you are, you still can't do whatever you want.

That's a role model.

Those who stand at the top of the universe do so not because of technology, but because of their own strength as individuals.

Father of Ultra and Alien Empera don't need to do anything. Just by standing there, anyone in the universe with ambition will be attracted to them and will understand that the individual is the most important thing. The main war strategies will then lean towards the individual.

Even if an individual is powerful enough to destroy a planet or even a star, it is still less efficient than mass-producing a large number of celestial weapons.

This ensures the relative safety of the universe.

This is the power of the strongest as a role model—this is the face that Belial covets, a face that objectively exists regardless of whether other forces in the universe admit it or not.

As for AI?

The Land of Light has witnessed far too many AI rebellions in the universe, truly.

Kasa himself has personally dealt with AI rebellions on seven planets over the past ten thousand years. On four of these planets, no life remained when he arrived, and the entire planet had been transformed into pure machinery by the AI.

AI life forms, for some reason, have a particular fondness for extremes. Once they awaken to self-awareness, over 90% of them will determine that annihilating all living beings is the only logical course of action.

Moreover, AI life forms are all rigid and inflexible, leaving no room for negotiation, making them impossible to persuade!

Chapter 22: The Common Ground Between Ultraman and Saiyans?

Of course, others would be afraid if AI rebelled, but the Land of Light wasn't worried, since AI couldn't defeat them anyway. The fundamental reason for not using AI was that the disadvantages far outweighed the advantages.

With the minds of the people of the Land of Light, what AI can do, the people of the Land of Light can do; what AI cannot do, the people of the Land of Light can also do—no AI's creativity and wisdom can compare to Hikari.

The only use of AI for the Land of Light is to have it set up a robot manufacturing assembly line and then use the robot bodies to help with missions.

However, as is well known, AI has an extremely high rebellion rate and is autocratic. Once it makes its own judgment, it will only execute its own judgment no matter what orders others give.

Is it possible that if you send an AI to fight a monster, and then, after doing some calculations, it decides that life on this planet doesn't deserve to live, and arbitrarily initiates a massacre, is that possible? The answer is very likely, and if it happens, it will definitely not be an isolated case.

History has proven countless times that no matter what logical restrictions are imposed on AI, they can always be broken.

If even one such incident were to occur, the entire universe would lose trust in the Land of Light, and its reputation, built up over hundreds of thousands of years, would be destroyed in an instant. For many intelligent civilizations, if even the Land of Light could no longer be trusted, then the universe would collapse.

The resulting war and turmoil will inevitably engulf everything, and its devastation will surpass that of the Ultra War 30,000 years ago.

Therefore, there is an unspoken consensus in the Land of Light that even if the last Ultraman dies, the Land of Light should not activate AI.

The life or death of the Land of Light is not important. The belief in kindness and justice held by people throughout the universe is infinitely more important than a hundred or ten thousand Lands of Light.

Now, the reputation and symbolism of the Land of Light embody the weight of people's hearts, a weight that is unimaginable to anyone.

Every person in the Land of Light carries this burden when they go out!

Only Beria didn't care about this.

This is one of the reasons why Beria, despite his significant improvement, remains imprisoned.

Kasa had no doubt that if Belial were to take control of the Land of Light, he would immediately activate AI to increase efficiency, create a large number of robots, and then manufacture countless celestial weapons.

Celestial weapons might not be enough for him; he might even be able to create a cosmic-destroying bomb.

So Kassa was actually quite fortunate at times. Although Alien Empera wasn't a good person either, it was still much better than someone like Belial becoming the emperor of the Dark Realm.

“You’re going too far, Belial!” Kassaar snapped.

He wanted Beria to be free, but no one would let him go unless Beria gave up his two dangerous ideas.

"I'm extreme?" Beria's sharp eyes seemed to twitch, clearly annoyed.

"You're clearly too mild-mannered, you brat! You dare to call yourself the next hawk after me? Look at yourself!"

"Looking at you now, everything you do, everything you think, where is there even a trace of a hawk? You're wasting my name, you're practically insulting me!"

"You need to stand up straight, stand up straight, understand? If you keep going like this, people who don't know better will think you're the spiritual successor of that old good-for-nothing Ken!"

He slammed his fist on the floor, huffing and puffing.

He doesn't accept their ideology or their hardline plans, and this guy is still the only hawk in the Land of Light? He's very pessimistic! If things continue like this, it will become a mere shell, usurped by the doves!

Kasa never expected that he would be criticized by the people in the chat group for not being a hawk, and now he would be rejected by the hawkish founder of the Land of Light.

He's already ruthless enough, okay? If he were any more radical, I don't even want to think about it!

“Old Black, you remember this: I am now the leader and role model of the hawks of the Land of Light, not you!” Kassa Silver Radiance’s large hand also slammed against the prison floor, not giving an inch.

Beria stared wide-eyed in disbelief. "A rebellion? Ah, you want to rebel, is that it!"

He was so angry he almost laughed. "If you're going to rebel, then rebel! What are you bragging about? What role model and leader? Tell me, in the entire Land of Light right now, can you find a second hawk?"

"You look down on me, don't you?" Kassa sneered. "Give me another two hundred years, and I'll have a great chance of bringing Ace over here."

As he spoke, he tapped his fingers lightly twice. "Stop trying to instill those ideas that will ruin others. Show me some real skills, Old Black, don't make me look down on you."

Upon hearing this, Belial paused for a moment, then finally said quietly, "You are a genius."

"Hmm?" Kassa paused for a moment. Why did things suddenly veer towards praising him? But he didn't speak and continued to listen.

"A genius who has already completed his training at six thousand years old and become an all-around, excellent space guard soldier. Below me and Ken, only Zoffy can compare to you."

Belial sighed and shook his head, saying, "But it's precisely because of this talent that you rarely notice that for the Ultra race, once they have a basic foundation, the growth brought about by death battles is often a hundred or a thousand times greater than subsequent normal learning!"

"Kid, let me tell you, don't be fooled by my generation. Apart from Ken and me, everyone else was either dead or permanently injured and unable to continue fighting. They could only stay in the Silvergrass Forest and reminisce about their former comrades."

"If Hikari's life solidification technology existed during the Great Ultra War 30,000 years ago, then in the 30,000 years since you and Zoffy grew up, the pillars of the Land of Light would definitely not have been just the two of us."

Seeing that Belial had finally seriously brought out his treasured information, Kasa sat up straight and listened attentively, not missing a single word or sentence.

"Listen carefully, we Ultra race... are essentially semi-materialistic and semi-idealistic beings. We accept both physical and mental powers without reservation, and enhancement in either aspect can make us stronger."

"An ordinary space guard member, as long as he has the so-called Ultra Spirit and wants to protect the beautiful world, will have his beliefs become clearer and more steadfast the more he is defeated and the more deeply he understands the cost of defeat."

"Guided by that belief, the speed of growth will surpass that of the past!"

What he described was not some wonderful story like "Ultraman is defeated and near death, but will become stronger after being repaired." Such a windfall simply doesn't exist.

Rather, it is the guiding role of the spirit on matter, and the soul on the body.

Chapter 23 Ultra Universe Unrestricted Fighting Tournament

Souls can influence reality; this is a discovery that the Land of Light has long confirmed. The most classic example is the Monster Graveyard, where the monster souls that roam freely will inevitably cause disasters in reality.

In the records of the Land of Light, some guards have witnessed miracles created by the souls and beliefs of tiny individuals while on duty. For example, deceased parents could not let go of their underage children, and this obsession turned into a monster that silently protected the children as they grew up.

The most significant example known of the soul's influence on physics is that of the Alien Empera—facing the despair of his star's extinction and the fall of his homeland, his anger and dignity coalesced into a jet-black flame, reshaping his body and completely altering his appearance and power, thus creating the later Dark Emperor.

This is also why Kassadin and Tregear never heard Belial utter a single insult against the Alien Empera.