Great, we're doomed now!

Eight-Tails abruptly stood up, his chair sliding backward with a screeching sound: "Where did this virus come from? This system should be independent, unless it's an attack from within TPC, and speaking of permissions... I've never heard of the highest—"

snort~

The door to the command center slid open, interrupting Yao Meifan, and Sawai Soichiro, who held multiple positions at the United Nations and TPC, walked in.

He was dressed in a dark uniform, his face expressionless, but his steady gait showed that he was not flustered. His gaze swept quickly across the room before settling on the Eight-Tails.

“Doctor,” Sawai said, “calm down first, let the system firewall do a self-check.”

"Director, the area around Mars' orbit is now a complete blind spot!"

The last signal from Asuka and the prototype before their disappearance is right there. There are still many mysteries in space. If something happens to him, we must—”

“I know.” Sawai’s tone was calm but contained strength, which shut Dr. Yao’s mouth.

"That's why we can't act rashly."

Pack all relevant data and hand it over to the cybersecurity department. From now on, they will be responsible for restoring the monitoring system.

"Cybersecurity Department?"

Eight-tailed Fox paused for a moment, then slowly sat down. Although he found it hard to accept, he couldn't think of a better solution either.

"...Could you please have them restore the system to normal as soon as possible? Every second is precious right now!"

"Definitely."

Sawai patted him on the shoulder, her tone softening: "Relax. We were all surprised by what happened to Asuka, but we can't afford to panic, especially in situations like this. You've done a fantastic job. The rest... let the professionals handle it."

"Ok."

Yai stared at the gray area on the screen that represented "unobservable," and clenched his fist: "If Unit 00's life support system is functioning normally, it has about a month... I hope Mr. Asuka can hold on until we find him."

"Yes."

A young man remarked, "The prototype is worth 30 billion US dollars, which is far more than the compensation. Even if the pilot is in trouble, at least we should find 00... This will definitely delay the progress."

"..."

The atmosphere in the room subtly changed. The young man belatedly looked around and found that the older people were looking at him with very complicated expressions, and Dr. Yao was even more serious.

"You...you're saying this—"

"Ugh!"

When the Eight-Tails walked over, its imposing aura almost made him think he was about to get beaten up!

However, Sawai stopped Yai. This man, whose hair had recently grown thicker and who looked much more energetic, did not reprimand the young man. Instead, he walked to the observation window, placed his hands on the valuable instruments, each costing at least a million, and calmly looked at the empty hangar outside before speaking—

He wasn't looking at anyone, yet it was as if he was speaking to everyone.

"The Magus prototype was indeed extremely expensive. In fact, the entire project involved an investment comparable to the defense budget, which is not a small amount even for TPC."

If the Far East headquarters under construction and various new fighter jets are also included, the figure becomes an astronomical one that no major power could support alone.

So why should we spend so much money to build TPC?

He posed a question, but instead of asking anyone else to answer, he said to himself, "For all mankind? For world peace? For the future of the earth?"

Everyone understands the principle, but no matter what, it is still an abstract concept that cannot be touched or seen.

If resources can be used at will under the banner of 'righteousness,' sacrificing the time, energy, and even lives of others, then the foundation of such justice is bound to be fragile.

If one day we take "necessary costs" for granted, then TPC will have no reason to exist—because from a utilitarian point of view, this organization could not have been established in the first place!

We cannot avoid sacrifices, just as funds cannot be completely free of waste, but at the very least, we should cherish what we have access to and do our best to minimize sacrifices.

He turned around, looked at the frightened young man with utmost seriousness, and gave him a gentle smile.

Every life matters – including yours.

"...I...I understand."

"Don't be afraid. Even if you don't understand now, you will eventually understand in the future... Everyone, the new space shuttle is already undergoing emergency testing, and the Solomon is on standby. Once the system is online, we will do our utmost to search for and rescue Kazuma Asuka. Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

"He was the first human to reach Mars."

Sawai Soichiro pursed his lips: "How can we ignore those who paved the way for us?"

-

Almost at the same moment, an inconspicuous point of light outside the Earth's atmosphere quietly broke away from near-Earth orbit.

It was so small that it looked like a speck of dust against the dark backdrop of space. For some reason, the intense energy fluctuations generated by its thrusters went unnoticed by radar.

The light spot rose at a constant speed, deflected slightly as it passed the lunar orbit, and glided along the shadowy area on the far side of the moon, deliberately avoiding all possible lines of sight.

What the Eight-Tails and the others didn't know was that the observation system wasn't actually attacked by a virus; it was simply being received by a higher level of authority, and then the data was sealed to prevent the outside world from knowing about it.

Ye Shou did not want his activities to be recorded, and he did not want the public to know that the [Bayeri] Gundam also had the form of the Giant of Light. That would draw too much attention to TPC and make it easy to become overly dependent on the organization. Moreover, Ye Shou's identity would also be at risk of being exposed.

Although it didn't cause any real trouble, he wasn't a noisy person.

hum~

On the far side of the moon, where none of the satellites could see, the silver demon stopped, its radiance overflowing from within, then slowly expanding its outline to form a giant sphere of light.

Then, start accelerating!

From Ye Shou's perspective, the starry sky ahead was slightly distorted, and the points of light seemed to merge into invisible flowing lines, shooting straight into the depths of the universe. He had already transcended the barriers of time and space and locked onto the orange-red planet as his target.

--Snapped!

The space trembled for a moment, then immediately returned to calm. The giant's silhouette had already disappeared with the streak of light, quickly passing through the gravitational field of the Earth-Moon system, and then accelerated again!

The journey was silent, without quantum communication or navigation signals; it was a pure "advancement" driven solely by intuition and instinct, in the manner of a living organism.

Human spacecraft would need to be fully prepared, and even rely on gambling-like black-box technology, to reach one-tenth the speed of light.

For Ye Shou, as long as he "runs" at full speed, he can easily achieve the same or even higher speeds, and the scenery he sees from his first-person perspective becomes increasingly bizarre and fantastical.

call out!

The distance of hundreds of millions of kilometers was rapidly compressed at a speed that defied common sense, and the orange-red outline of Mars quickly magnified in the field of vision.

Finally, the sphere of light came to a stop outside Mars' orbit. When it came to a sudden stop in a way that defied the laws of physics, the surrounding space seemed not to react at all. The light and shadow of the stars distorted, like ripples on the surface of water.

The next second, the ball of light gradually shrank—

First came the slender arms and legs, followed by the broad shoulder armor and breastplate. Silver and gold patterns transitioned from faint to solid, covering the entire body like flowing water.

The timer crystal on his chest lit up with a deep blue light, and everything around him returned to calm...

He turned his head and glanced across the Martian surface, and at the area where a spaceship had recently arrived and dropped a beacon. His right arm slowly extended, as if he were grabbing at something.

...I can feel it!

Floating particles left behind by the Magus engine!

It's like a "smell." No object disappears without a reason. Even if it enters another dimension, it will inevitably leave some traces. It may be impossible to observe with conventional means, but Ultraman himself is a life form of light and is extremely sensitive to this.

So Ye Shouping calmed himself and began to slowly sense... After a moment, he raised his head, his gaze locking onto a certain spot, and then a blinding white light shone from his body—

Whoosh!

Once again, we're at top speed!

However, this time he was not simply traveling, but following the route that Asuka Kazuma took on his return journey, completely replicating his actions before his disappearance.

Approximately one-tenth the speed of light... the energy band of Magneto propulsion... time accurate to one-hundredth of a millisecond...

"!"

The end is just ahead!

Kazuma Asuka and the prototype machine disappeared completely here!

However… we can find it! Although it's extremely sparse, there are still floating ions here… and it continues to extend…

"I see." Ye Shou raised his head, rested one arm on his forehead, and the timer on his chest suddenly turned crimson, and a faint golden light enveloped his body.

——【Primal Ascension】!

hum!

A beam of light shot forward and suddenly exploded in the void where there was nothing, generating a large number of colorful flashes of light. However, this was only a fleeting moment, and the light quickly shrank and disappeared.

Ye Shou's figure transformed into a stream of light, rushing in at the last moment, and his figure completely disappeared from the space!

This time, it wasn't because he was too fast to be detected, but because he had truly left this starry sky and entered a deeper space—he opened the "hole" through which Asuka Kazuma had passed.

That's right. Neither the pilot nor the prototype disappeared, nor did they fly out of the solar system. Instead, under the influence of a mysterious light, they entered a very special realm.

If we imagine space as a "membrane" that supports all matter, then the greater the mass and speed of an object, the more it can create distortions and deformations on the membrane. If it reaches a certain point, it can even "break through" the membrane. The simplest examples are faster-than-light speeds and black holes.

(However, the membrane also has self-repairing capabilities, so it will not cause any problems in most cases.)

When that mysterious light met Magus Power, something must have happened, but it must have instantly broken through the constraints of the laws of physics, passing through this membrane and reaching another realm that cannot be directly observed in the real universe.

Imaginary space, subspace, quantum tunnels... There are many such settings in science fiction works, but they are all just the blind men and the elephant, depicted based on their own imagination.

—This time, Ye Shou really came in.

Here, light seems to have a physical form, deforming along with the ever-stretching space. Everything in sight is difficult to distinguish in terms of specific shape and outline. Some things can be barely seen as reflections of the surface universe, but most of them resemble bizarre scenes from a dream.

...Perhaps the constraints on the material world here are not strong, so it is affected by spiritual power.

The speed seemed to have no upper limit; as long as energy was continuously output, it could keep increasing. In the surface universe, the closer Ye Shou got to the speed of light, the more difficult it became to increase speed. But here, he felt nothing; everything was disordered and free.

"Kazuma Asuka...Kazuma Asuka..."

The name echoed in Ye Shou's mind, while the Ultra Crystal on the giant's head emitted a soft halo, slowly restoring the elongated scene around him to normal, and then continuously expanding its range...

hum!

As if startled awake from a dream, Ye Shou's body trembled, and then everything in his vision became clear. All sorts of dreamlike scenes disappeared like bubbles, replaced by a dazzling array of light of all sizes, which looked as if the city roads had been sped up a thousand times. It seemed chaotic, but in fact, there was a certain pattern to it.

Ye Shou stood in the crevice of the "road," raising his palm as if scooping up fine gold sand from a river, which continuously fell from his fingertips—these were the Magnesium particles he had collected.

These golden sands, drawn by an invisible force, stretched out into the distant void like extremely fine threads, and Ye Shou immediately set off in pursuit...

-

Kazuma Asuka had no idea what had happened.

One second the Magnum engine was running smoothly, and the starlight outside the porthole was gradually stretched into thin, colorful threads.