23. Is This Kind of Time-Stop Even Worth Having?

"Bang!" The dial rotated, and Qi Ming pressed down on the raised mechanism.

"Whoosh!" A stream of light ascended, and Ultraman Tiga appeared on the battlefield.

For Qi Ming, dealing with these two simpletons did not require Seven, who would consume three points of Star Gift; Tiga, costing only one point, was more than enough.

He opened with a flying knee, delivering a head-on blow to the wiggling Alien Bira and knocking it down. He then quickly followed up with a simple, uncharged Zeperion Ray, which struck the alien in the head.

"Boom!" The Alien Bira exploded violently, and a point of green light merged into the button at the top right of Qi Ming's watch.

[Store/Convert].

Faced with this choice, Qi Ming was uncharacteristically hesitant; the ability to stop time was incredibly tempting. However, the Alien Bira’s time-stop was directional—it had to hit the target to freeze its time. It was far inferior to the time-stopping abilities of Dio or Jotaro from *JoJo's Bizarre Adventure*, who could freeze the entire world with a mere thought. Furthermore, in the original *Ultraseven* series, the Alien Bira had used its "Time Stop Ray" against Seven. Seven had simply blocked it with an energy barrier, rendering it useless, and then countered with an Eye Slugger to slice the alien in two.

It was clear that this "immobilization" style of time-stop had severe limitations. Given the Alien Bira's combat prowess, it had virtually no ability to break through head-on and could only rely on sneak attacks. Most importantly, he had killed it too quickly to fully understand its capabilities. He couldn't even determine if the time-stop was an innate ability of the Alien Bira or achieved through external technology. If it were the latter, he would be at a total loss. His own martial arts skills were fundamentally incompatible with an alien that had no arms or legs and consisted only of a tail. If he transformed into this Alien Bira, with its abysmal physical defense and speed, what would happen if he were one-shotted by an enemy? He wouldn't even have a chance to escape.

"Better to choose [Convert]," he thought. He was close to the ten-point Star Gift threshold required to initiate [Star Convergence]. Perhaps he could "converge" a powerful creature with space-time abilities that could send him home, such as the Golden Dragon from *Tiga*.

With that, Qi Ming chose [Convert], and the [Star Gift] in his Ultraman interface returned to 8 points.

Nearby, the Alien Zuluk saw the giant appear and dispose of an alien in two moves. The fierce offensive made it uneasy, and it hesitated, wondering whether it should flee this dangerous place. But just as its feet left the ground, Nagi Saijo piloted the GUTS Wing 1 and fired, shooting it down.

"Hey, now it's his turn to crash!" Kishida, who had just bailed out of his own crashing GUTS Wing 1 and was preparing for ground combat, laughed at the sight.

With its escape route blocked, the Alien Zuluk had no choice but to fight to the death. It swung its bone blades toward Tiga, realizing that if it didn't deal with this guy, it would never get out of here alive. In the original *Ultraman Leo* series, Seven claimed the Alien Zuluk possessed a "two-stage attack" that Leo's current moves couldn't handle, requiring him to master a "three-stage attack" to break it. To that end, Seven had punished Feng Yuan with physical labor, making him split waterfalls—a sight that left Qi Ming full of question marks.

On the battlefield, the Alien Zuluk charged, swinging both blades down at Tiga. Qi Ming blocked with his left hand, countered with his right, and kicked out, sending the alien flying.

"See? That was all it took," he thought. If this was supposed to be targeted training, was there really a need for such nonsensical drills against such simple moves? Besides, he recalled that Leo had trained for a time at the birthplace of Space Phantom Beast Fist—Planet D60. Did they really not teach such basic combat skills there?

The downed Alien Zuluk performed a desperate kip-up and charged again, swinging its right blade in a vertical strike. Qi Ming sidestepped, striking the alien's right wrist with a horizontal palm and its jaw with a straight palm. The Alien Zuluk’s flat, platypus-like jaw lacked scale protection; after the heavy blow, its vision went black, and it collapsed again.

Yamanaka: "So strong! I feel like the Ultra warrior's fighting style has been getting more and more brutal lately."

Kishida corrected him: "Is 'brutal' the right word? He's on our side; he's helping us."

Determined that the Alien Zuluk was incapacitated, Qi Ming crossed his wrists in front of him, gathered energy, and then combined his arms into an "L" shape to release a white beam.

A full-power Zeperion Ray!

"Boom!" The Alien Zuluk exploded into fragments, following the Alien Bira to its end.

Another point of green light merged into the button on Qi Ming's watch.

[Store/Convert].

This time, Qi Ming didn't hesitate and decisively chose Convert.

Star Gift: 9.
Insight: 2/5.

"The Alien Zuluk is only C-rank, just like the Alien Bira?" Qi Ming had previously thought that, given its fierce reputation in the original show, it would have been at least B-rank. "It seems the early Leo was just too weak, which made the alien seem stronger than it actually was."

At this moment, Ultraman Tiga's Color Timer began to blink. Although he hadn't spent much time defeating the two monsters, Tiga at 30% power could only remain on Earth for a minute and a half, and the time limit was approaching.

Just as Qi Ming was about to deactivate his transformation, he felt a killing intent rising from beneath his feet. Startled, he immediately flew into the air.

"Boom!" A split second later, scorching subterranean fire erupted exactly where he had been standing. Had Qi Ming taken off a second later, he would have suffered a major blow.

"This fire... it's the Kyrieloids." Qi Ming turned abruptly, looking toward the roof of a distant building, where an unconcealed malice was being emitted. On the rooftop, a man was smiling sinisterly at Tiga. Seeing that Tiga had discovered him, he didn't panic, calmly walking backward as his figure dissipated.

Clearly, this was a Kyrieloid who had retreated after a failed sneak attack. The "holy fire" was the Kyrieloids' second "proof" to humanity and a warning to the Giant of Light.

Megumi in the Command Room: "The same explosion as last time. The attack really did come from underground. Team member Qi Ming's intelligence was accurate!" Because the area where Tiga had been standing was an open space, the "eruption of subterranean fire" was clearly visible to the naked eye. "By the way, where is team member Qi Ming?" She suddenly realized he was missing from the Command Room.

Dan Moroboshi coughed. "He must have gone to the restroom."

Dr. Yagami: "He put in so much effort just now; he needs to go adjust himself."

In the city, although no buildings were razed by the fire, the flames had begun to spread from the trees lining the streets. Staff Officer Kiriyama and Dan Moroboshi ordered disaster relief efforts. Nagi Saijo used the foam water cannon on the GUTS Wing 1 to attack the blaze, but it was like a drop in the ocean against the raging fire.

Seeing this, Qi Ming used Tiga to fire an Ultra Water Gun, extinguishing the fire before deactivating his transformation.

The crisis was temporarily resolved, but the next wave of attacks could come at any time.