Phantylia's horns snapped with a crisp crack.
No horns? Then make horns—stoke Tiga's craving to break them.
Even if Tiga "created" those horns, the moment they appeared they counted as Phantylia's real bodily tissue.
Phantylia couldn't feel pain through this body woven from the hidden root of the Ambrosial Arbor, yet when the horns were broken, a heart-ripping agony detonated inside her.
That pain struck straight at the soul.
"AAAAAAAH—!!!!!!"
Crushed beneath that unspeakable torment, Phantylia toppled heavily to the ground and briefly blacked out; the link between the Yaoshi and the Arbor's root frayed by a hair.
But when Tiga backflipped lightly and landed, light flashing, and once more unfurled that blazing red matador's cloth—
Phantylia's scattered consciousness was forcibly reeled back together. At the corner of her mouth and chin clung a faint thread of moisture, spilled in the shock of pain.
Her pupils were a little unfocused; the snapped horns had already regrown. Drawn by the cape, she again dropped to all fours and charged Tiga with a savage lunge.
Tiga spun, flicked the cape; the gossamer-thin cloth wrapped the onrushing Phantylia up at once—and she vanished.
With another sharp flourish, he flung the cape wide; Phantylia went tumbling out, eyes full of spinning stars, and crumpled.
Tiga straddled her again. Those sinful hands seized both horns once more—same trick, second time.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!"
The soul-rending wail seemed to tear Phantylia's essence in two. Her mind was yanked together by force, then shredded apart again by force. Meaningless murmurs fell from her lips:
"Guh… kill me…"
Hearing that, Tiga judged the time about right.
He sprang back; the crystal at his brow flared, shifting him back to Multi Type. His hands settled into the L-shape.
A blinding, majestic torrent of light surged forth—
—[Zeperion Beam]!
At the instant the beam launched, Tiga's wrists shuddered violently; he bent the beam mid-flight, whipping it like a lash.
Snap—!
Snap—!Snap—!
Each strike fell harder than the last, cracking across Phantylia's body—lashing her soul—her voice rising and falling, crest upon crest.
Finally, the whip-like beam cinched tight around her, light blooming fiercer and fiercer—then detonated.
BOOOOOOM—!!!!
In a heartbeat, shards of the Arbor's hidden root blasted everywhere—then winked into dust, scattering as starlight.
In their place, a cyan-green flame remained.
Phantylia had meant to spit a threat at Tiga. But the little flame shivered with a sudden chill; she said nothing. That wisp of split-soul thinned and faded into air.
Inside Tiga, Yevenko stared, a little blank.
He hadn't even gone all out—and Phantylia just… dusted herself and bailed?
She'd occupied the hidden root of the Ambrosial Arbor—this miracle-wood of Abundance. Even if its raw destructive output wasn't monstrous, its regeneration was outrageous.
Short of him using a "gag finisher," killing her should have been extremely hard.
As it was, it felt less like he'd killed Phantylia and more like, under that whip-form Zeperion Beam, she took the cue and finished herself.
Abandoned this hard-won Arbor-body.
True, she could reconstruct it again and keep dragging things out—but with Tiga fighting like this, she probably couldn't bear the humiliation.
Not to mention—breaking the horns at the end dealt a soul-tearing pain to her Yaoshi-self. No wonder she fled.
Of course, for her to give up this cleanly, there had to be another hidden hand somewhere.
Yevenko thought of Modo's odd behavior back when he'd turned into Tuffy.
Thinking it through—besides cashing Phantylia for exploration points, he could cash Hoolay too. Before, Jerry had been the one pounding Hoolay, which meant a cut of whatever came to Yevenko.
But now he wasn't in Tuffy's body—he was Ultraman Tiga. Beating down Hoolay would be like using a cannon on a mosquito—prime point-farming.
And later, when Hoolay takes Feixiao's body… that'd be cashing Feixiao's points too.
Turning this over, Yevenko suddenly remembered that glance from the Hunt Aeon inside Feixiao's inner world…
A bold plan snapped into place.
"Nope, I've gotta rush to the next set."
"Save Tiga's transformation time."
With a flick of will—
Tiga raised both hands to the sky, shot upward in a pillar of light, and vanished.
When the glow vanished, Yevenko was left clutching the joystick. He stared off to one side—then stared down. Far, far below—
The Astral Express crew were as tiny as ants.
Fwt—!
A thin whistling—and he dropped like a stone.
He windmilled his arms into a sloppy swimming stroke, worming his way through the air until he "swam" over to Tom and threw his arms around the cat's middle—finally stopping the fall.
Tom still hadn't realized Yevenko had canceled Tiga's transformation.
Seeing the lack of light around them, Tom figured the joystick was acting up. He yanked it out, squinted through one eye, looked left, looked right, then jammed it back into the air. Still nothing.
No light. No "push stick—move forward."
Tom scratched his head, puzzled.
Jerry, perched on Tom's shoulder, poked Tom's cheek. Tom turned, and Jerry pointed down.
Tom looked—
And the world unfolded beneath him, a hawk's-eye view from the heavens.
"AAAAAAH—!!!"
Tom shrieked.
His eyeballs sproinged outward on stalks; his four limbs popped loose; even his brain hopped out of his skull and then plopped back in.
Realizing how high they were—
Tom tried to grab hold of anything he could hug.
He reflexively hugged—Yevenko, who was already hugging him.
Fwt—!
Man and cat plummeted together in a frantic dive.
Watching, Jerry spread both hands in a helpless little shrug and clicked his tongue:
"tsk, tsk, tsk."
Then he strolled off into thin air with casual grace—and fell with them.
Only, while falling, he wasn't bound by the fall; he sauntered along Tom's snout, took a deep breath—
His flat belly ballooned round in an instant.
Then he leaned in and blew straight into Tom's mouth.
"Fuuu—!"
Tom's head swelled huge on the spot, becoming a hot-air balloon.
He and Yevenko bobbed to a lazy hover, drifting gently down. Jerry grabbed Tom's whiskers like ropes and descended along with them.
They landed at the crash site.
Surveying the scorched wreck that had been their fighter, Yevenko thought there was still hope.
Honestly, the fighter had been an empty shell anyway—nothing inside, just three joysticks—flying purely on gag power.
"Tom, Jerry—fix Victory Hawk No.1. We'll need it in a minute."
Tom instantly whirlwind-spun—snap—now in mechanic overalls. From his self-provided toolbox he pulled out a tiny wooden mallet.
He tapped the charred, crumbling, inexplicable lump that remained.
Next second, the "mystery mass" turned into a brand-new wing.
Satisfied, Yevenko started to head for Jing Yuan and the others—then did a double-take.
Jerry, silent as a ghost, had tiptoed to Tom's toolbox and produced a 1000 KG iron hammer, hefting it in front of Tom's feet.
Yevenko, quick as lightning, grabbed Jerry by the scruff.
Even with Jerry holding the giant hammer, Yevenko felt no extra weight—his hand only held Jerry.
Caught under Yevenko's stern look, Jerry scratched the back of his head, bared two tiny mouse-teeth in a fawning grin, and slid the sledge back behind him.
Only then did Yevenko nod.
With Tom and Jerry, you couldn't relax for a second. If their war kicked off again, chaos would explode—and there'd be no time to go farm Hoolay's points.
Just in case, Yevenko took Jerry along toward March 7th and the others.
By now, the pocket-realm of the Lunarescent Depths had been battered to the brink; the starry motes were dissipating, the real scene of the Depths showing through.
Before Yevenko could reach them, March 7th came sprinting over, eyes shining with multicolored sparkles, staring at him.
"Yevenko! That giant you transformed into was so cool!!"
"What is he? Does he have a name?!"
Yevenko answered at once:
"What giant? What giant, I dunno any 'giant of light' called Ultraman Tiga, and it totally wasn't me. I blacked out when I rammed Phantylia—that's the script. Only at the very end do you guys find out I'm Ultraman Tiga."
March 7th ignored his nonsense—she was used to it by now—eyes thoughtful.
"So he's called Ultraman Tiga."
Meanwhile, Jing Yuan and the rest arrived.
Jing Yuan delivered a well-structured yet sincere thanks: gratitude to Yevenko for resolving Phantylia without letting the Luofu suffer an even greater disaster.
Dan Heng, however, looked around the Depths—only a third of the Ancient Sea left.
Even with Jing Yuan's promise to rescind the wanted notice, the Ancient Sea—holy ground of the Vidyadhara—reduced to this… It was hard to believe that when he returned to the sanctuary, others wouldn't assume he had done it.
The consequences might be little different from being wanted.
After all, the residue of sea-parting power clearly belonged to the Imbibitor.
He saw Tom had already finished fixing the fighter; the overalls vanished with a turn, and Tom padded a few steps forward. Dan Heng called to him:
"Tom, do you have a way to restore the Ancient Sea in the Lunarescent Depths?"
Tom nodded rapidly.
He reached behind himself and pulled out… a plastic straw. He scratched his head.
A lightbulb popped on over it.
Tom planted the straw straight into the hard ground. It went in.
Then he put his mouth to the straw, gave a few slurps, and let go.
A drip… then another. Then a thin trickle. Then a straight, clear column of water gushed out.
And—unreasonably—it took only an instant for water to lap at their ankles. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the water level returned to normal.
Dan Heng examined it carefully. The water was indeed Ancient Sea water.
He glanced at the straw's base.
The pocket-realm hadn't fully dissolved; the straw was, in truth, stuck into air. And yet Ancient Sea water was pouring out—a level of absurdity beyond words.
As if conjuring something from nothing.
He reflexively tried to pursue the principle—but in the next heartbeat, Dan Heng took a long breath, emptied his mind, and killed the thought.
Close call. He'd nearly spun himself into an unthinking loop again.
But at this flow, once the Ancient Sea returned to full volume—what if the water kept rising? They couldn't flood the entire Luofu.
Dan Heng shared the concern with Tom. Tom mimed a little "pulling" gesture—just have someone yank the straw out. Problem solved.
Dan Heng let the logic pass unquestioned. It was at once very reasonable and very simple.
Meanwhile, Yevenko finished conferring with the others.
Seeing Tom had repaired Victory Hawk No.1, he called out:
"We still have to fight Hoolay—so we're heading off first!"
Hearing that, Tom produced a remote control from behind his back and mashed the red button in the middle.
Victory Hawk No.1 roared to life.
BOOM—!
Its wheels rolled—and it promptly rammed Tom, flattening him into a paper cutout, then kept trundling along toward the edge of the pocket-realm.
Jerry dashed in front of the craft, whipped out a "NO ENTRY" sign from behind his back.
Victory Hawk screeched to a halt just beyond the sign.
Jerry then produced a marker from a pocket that hadn't been there before, scribbled on the back of the sign, and flipped it around—Hoolay's face stared back.
Upon seeing Hoolay, Victory Hawk's nosecone nodded vigorously; its wings twisted into a thumbs-up, a stairway unfolded from the fuselage—board here.
Yevenko hustled aboard carrying "cat-sheet" Tom; Jerry followed right behind.
Victory Hawk scratched its head, picked up the Hoolay sign with both wings, and planted it in the ground.
Then it rolled back a distance, its front end sharpening to a dart; wheels tucked in, tail ignited—it launched and speared straight into the sign.
One second later, it vanished.