At 9:00 AM, the Awakening Ceremony began. This year's group of juniors was quite large, numbering around seven or eight thousand. It was hard to imagine that Hangzhou No. 1 Middle School would have so many people this term.
Led by Ye Feng, several students took the stage. Following Principal Hu's brief speech, the awakening officially commenced. Ye Feng and the others headed to the TPC zone. Perhaps because their group was there, the assigned TPC staff were happy to take it easy and handed the work over to them.
While it was somewhat irregular, after seeing the extra thousand yuan Principal Hu provided... well, they could "reluctantly" do the job. After all, the awakening was only one day; where else could you find such a good deal as getting paid a thousand yuan just for routine questioning?
Gradually, time reached 11:00 AM. There was about an hour left before the morning session ended.
"By the way, Ye Feng, your ring is with me. I forgot to return it to you." Qin Yuxin fished the Light Ring out of her bag and held it out to him.
Looking at the ring brimming with the power of Light, Ye Feng's eyes grew complex.
"Didn't you lose yours? You should use this one. Who knows, it might have some special effect," Ye Feng said after a moment's thought, choosing not to take it back. The previous battle was one reason, but another was that he felt he didn't need it. Furthermore, since Qin Yuxin's ring had vanished during the plane crash, it was only fitting to give this to her.
As for whether it would work, Ye Feng had no doubts. Who said monster cards couldn't be used with a Light Ring to transform? Perhaps Qin Yuxin, borrowing the Light Ring, really would achieve some unique results.
"Alright, then I won't be formal. To be honest, seeing your Light Ring these past few days, I really felt like I wanted it. With you saying that, I'm relieved."
Ye Feng had expected her to accept it with difficulty, but her sigh of relief left him somewhat speechless.
"Wow... so you were eyeing my Monster Ring all along..."
BEEP————
During their conversation, the piercing sound of an emergency siren echoed throughout Hangzhou. To them, this sound was all too familiar. Sure enough, not long after the alarm sounded, glowing spheres began to fly over the city.
Moving in pairs, these spheres wrought havoc across Hangzhou. In an instant, several high-rise buildings were leveled. Construction teams rejoiced, building material companies laughed, it was the "springtime" for laborers, while insurance companies hid in corners, weeping without tears.
"What are those things? Spaceships?"
"No, if it were a spaceship invasion, GUTS would have issued a notice beforehand."
"Then it's unclear. Could they be monsters?"
"Idiot, how could those things be monsters? It's clearly the work of aliens."
As the cosmic spheres descended, TPC staff began assisting with student evacuations. The annual Awakening Ceremony, just like last year, was once again interrupted.
"Sphere!"
Seeing the spheres, familiar images flashed in Ye Feng's mind, and he called out the name.
"Ye Feng, you know these things?" Qin Yuxin and the others were about to fuse and transform, but Ye Feng's words made them pause momentarily. As the saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated." Obtaining intelligence on the enemy was naturally the best scenario. Though they wondered how he knew, any intel at this moment was good news.
"Sphere is a cosmic lifeform, similar to the Chaos Header. But they are even more formidable—not only are they numerous, but they can also assimilate matter to merge into Sphere Synthetics."
While sharing the intel, Ye Feng looked at everyone and added solemnly, "Of course, that includes us as well."
At this, Qin Yuxin and the others were shocked, unable to understand why such an existence existed in the universe.
"However, Sphere is different from the Chaos Header. For a Sphere to possess us, we would generally need to be exhausted or out of energy. As long as we don't give them the chance, we'll be fine." Seeing the silence, Ye Feng quickly added the second half, allowing Li Zheng and the others to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Since Brother Ye said so, let's go." Zhou Fei stepped forward first, took out his equipped Dark Ring, awakened the Golza card, and placed it in the center.
"Golza."
"Ultra Fusion!"
ROAR~~~
In an instant, the 68-meter tall, 68,000-ton Ultra Ancient Monster Golza rose from the athletic field of Hangzhou No. 1 Middle School. At that moment, a Sphere unit attacked, only to be swatted to the ground by Golza and instantly exploded.
The other students who had awakened monster cards and could giantize followed suit, pulling out their rings to transform. There were twelve of them who had returned in total; excluding Ye Feng and Qin Yuxin, about seven completed their giantization.
"Ye Feng, aren't you going to transform?"
The students training at TPC were all aware of the reports regarding Ultraman Cosmos. After all, Ye Feng's performance was outstanding, and his previous battle had been specifically copied for them to review. They also knew about the plane crash a few days ago, though they didn't know the specifics. There were no reporters there, and the attack was so sudden they were unprepared.
Hearing this, Ye Feng forced a composed expression and spoke: "I'll observe for a bit. Sphere might be the vanguard; I need to conserve my strength."
"I see. As expected of the top student."
Hearing this, the others praised him and then, in their alien forms, joined the rescue mission. Soon, only Ye Feng and Qin Yuxin remained.
Others might not have known, but how could Qin Yuxin not? Looking at Ye Feng's forced expression, her heart ached. "Ye Feng... you..."
"It's okay, Qin Yuxin. I'm fine." With his back to her, Ye Feng's expression was strained, but he spoke clearly: "I'll get my head in the game. What I said just now wasn't an excuse; I truly want to observe first."
"Okay. I believe you."
Without saying more, Qin Yuxin chose to trust him. She pulled a Hyper Gun from her bag. "Then I'll observe with you. I'll step in if things go wrong. But you have to watch closely and only strike when you're certain."
With this solemn reminder, she slammed an energy magazine into the gun and began helping with the evacuation.
Soon, Ye Feng was left alone. Thinking about the underlying meaning in Qin Yuxin's words, he looked at his hands and couldn't help but ask himself: 'Can I... really do this?'
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
BANG! BANG!
The sounds of explosions and monster footsteps echoed through the city. Of course, it wasn't just Hangzhou; the entirety of China and the world was under Sphere's assault. In every city, their numbers were at least a thousand.
With the help of local GUTS and Defense Forces, the cleanup was going relatively well. However, Southern China was struggling. Due to Qin Tianyi's orders, half of the Southern GUTS forces had entered the spatial vortex, while the other half remained at the East China Sea. The invading Spheres had to be held back by Defense Force jets, but the Sphere swarm was so large that the Defense Force's firepower was starting to look insufficient.
In Hangzhou, after half an hour of Sphere's assault, and with the defense provided by Zhou Fei and local TPC personnel, a third of the city was still lost. Fortunately, after thirty minutes, the nearly thousand Spheres had been cut in half, and their destructive power began to wane.
On the street, Ye Feng used a Hyper Gun to shoot at the Spheres in the sky. Luckily, these lifeforms had weak defenses, and the Hyper Gun was effective. As he blew up one Sphere, Ye Feng checked an undamaged electronic clock nearby.
"It's been half an hour. Is it just a simple raid? No Sphere Synthetics?" If so, Ye Feng could breathe a sigh of relief. Compared to cleaning up Spheres, Synthetics were the real nightmare.
"Kuang~~"
Just as Ye Feng was about to relax, his nerves snapped tight at the sudden sound. The anomaly had arrived.
On the battlefield near West Lake, Golza—transformed by Zhou Fei—saw ten pairs of Spheres grouping together in the sky. Energy began to gather at his forehead as he unleashed an Ultrasonic Ray, instantly destroying twenty Sphere units.
ROAR~~~
Having destroyed so many at once, Golza let out a triumphant howl. But at that moment, a fast-moving spinning disc entered his vision. Golza's eyes darted around frantically, and a moment later, he was knocked to the ground by the spinning disc, kicking up clouds of dirt.
Having succeeded with one strike, the disc didn't stop. it surged toward the remaining six aliens and monsters. With its high-speed rotation and a flight speed approaching Mach 4, the impact force instantly knocked those giantized aliens back into their human forms.
In an instant, only two monsters remained on the field: Golza and Gakuma. With the other monsters out of the way, the remaining two hundred Spheres began a spree of destruction. The spinning disc stopped, revealing its true form.
"Queen Tortoise!"
Seeing that familiar disc, Ye Feng knew exactly who it was.
"Kua-hoooo~~~"
The disc stood up. Queen Tortoise stood there, a low growl escaping her closed mouth—a testament to her formidable power.
"How... how can this be? Why is it Queen Tortoise that appeared?!"
Ye Feng couldn't believe it. The monster following the Spheres was the Queen Tortoise that had left days ago. Simultaneously, his PDI flared with an alarm, signaling the presence of a high-energy monster. Upon opening it, the screen clearly displayed a pair of letters: SS!
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