Chapter Nine: Xuranos

“‘King’ Huranos...”
“Huranos?” Tetsuya’s mind conjured up the ferocious figure from Ultraman Tiga: wide, outstretched wings, two long fangs, his body covered in fine hair, battling Tiga in the darkness, with a head resembling the mutated skull of a rat.
“What does Huranos actually look like?”
“He’s a colossal being...” Shinkaku took a sip of fruit wine and continued, “He is enormous and obese, with wings sprouting from his back, standing nearly a hundred meters tall. His head is as broad as his shoulders, but most striking of all is his mouth, which can grow to an unimaginable size. When he opens it, he can swallow over a thousand people at once. His body is covered in black, soft hair. Though humanoid, he bears the bloated belly of a toad, his back riddled with pus-filled boils, and he has four arms. Six tentacles sprout from his belly, and he swings a massive tail. When he’s hungry, there’s nothing he won’t eat.”
“Uh...” Tetsuya paused, feeling as though his entire impression of Huranos had been completely overturned. Sheepishly, he described to Shinkaku the image of Huranos he had always known.
“That must be a monster assembled by the race of ‘Worshippers’ devoted to him,” Shinkaku replied.
He paused for a moment, walked over to the window, pushed it open, and looked out at the crowd feasting and drinking recklessly in the street. Pointing to a corner, he turned back to Tetsuya and said,
“You’ll see Huranos with your own eyes very soon...”
Tetsuya walked to the window. He didn’t have to wait long before a powerful sense of danger swept over him, making every hair on his body stand on end, his pupils narrowing sharply. He saw it: in a circle dozens of meters across at the street corner, the ground suddenly collapsed inward. An enormous, gaping maw thrust up from beneath the earth, swallowing street, houses, tables, chairs, and people all in one gulp, retreating almost instantly back underground.
“What a... truly terrifying force...”
“Indeed...” Shinkaku smiled and said, “I’ll handle him. The worshippers are yours!”
“Hey—”
Tetsuya barely had time to speak before Shinkaku leapt from the window. In midair, a violent surge of dark energy gathered around him, black mist enveloping him in an instant. Then Tiga’s towering figure appeared above the crowd, radiating a power that commanded awe.
“It’s the Ancient God!”
“Thank goodness! The Ancient God has come to save us!”
Those who had been awaiting death cried out in mingled joy and relief, hope lighting their eyes.
“Wait... look at the color of his body...”
“The Evil God!”
“Oh no... it’s the Evil God... We’re doomed this time...”
But Tiga paid no heed to these pitiful humans. He hovered motionless in midair, waiting for Huranos to appear again. The wait was not long. Moments later, that massive maw once more erupted from beneath the earth, this time swallowing half the street in one gulp.
Just as the gaping mouth prepared to withdraw again, Tiga, surging with fierce dark energy, launched a flying kick, his immense, imposing form striking the monstrous maw and flipping it over with a force that sent half-digested debris flying in all directions.
With a muffled roar, the ground within a hundred meters of the maw collapsed, and countless people on the street screamed as they tumbled down. Beating gigantic wings, a grotesque and nauseating monster struggled up from the depths, facing off against Tiga in the open. Tetsuya swore he had seen many bizarre monsters in his life, but never one so hideous as ‘King’ Huranos.
Just as Shinkaku had described, he looked remarkably like an enormous toad—obese, bloated, his back a mass of oozing boils, with only his tail barely worthy of any praise. The rest was an assault on the senses, as though every ugly feature from every loathsome beast had been combined into one. Worst of all, the huge mouth exuded such a foul stench that the entire city was tainted by it.
“Ranger? Why do you disturb my meal?” Huranos’s voice was low and strange, like a giant toad croaking.
“To destroy you...”
“Destroy me? Absurd... We are all beings created by the ‘God.’ Our shared master is Emperor Karafal, and our status is equal. Because you are favored by Emperor Karafal, you think you can destroy me?”
“I’ll destroy him as well... but since I’ve run into you, blame your own misfortune!”
Tiga suddenly raised his hand, and the stars and moonlight across the sky were blotted out. Thick, almost tangible darkness coiled and gathered around him, making Tetsuya’s eyelids twitch involuntarily. Tiga stood only half as tall as Huranos, yet his presence was so overwhelming he seemed even more powerful than the hulking beast before him. With a flourish, he soared toward Huranos as if riding the wind.

“Roar...”
Huranos crouched low, the flab on his back trembling as countless jets of viscous green liquid burst from his boils, falling like a barrage of toxic raindrops. Wherever those droplets landed, on houses or streets, a sizzling sound erupted as the acid ate straight through, leaving gaping holes.
Any survivors unfortunate enough to be touched by the green rain were instantly reduced to a pool of liquefied protein, starting from the crown of their heads.
Tiga stretched out his right arm, gathering dark energy into his palm, and conjured an energy barrier several meters across. Without breaking stride, he charged at Huranos’s belly, kicking hard—but the fat-laden gut merely absorbed the impact, sending a shockwave back that staggered Tiga.
“I’d love to taste your purest dark energy...” Huranos’s four arms elongated, swiftly coiling around Tiga’s body.
“I bet it’s delicious...”
Tiga braced his foot against Huranos’s belly, struggling to keep himself from being drawn closer. Yet that soft belly turned to a quagmire of sludge, and Tiga’s leg sank deep, his stance faltering until his face was nearly pressed against that revolting abdomen.
“Disgusting...” Shinkaku muttered with loathing. Suddenly, a searing red glow burst from Tiga’s shadowy form. Dark energy surged violently through his body, the temperature rocketing upward, instantly melting Huranos’s tentacles to nothing. The intense heat made Huranos shriek in agony.
With a powerful leap, Tiga swept his hand like a blade across Huranos’s tail. A brilliant arc of light flashed, and the massive tail was severed cleanly in the middle.
“Roar...”
“Ranger! You court death!”
With this furious bellow, countless bats surged from the city’s shadowy corners, a black river pouring straight toward Tiga. The impact hammered into his back in relentless waves, sending him hurtling away.