Chapter 42: From Horror to Comedy

It was late at night.

A blonde girl walked along the dark streets, surrounded by the deep darkness. She tried her best not to look at the shadows of the empty streets around her, not to imagine strange figures writhing in the darkness.

If she had a choice, Zola definitely wouldn't be walking alone on the streets of Gotham at night. Everyone knows this city is full of dangers, especially for a young, beautiful, single woman.

Unfortunately, tonight was a special case, and she really had no other option. Some scatterbrained supervisor at her office had a last-minute idea just before clocking out, announcing that the proposal needed to be revised by tomorrow. And as the saying goes, "When the boss speaks, the subordinates are in for a rough time." Zola had no choice but to work overtime until midnight and only then headed home.

Walking alone at night was definitely risky, but this was her first time. She thought that just this once, nothing might go wrong.

Obviously, she was being naive.

She heard footsteps.

Zola stopped and turned around to look behind her.

No one was there.

It was still the same empty street, not a soul in sight. The jagged buildings in the darkness looked almost abandoned, their outlines appearing bizarre and grotesque, evoking thoughts of all sorts of mysterious and frightening legends that have accompanied this city for centuries.

The footsteps seemed to have stopped.

Zola continued walking, and the footsteps started again. But when she looked around, there was still no one to be seen.

An immense sense of fear washed over her, as if some sinister creature was clawing its way closer in the dark. She broke into a run, turning and sprinting as fast as she could. The footsteps also quickened, shadowing her every move.

Fear clouded her mind. Zola couldn't remember how she got there, but when she came to her senses, she was already inside an abandoned building.

Gotham is filled with numerous abandoned buildings and warehouses, and any ordinary citizen knows to stay away from these places. They're often linked to ghost stories or tales of creatures like the Court of Owls.

Zola hid in a room covered in cobwebs, locking the rusty but fortunately still functional door. These actions almost drained her last bit of energy, and she leaned weakly against the door, panting heavily.

The footsteps stopped. After two minutes of silence, she began to suspect that perhaps it had all been in her imagination. Most supernatural events end with a similar conclusion; maybe she was just too tired from work during the day, her exhausted mind playing tricks on her.

But that thought vanished the moment an axe crashed through the door.

She couldn't control her mouth from letting out a high-pitched scream, and her body reflexively darted away from the door like a frightened rabbit. Turning her head, she saw a second person had somehow appeared in the room, which was supposed to be empty.

A person clad entirely in some kind of metal exoskeleton, painted red and silver, with a conspicuous blue crystal on their chest.

For some reason, even though this was clearly a cold, mechanical figure, Zola felt strangely reassured the moment she saw him.

She remembered now; she had seen this before on some urban legend site. Like Batman, it was a mysterious presence recently active in these stories.

Posters on the forum referred to him as "Ultraman."

"Step back, miss," the armored Shen You said calmly, walking forward and grabbing the handle. With a click, he directly tore off the door lock.

The door was pulled open. Outside the door, the man wearing the hockey mask was holding an axe with both hands, poised to swing, seemingly completely caught off guard that the door had opened. His axe fell down and clanged against the metal helmet of the armored suit.

Sparks flew, and the axe spun like a dart and flew away. The masked man held what was left of the handle in his hand, his eyes blinking a couple of times in a daze as he looked at the armor that hadn't even gotten a scratch.

Then he quietly hid the remaining half of the axe behind his back.

"Uh…sorry," he mumbled, lowering his head.

With a casual punch, Shen You sent the masked man flying down the hallway, smashing into the far wall and cracking it. The man slumped to the ground, completely motionless.

*Knock, knock, knock.*

The sound of knocking.

The darkness seemed to grow even thicker; there wasn't a single light source in the abandoned building. The eerie knocking sounded as if it were coming from all directions, making it impossible to pinpoint its source.

"It's happening again!" Zola said nervously, hugging herself. "First footsteps, and now this… I always knew there was something wrong with Gotham! This place is definitely haunted!"

Haunted?

Shen You, however, remained quite calm.

In his previous life, he was a staunch atheist who never believed in ghosts or the supernatural. But that also depended on which world you were in.

His former worldview adhered strictly to "no supernatural phenomena allowed after the founding of the People's Republic," and he firmly believed that was not an issue. But now he was in the DC universe. This world stood out for its inclusivity—everything is possible. From aliens to Cthulhu to traditional ghosts to otherworldly deities—anything could appear.

Fortunately, he was an Ultraman.

The Ultraman universe's lore might not be any less extensive than DC's. In the TV series episodes, both scientific and supernatural elements have appeared.

The creators at Tsuburaya Productions, who labeled their work as child-oriented but couldn't resist the urge to turn everything into a horror film, filled the Showa Ultraman series with numerous childhood nightmares. In such a scenario, the Ultraman predecessors were also forced to battle various ghosts and vengeful spirits. The Land of Light even had ghost-fighting techniques passed down from veteran Ultramen.

Shen You had taken some of those courses out of interest, and he personally summarized them into two concise points:

There isn't a ghost that can't be dealt with by one shot of Spacium.

If one shot doesn't work, then two will.

There's no helping it; the Ultraman's skills lie in science, not the occult. Expecting them to perform exorcisms like chanting and rituals would be too much.

The knocking sound echoed through the dark corridor again, making the dim, blackened hallway seem even stranger.

Shen You said nothing. He raised his palm, and a blue light began to glow in his hand.

A beam of light pierced the darkness, like a brilliant sword of dawn, sweeping down the entire corridor of the abandoned building.

*Boom! Boom! Boom!*

A series of exaggerated explosions followed, as the doors of the rooms along the way shattered one by one. The fierce light carved a path through the floor, nearly blasting through the entire level, leaving a trail of searing heat.

Behind one of the smashed doors, a human-shaped figure, charred black by the heatwave, stood dumbfounded, blinking twice, right hand raised as if about to knock on a door.

However, the door in front of him was gone, making his blackened figure with a raised hand look rather awkward.

Zola collapsed onto the floor behind him, looking at the steel-clad back in front of her with a complicated expression, unable to find words.

Just a minute ago, everything had been so terrifying.

It felt like she had stumbled onto the set of a horror movie, where she played the classic role of a random passerby used to set the atmosphere.

And now, a mere minute later, the scene had completely changed. Not only had the terror in her heart vanished instantly, but looking at that awkward pose of the door-knocking ghost, she even found it somewhat comical.

Then it dawned on her.

The difference between a horror movie and a comedy...

Was just an Ultraman away.