Sea and sky were blurring together.
Filthy, towering waves, choked with shattered construction materials and the sound of people screaming, slammed over and over into the crumbling seawall.
The gigantic Tentacruel raised its writhing, ancient-monster tentacles high, its shadow of destruction completely engulfing the ruin below.
It lashed out its rage and hatred without restraint.
The construction site was basically gone.
At this point, rebuilding here would be more trouble than moving somewhere else.
The foundations beneath were saturated with its potent toxins.
Even the bedrock had been hammered by its ultrasonic shockwaves.
Its crimson eyes burned with pure hatred, locked onto a small, limp figure below—one thick tentacle had already coiled around Granny Kin, lifting her into the air.
Pokémon were highly intelligent beings.
When they wanted revenge, they didn't necessarily kill all at once.
Ash stood amid the storm, clothes plastered to his skin, soaking cold and heavy.
One thing surprised him, though.
"…Didn't expect I'd still be able to breathe in this." Ash blinked, then realized: this must be the benefit of the Cerulean Gym badge.
The environment was brutal: humidity at near–100%, air thick with mist and aerosolized seawater, enough to choke a normal person.
But he was fine.
"Pika?!" Pikachu bristled atop his shoulder, bathed in golden light, electricity crackling.
For the first time, it showed a flicker of helplessness in the face of something that felt like a natural disaster.
Its power, next to that colossal thing, was like a single firefly before the full moon.
Yeah. No way.
This kind of monster could probably knock down a high-rise just by tripping over it.
Even if Pikachu went all–out, it wouldn't put a dent in it.
What Pikachu could do was carve out a dry pocket around them—blasting aside the worst of the water and spray so at least they could breathe and move.
"Partner…" Ash's voice was nearly torn away by the wind.
"Aim for the base of its tentacle!"
"Hit it with your strongest Thunderbolt—let's see if we can drag its attention over here!"
Even if it was a long shot, he had to try.
He couldn't just stand there and watch destruction fall.
Granny Kin could die here for all he cared—that was karma.
But the innocents in the city behind him? Absolutely not.
The giant Tentacruel had already started moving toward the shoreline with Granny Kin in hand.
If that thing made it onto land?
Yeah, no.
Ash's plan was simple:
Pull aggro, then run for it on Gyarados's back.
Being huge didn't automatically make you fast in the water. The bigger the body, the more drag you fought.
And this Tentacruel was artificially boosted.
Ash was sure it wasn't on Giant Dragonite's level.
"Pika——CHUUU!!"
Pikachu gathered every last drop of its strength, a blazing bolt of golden lightning streaking upward like a meteor, slamming straight toward that colossal, slime–and–sucker–covered tentacle.
And then—
Just as the lightning was about to connect—
Everything changed.
Time and space thickened, like someone had poured clear resin into the world.
The Thunderbolt froze a few meters away from its target, as if it had slammed into an invisible, perfectly smooth, unbreakable wall.
No explosion.
No boom.
Just a soft hum, almost too faint to hear over the storm.
The golden light was casually erased, like a smudge wiped off glass—dispersing, dissolving, vanishing without a trace.
"What?!" Ash's pupils shrank. The sight in front of him defied everything he knew.
Pikachu also froze, sparks on its cheeks flickering erratically, eyes full of confusion.
It wasn't just their attack.
The giant Tentacruel's tentacle—charged with the weight and fury of a falling mountain—also stopped dead in mid–swing.
No matter how it roared or strained, it couldn't move so much as a centimeter downward.
It was as if countless invisible threads had hooked into it from all directions and pulled taut.
Judgment day had been put on pause.
The wind still howled.
The waves still roared.
But the heart of the impact zone—the place where those forces were supposed to collide—was cut out of the world, sealed by some higher, absolute power.
In that churning maelstrom of twisted energy and deafening natural fury, a perfect, unnatural stillness descended.
Ash's extra–sharp senses spiked to the limit.
He jerked his head toward a sudden, quiet presence.
Beyond the crashing surf and roiling spray, on a smooth, wave–polished black rock near the shore—
Something had appeared.
It wasn't huge or imposing.
Quite the opposite.
It was small.
Barely the length of Ash's forearm. Its whole body was a translucent, bottomless green.
It looked like a shrunk–down flatworm.
Or a single drop of living emerald.
It floated a few centimeters above the stone, perfectly stable. A soft green glow pulsed around it: not bright, but unnervingly clear.
It had a single eye. No other features.
Yet somehow Ash knew—
It was watching.
Watching Ash and Pikachu's futile attack.
Watching the rampaging Tentacruel.
Watching Granny Kin's despair.
Watching this man–made ecological catastrophe unfold.
It simply existed there.
Quietly.
Absolutely.
From it, a presence radiated outward—an indescribable, bone-deep chill of order.
It didn't feel like a creature.
It felt like—
A rule, given shape.
A scale weighing life and death.
A ruler drawing boundaries.
The final arbiter that preserved the world's most fundamental balance.
...Order...Order...Order...
A voice echoed—not in the ears, but directly through the minds of Ash and every living being present.
...Conflict...permitted...Conflict... permitted...Conflict...permitted...
...Excess...forbidden...Excess... forbidden...Excess...forbidden...
Ash understood at once.
It had brushed away Pikachu's Thunderbolt as if swatting a gnat.
It had put the Tentacruel's killing strike in chains.
It wasn't here to help either side.
It was here to draw the line.
It permitted this clash born from grievance and vengeance.
But it would not permit mundane humans or ordinary Pokémon to wield power beyond their station—
Not to the point of escalating this into all–out devastation.
That would spread the flames indefinitely, drag in true innocents, and shatter a deeper equilibrium.
"Zygarde…" Ash whispered the god's true name.
This wasn't a complete form.
Not even one of the two Cores.
This was just… a Cell.
One tiny fragment of the entity whose countless pieces roamed the world in secret, watching and guarding the balance of ecosystems.
"Rooaaaaaaar!!"
The giant Tentacruel bellowed again, even angrier—but the roar sounded shackled, as if muffled by invisible chains.
It felt that absolute pressure—the iron–clad rule it couldn't understand and couldn't resist.
More accurately: the power surging within its own body refused to obey it anymore.
Giant Dragonite had clearly never intended to defy Zygarde.
That sort of thing was reserved for its own boss: the Sea King, Kyogre.
In that moment, Ash knew.
The outcome of this conflict no longer depended solely on humans or on this berserk monster.
A higher–order referee had stepped onto the field.
It watched grudges unfold with a cold eye, allowed punishment to be carried out…
But at the same time, it gripped a line that would never be allowed to break.
What had started as a clash between ordinary humans and ordinary Tentacruel—
Once humans used poison to turn it into slaughter…
The Sea King had answered with the Sea King's power.
And if this giant Tentacruel were allowed to wipe Vermilion off the map…
What would humans do in retaliation?
No one wanted to see that escalation.
So the situation could not be allowed to grow any further.
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