Zhu Qianwei dismounted from her Pidgeot. Seeing that most of Team One were still alive, she finally let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
"What happened here? What did you encounter?"
A Team One investigator tried to stand up and salute, but Zhu Qianwei waved him down. Only then did he sit back and report:
"Guild Leader Zhu, it was a Noctowl… but not an ordinary one. It was at least Gym-Leader High Tier. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been pushed into such a desperate situation."
As he spoke, the team leader unconsciously recalled the scene where his Alakazam's Future Sight struck the Noctowl—yet did absolutely nothing.
Zhu Qianwei's expression changed.
"Gym-Leader High Tier?"
She knew better than anyone what that meant. Even she herself only had one Pokémon at that level. If she encountered that Noctowl alone, she might be able to defeat it—but if it chose to flee, she likely wouldn't be able to stop it.
(And that was only because she didn't yet know the truth—that the Noctowl already had one foot stepping into Pseudo-Elite territory.)
"Then how did you survive?" Zhu Qianwei suddenly asked.
Facing a Gym-Leader High Tier Pokémon—especially one specialized in speed—there was no logical way this team should still be standing.
The team leader froze.
"Wasn't… wasn't it someone you sent to save us?"
Now it was Zhu Qianwei's turn to be stunned.
"Someone I sent?" she frowned. "Everyone I brought is right here. I never sent anyone else."
The leader muttered in disbelief, "Then… could it have been someone who got dragged into the secret realm during its descent?"
"But that doesn't make sense either," he continued. "If he were that strong, he wouldn't have been pulled in by the spatial suction in the first place."
Zhu Qianwei said, "Tell me everything—start from the moment you encountered that Noctowl."
She paused, glancing at the team's injuries.
"…Actually, never mind. Let's move first. Explain it on the way back."
"Yes!"
As they traveled, the team leader recounted everything in detail—from encountering the Noctowl, to the desperate battle, to the sudden appearance of that young man… and finally, how he vanished without a trace after the fight.
"You're saying…" Zhu Qianwei suddenly interrupted, "that he had a Kirlia with him?"
Wang Chengzhou immediately replied, "Yes. I remember it clearly—there was a Kirlia beside him."
Zhu Qianwei fell silent.
"Could it really be him…?" she murmured.
She remembered Tian Xin begging her to rescue someone—Oliver.
But according to Tian Xin, Oliver was only eighteen years old.
An eighteen-year-old… with Gym-Leader-level combat strength?
That was simply absurd.
If he really had that kind of power, how could he have been dragged into the secret realm during its descent?
No matter how she thought about it, nothing added up.
The closer Oliver moved toward the location of the black feather, the more terrifying the malice in the air became.
In the end, it was so dense that it became visible—threads of black resentment drifting through the air like smoke.
Ahead of him hovered an enormous sphere of black energy.
It looked like a miniature black hole, composed entirely of pure malice, swallowing the space around it. That was the source.
"If nothing unexpected happened," Oliver muttered, "the black feather should be inside that sphere."
He glanced at Decidueye beside him.
The green energy barrier Celesteela—no, Celebi—had placed on Decidueye's body was already creaking, eroded continuously by the surrounding malice.
"Tree-hoot."
Decidueye stopped.
"I can't go any further," it said calmly. "This is as far as I can escort you. The rest… is up to you."
"Got it," Oliver replied.
He recalled Kirlia into its Poké Ball.
The malice here was already affecting it—its eyes had begun to faintly glow red, though it was still barely holding on.
This was a place no living being should be able to approach.
Even the Noctowl that had been closest to the source had never actually touched the black sphere.
It wasn't unwilling.
It simply couldn't.
It was the instinctive suppression of higher existence over lower life—a fear engraved into the soul.
Oliver stepped forward, one step at a time, until he stood directly before the black sphere.
He slowly raised his hand and touched it.
In the instant of contact—
An unimaginable torrent of malice surged up his arm, flooding straight into his mind.
The world shattered.
He found himself standing on an island.
People were everywhere—faces twisted in terror as they fled in all directions.
The sea roared.
The earth cracked.
Volcanoes erupted.
Lightning tore through the sky.
It was hell.
Where could they even run?
Voices echoed endlessly in Oliver's ears—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions overlapping at once.
They screamed.
They wailed.
They begged.
He couldn't make out the words, but the despair and rage crushed into his consciousness without mercy.
Then the ground collapsed.
Oliver fell into the sea.
He thrashed, struggling to reach the surface—
But in the darkness below, countless hands reached out.
They grabbed his ankles.
Then his legs.
His waist.
His shoulders.
His arms.
Dragging him down.
Pulling him into the abyss.
Finally, those hands covered his eyes.
He stopped struggling.
He sank.
In reality, less than a single second had passed.
Oliver's eyes instantly turned blood-red.
A hoarse, feral growl escaped his throat—no different from a Pokémon overtaken by malice.
The malice here was so overwhelming that it could directly corrupt the human mind.
Kill.
The world before him was dyed crimson, as if a blood-red filter had been laid over everything.
Destruction surged through his thoughts.
He wanted to annihilate everything in front of him.
At that moment—
The Poké Ball at his waist trembled.
Kirlia, able to sense human and Pokémon emotions, felt that something was terribly wrong with its Trainer.
Even sealed inside its ball, it desperately tried to reach him.
Milotic, too.
From the moment it evolved to save Oliver, their bond had surpassed the boundary between Trainer and Pokémon.
Their destinies were tightly intertwined.
A bond so profound that even the mythical Celebi had once been shocked by it.
"Miloo…"
"Kirlia…"
Their voices echoed faintly within Oliver's consciousness.
His twisted expression faltered.
The crimson in his eyes dimmed slightly.
Yet the malice still dominated his mind, immovable and overwhelming.
Like a pebble dropped into an ocean—
Milotic and Kirlia's emotional resonance sent ripples through his flooded mental sea.
The waves were small.
They couldn't shake the foundation of the malice.
But they awakened something else.
A different power… vast and surging.
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