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"A Zoroark… this is bad. It looks like it has already successfully developed the innate illusion abilities of its species. Even I was deceived."
The moment Sato saw the Pokémon emerging from Hughes's PokeBall, his pupils shrank sharply. Shock appeared on his face. Then, when he realized he couldn't immediately see through the illusion created by Zoroark, a layer of cold sweat formed on his forehead.
From The Grimoire of Dark Spirits, Sato knew that Zoroark was considered one of the most dangerous wild Pokémon. In the wilderness, if a Trainer encountered one of these Pokémon without special means to counter it, their life was almost certainly in danger.
Among the Pokémon known so far, Zoroark possessed the most powerful illusion-creating ability. Perhaps only ancient Ghost-type Pokémon that had lived for countless years could rival them.
An adult Zoroark could easily create an illusion capable of confusing hundreds of people, trapping them inside so deeply that they could not escape. A truly powerful Zoroark could even plunge an entire city into an illusion.
When battling this Pokémon, one should never trust their five senses. Instead, they must rely on instinct as much as possible. Otherwise, it would be extremely easy to fall into traps carefully prepared by them.
According to The Grimoire of Dark Spirits, the move Odor Sleuth was one of the strongest tools for breaking Zoroark's illusions.
Up until now, Sato had never truly fought against this species. Therefore, he had no idea what other methods could be used to break the illusion.
"Such a powerful illusion… Even my current psychic power can't break it."
Sato pushed his psychic power to its limit, trying to free himself from the illusion. Yet apart from the scenery before his eyes becoming slightly distorted, nothing changed.
Hearing stories was one thing—seeing it with his own eyes was another. This Pokémon was likely even more terrifying than the rumors suggested.
There were at least five to six hundred spectators present. Including their Pokémon, the number of living beings approached a thousand.
Even so, the Zoroark released by Hughes had successfully deceived everyone with its illusion.
At this moment, aside from Hughes himself, most of what everyone else saw was likely false.
"Tentacruel, be careful. Use Toxic Spikes on the surrounding ground."
After quickly attempting to locate Zoroark with psychic detection and realizing it was useless, Sato immediately spoke to Tentacruel via telepathy.
Upon receiving the command, Tentacruel released a large number of purple spikes from its body, scattering them across the nearby ground. The moment these spikes touched the ground, they sank into it and vanished.
"Toxic Spikes, huh? Unfortunately, although Tentacruel appears to scatter them around the battlefield, in reality they're only being placed within a one-meter radius around itself. Both you and Tentacruel have completely fallen into Zoroark's illusion."
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the battlefield, Hughes watched with amusement as Tentacruel carried out Sato's command. Then he glanced toward Zoroark standing just to Tentacruel's left, observing the scene with playful interest.
As Sato had guessed, everyone on the battlefield—except Hughes—had fallen into Zoroark's illusion.
However, like most Pokémon capable of generating illusions, Zoroark itself could not attack while actively maintaining the illusion.
But that wasn't a problem.
By creating illusionary clones, it could toy with its opponents endlessly. Once they were exhausted, Zoroark would appear and finish them off with ease.
To prevent enemies from noticing their intentions, Hughes and Zoroark had long established a series of hand signals known only to them.
Hughes nodded slightly and made a downward pressing gesture.
Zoroark understood instantly. Its eyes suddenly glowed with dazzling red light.
In the eyes of the audience, dozens of Zoroark suddenly appeared around Tentacruel. Their faces twisted with ferocity as they launched attacks.
Seeing such a horrifying scene, Tentacruel immediately extended numerous tentacles and struck at the surrounding Zoroark.
But no matter how many it destroyed, more appeared instantly.
What shocked Tentacruel the most was that these clearly fake Zoroark were actually able to hurt it.
"Tentacruel, calm down! These are all illusions!"
Seeing Tentacruel screaming in pain while surrounded by countless Zoroark, Sato immediately shouted through telepathy.
But Tentacruel seemed unable to hear him. It continued wildly attacking the illusionary Zoroark with its tentacles, as if locked in a life-or-death struggle.
"Damn it… is this the 'dual illusion' described in The Grimoire of Dark Spirits? Tentacruel and I are seeing different illusions. Hughes's Zoroark's talent for illusion techniques is terrifying. How am I supposed to fight this?"
Realizing something was wrong with Tentacruel, Sato quickly recalled part of the records about Zoroark in The Grimoire of Dark Spirits. The thought left him deeply shaken.
The book mentioned that certain exceptionally gifted Zoroark could simultaneously create different illusions for different enemies.
Normally, everyone trapped in an illusion would see the same scene. This was because creating illusions required extremely precise mental control.
If the illusion exceeded the user's mental control capacity, flaws would appear. Maintaining a single shared illusion didn't require much control—but trapping hundreds of creatures within the same illusion demanded enormous mental strength.
Creating different illusions simultaneously was even more difficult.
It meant that the illusionist had to construct two entirely different illusions at the same time.
It was like trying to play a video game with one hand while doing homework with the other—while your brain handled both tasks simultaneously.
If Sato's guess was correct, Hughes's Zoroark was doing exactly that.
It had created two separate illusions—one for Sato and another for Tentacruel.
At first, the illusion of numerous Zoroark attacking Tentacruel might have been the same. But afterward, the illusions diverged.
Sato suspected that the initial illusion was meant to deceive him—making him believe Tentacruel was fighting Zoroark's clones.
In reality, Tentacruel had fallen into a completely different illusion.
And the truth was exactly as Sato had suspected.
Tentacruel wasn't fighting Zoroark at all.
After smashing countless Zoroark illusions, Tentacruel suddenly found itself facing the enemies it once encountered in the ocean—old predators and rivals viciously biting and tearing at its body.
But from Hughes's perspective, Tentacruel was simply whipping itself with its own tentacles.
Before long, Tentacruel had beaten itself into serious injury.