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In the Western Region.
Chris stood on Lugia's back as it surged forward rapidly through the high altitude.
This wasn't the first time he'd experienced Lugia's incredible speed, but Chris still felt compelled to acknowledge it. "As expected of a Legendary Pokémon—it flies incredibly fast."
According to Pokédex entries in the games, if Dragonite flew at full strength, it could circle the entire Earth in just sixteen hours. At Lugia's speed, it probably wouldn't even take four hours to accomplish the same feat.
It took Chris less than an hour to arrive in the Western Region. At this pace, if he resolved the matter quickly enough, he could still return home to rest tonight.
Arriving at the destination—at the foot of a snow-capped mountain, on the edge of a lush green meadow—Chris spotted his target from a distance.
He could see an enormous blue portal. According to reports, this Secret Realm had been discovered by local herdsmen while tending their sheep nearby.
"Champion Chris!"
At the entrance to the Secret Realm, staff members from the Trainer Association had already established a camp. Seeing the iconic dark-colored Lugia approaching, everyone quickly formed a line to greet him properly.
Chris dismounted from Lugia's back and recalled it into its Poké Ball.
"Thank you all for your hard work. Have there been any unusual activities within the Secret Realm?" Chris inquired.
A leading Trainer Association member stepped forward to respond. "Champion Chris, the interior of the Secret Realm appears very stable. This document contains all the Secret Realm information we've gathered during this period."
With that explanation, he offered Chris a tablet computer.
Chris accepted the tablet and examined it carefully. The information contained within wasn't substantially different from what he'd already received from Nora.
"I'll proceed inside now," Chris announced, returning the tablet to the staff member before striding toward the Secret Realm portal.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Chris walked directly into the Secret Realm.
The scenery before him immediately transformed, and darkness descended as if he'd stepped into a small, lightless room.
However, this presented no real challenge for Chris. After several years of practicing Clairvoyant's Eye, he'd already developed the ability to "see in darkness."
Chris quickly determined he was standing in a dark forest.
With a light snap of his fingers, Chris issued a command.
"Gardevoir, use Confusion."
Gardevoir immediately emerged from invisibility, clasped both hands before her chest, and Confusion instantly erupted outward, rushing toward the surroundings like a powerful tide as she began her investigation.
Chris also began moving forward on foot.
Walking around a large bush, brilliant white moonlight fell into Chris's field of vision like flowing silk.
High in the distant sky, a full moon hung suspended, cold and solitary.
"This Secret Realm exists in eternal night," Chris recalled, remembering information he'd seen on the tablet earlier.
He gazed up at the full moon once more.
A perfectly round full moon—quite rare.
Shortly afterward, Gardevoir completed her Confusion scan of the "Beauty Under the Moon" Secret Realm and transmitted the scan results, constructing a mental three-dimensional map directly into Chris's mind.
Suddenly, an enormous forest materialized in Chris's consciousness, revealing all varieties of Pokémon hiding throughout it.
This was the advantage of having a powerful Psychic-type Pokémon. In terms of searching and surveillance capabilities, no other Pokémon could compare with them.
However, Chris couldn't locate the "Beauty Under the Moon" Gardevoir anywhere within the vast forest.
"There are two possibilities. Either that Gardevoir's Psychic power is significantly stronger than my Gardevoir's, or it has already departed from this Secret Realm," Chris reasoned aloud.
After all, if that Gardevoir truly possessed "divine authority," leaving this Secret Realm undetected wouldn't seem particularly difficult.
However, Chris soon discovered something else of interest—there was a large Gardevoir population residing within this forest. The group numbered over a thousand individuals, including substantial populations of Ralts and Kirlia as well.
"Let's investigate that," Chris decided.
"Nai~" Gardevoir suddenly spoke up.
She used her mental power to focus Chris's attention on a specific region within the three-dimensional mental map.
"Your mental power can't penetrate this area?" Chris raised his eyebrows questioningly. Gardevoir informed him that when her spiritual power attempted to explore that location, it behaved as if falling into a vortex—being twisted and torn apart by a powerful force before disappearing completely.
It seemed this particular place was quite extraordinary. Beauty Under the Moon might very well be located there.
"Then let's investigate this location first. If we can't find Beauty Under the Moon there, we'll visit the Gardevoir colony afterward," Chris instructed.
"Nai~" Gardevoir immediately gestured with her hand.
In the next second, Chris and Gardevoir teleported to the vicinity of that unusual region.
Before them lay a strange desert that seemed completely incompatible with the surrounding forest, as if an irregular blade had been used to carve the landscape into two distinct pieces. Not a single creature existed within it, and even the moonlight falling upon it appeared fragmented into countless shattered pieces.
Chris casually retrieved an Oran Berry from his bag and tossed it forward as a test.
The blue berry flew through the air without any resistance, landed on the ground... and vanished!
"The power of time?"
Chris couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in surprise.
He'd observed clearly that the Oran Berry's disappearance wasn't due to impact with the ground. Rather, while the Oran Berry was still flying through the air, it transformed from a ripe fruit into an unripe green fruit, then shrank smaller and smaller, eventually becoming a seed before disappearing entirely!
Chris contemplated this for a moment, then retrieved another Oran Berry and threw it with identical force and trajectory. This time, the result was the same—the Oran Berry disappeared the moment it touched the ground.
However, the process was completely different from what Chris had just witnessed. This Oran Berry rapidly began turning yellow, then burst with juice, shriveled, decayed, turned to dust, and finally vanished!
One Oran Berry had regressed back to seed form, while the other had accelerated through maturity to decay.
This represented time moving both backward and forward.
"Chaotic time distortion..." Chris murmured thoughtfully.
"Use your mental power to investigate again," Chris commanded Gardevoir. Simultaneously, he concentrated his Aura power and channeled it to Gardevoir for support.
Gardevoir gathered her energy once more, and Confusion began spreading outward for reconnaissance.
The tidal wave of Confusion spreading forward appeared in Chris's perception like a massive wave crashing ahead.
Soon, just as Gardevoir had described earlier, the mental energy encountered vortexes. However, rather than one enormous vortex, there were countless smaller vortexes with gaps between them—and those gaps weren't insignificant at all.
The Confusion that wasn't absorbed and torn apart by the vortexes continued spreading deeper into the region.
In Chris's mental vision, what appeared resembled an enormous tree diagram. These complicated branches represented the safe pathways through which Confusion could spread.
Reaching the deepest point, the vortexes and turbulence vanished entirely, replaced by a small clearing. In the center of that clearing rested a crystalline stone emitting powerful energy.
Chris raised his eyebrows with interest. Without question, this crystal stone had to be something valuable.
"#,#!"
Just as Chris prepared to have Gardevoir teleport them through the vortex-filled area, a cold voice called out from the right.
"Human, don't proceed any further! What lies ahead is extremely dangerous."