Chapter 632: Pursuit and Extinction
On the way back to the grassland, Kazuya muttered softly:
"I should have realized it sooner."
"Flo-ette?"
Floette looked down at him in confusion.
"Do you remember when Goodra told us about his father going to war with the Overlord of the Rocky Mountains?"
"Flo-ette."
Floette nodded.
"At that time, the Rocky Mountain Overlord lost his mind because the swamp Pokémon interfered in the battle. He completely purged all the clans involved, and only a portion of the Arbok clan was lucky enough to escape..."
Kazuya remembered that back then, an elder of the Goodra clan had described the appearance of the Rocky Mountain Overlord to him. They had even sketched it on the ground.
But the drawing was too abstract. For a long time, Kazuya had mistakenly assumed the Rocky Mountain Overlord was a Tyranitar.
However, reflecting on it now, and combining it with the reputation of the Tyrantrum species, he realized he should have known all along that it was them.
The reputation of Tyrantrum could be summed up in just two descriptors: ferocious and upright.
A Pokémon like Tyranitar had absolutely nothing to do with being upright. In fact, among all currently known Pokémon, exceptionally few could be described with that word. The Ancient King possessed not only raw power but also a regal, majestic bearing. They strictly forbade any third party from interfering in their battles; to them, winning or losing such a tainted match was an absolute disgrace.
That was precisely why he had flown into a cataclysmic rage.
But Kazuya hadn't connected the dots back then. His brain, after all, wasn't a supercomputer. He wasn't sharp enough to definitively identify a specific Pokémon based on such sparse fragments of information.
"Flo-ette."
Just as Floette was about to vocalize a response, she suddenly pointed her claw straight ahead, immediately flattening herself against Kazuya's head to minimize her presence.
Directly along their trajectory, a massive flock of Archeops unexpectedly materialized in the airspace before them.
This flock of Archeops was in a state of wretched disarray. Many individuals even bore the distinct charred marks of raging flames across their frames.
This caused Kazuya's brow to furrow instantly.
There were plenty of Fire-type Pokémon living on the grassland. But the only ones commanding the absolute strength required to batter this flock of Archeops into such a pathetic state were the Arcanine clan or the two or three powerful adult Charizards of their own Dragon Clan.
Further south of that boundary lay the volcanic mountain range, a domain teeming with countless Fire-type Pokémon lineages.
One thing was mathematically certain: a species like Archeops didn't natively exist anywhere within the volcanic mountains or the grassland. Judging by their current flight vector, they were highly likely migrating from a region much further to the south, charting a path that cleaved through both the volcano and the grassland.
Kazuya couldn't conclusively verify which specific clan this flock of Archeops had clashed with. He deemed it highly improbable to be his own clan. The Dragon Clan only held six Charizards in total, three of whom had just recently evolved and possessed meager combat viability.
As for the remaining three... one was himself, meaning only two adult Charizards were left garrisoning the home. It shouldn't have been possible for just two dragons to burn such a massive flock of Archeops into this state, right?
This was how Kazuya calculated the variables. He also couldn't fathom a logical reason why the Dragon Clan would initiate a full-scale war against the Archeops lineage.
Generally speaking, an airborne Pokémon or an entire foreign flock occasionally borrowing their airspace to pass through was a normal occurrence. For instance, the Swanna of the grassland frequently used the Dragon Clan's skies as a transit route, making them a familiar, accepted face. Kazuya wouldn't mobilize the Dragon Clan to launch an offensive over something like that; at most, they would maintain a baseline level of vigilance.
Yet, what transpired next left him completely bewildered.
The moment the Archeops caught sight of Kazuya, they split into two separate columns without a single word of negotiation, veering wildly to flank around him on both sides—closely resembling a cascading waterfall splitting automatically around a massive boulder.
"?"
Kazuya hovered in place. Watching these forty-odd Archeops avoid him as if he were an absolute plague, his heart filled with a deep sense of bizarre bewilderment.
There are over forty of you Archeops.
And you're terrified of me alone?
Through his Aura Perception, Kazuya discerned that the Alpha leader of these Archeops highly likely commanded a level baseline superior to his own. In a strict one-on-one duel, he didn't fear the opponent, but the enemy still held over forty combat-ready companions. He had originally intended to give them a wide berth or activate his Extreme Speed to slip away smoothly, yet the adversary had unexpectedly succumbed to terror first?
"Did they get thoroughly trashed by the volcano Charizard clan?" Kazuya muttered silently.
He cast a long look toward the trajectory where the Archeops flock was retreating—the Rocky Mountain range. Kazuya couldn't help but shake his head. That place was hardly a comfortable territory to carve out a living. The dragons down there were all hyper-aggressive sigmas. Given Archeops' psychological traits, fleeing into those rocky peaks meant they would likely be relentlessly hunted and driven across the mountains. If the Archeops were searching for a viable habitat, the forests flanking the base of the volcanic mountains would be far more suited to their traits.
Withdrawing his gaze, Kazuya resumed his high-speed flight toward the grassland.
As he crossed the perimeter of the swamp, he originally intended to drop into the foliage to converse with the Goodra clan, extracting an update on the swamp's current parameters.
Yet, he discovered that not a single trace of a Goodra could be located across the entire swamp.
This sudden vacancy injected a profound, ominous premonition straight into Kazuya's heart. Today wasn't the designated day for the Goodra clan to return to the grassland to report their status. For them to abruptly alter their operational schedule and execute a total withdrawal meant a monumental crisis had inevitably manifested within either the swamp or the grassland.
Recalling that battered flock of Archeops he had just bypassed, Kazuya's brow snapped down, and his breathing turned intensely shallow and rapid. He locked eyes with Floette, who mirrored his profound unease.
The very next second, he maxed out his Extreme Speed. He launched a full-throttle, desperate sprint back to their home.
By the time Kazuya breached the airspace of the Dragon Clan's inner sanctum, the sky had dimmed into absolute darkness, and a full moon hung high overhead. Kazuya plummeted out of the heavens, his colossal frame crashing heavily onto the soil of the heartland.
Surveying the landscape unfolding before him, his golden irises violently contracted into razor-thin slits.
Scattered Archeops plumage.
Earth heavily saturated with crimson blood.
Pastures utterly reduced to ash and rubble.
And...
The sight that completely shattered his mental limits—the lifeless bodies of the young dragon cubs.
Kazuya stood frozen and silent within the heartland of his home, the blue veins bulging with terrifying intensity across his draconian snout and neck.
The entire clearing descended into a dead, suffocating, freezing stillness. Yet, the ambient temperature across the quadrant began to violently, steadily skyrocket. His unbridled fury caused the flame atop his tail to roar with cataclysmic power, burning with an intensity that threatened to physically warp and ignite the surrounding atmosphere. The air wrapping his frame appeared completely translucent from the sheer heat.
The members of the Dragon Clan merely stood in absolute silence, staring at their Big Brother. Not a single soul opened their jaws, deeply terrified of disrupting his thoughts.
Floette collapsed in profound grief beside a fallen Shieldon hatchling, her emotional control completely fracturing as tears splattered heavily onto the petals of the Eternal Flower cradled in her arms.
These beautiful, innocent children... some had barely broken through their shells not long ago. They hadn't even secured an opportunity to properly witness the grandeur of this world.
Had they ever laid eyes on the ocean?
Had they ever seen the swamp?
Had they ever seen the snowfields?
Floette had always maintained an absolute, unyielding belief in Kazuya. She believed with every fiber of her being that he would eventually lead the entire Dragon Clan to behold all those magnificent horizons, just as he had personally guided her to witness the majesty of the sea.
Yet, these children simply hadn't managed to hold out until that day arrived.
The petals of the Eternal Flower trembled with an erratic, pulsing frequency. The dim yellow moonlight spilled continuously from the full moon above, blanketing the wider canvas of the world. Yet across the immediate perimeter of the Eternal Flower, every single shred of ambient light appeared to be violently swallowed and consumed.
In a mere matter of two or three seconds, a blinding radiance incomparably more dazzling than the moonlight erupted directly from Floette's body. Her physical silhouette began to shift and warp piece by piece within the evolutionary white light, transitioning from her historically tiny build into an imposing posture of absolute nobility and elegance.
When the blinding light finally dissolved, a Florges in a form that had never once manifested across creation stood silently upon the earth.
She resembled a magnificent black blossom in full bloom. The dark, dense floral collar wrapping her porcelain neck structured a flawless, exquisite mantle, interspersed with several dark-red blossoms that appeared far more sinister and ethereal than fresh blood.
Floette... had ultimately shattered the primary desire she had strictly guarded since childhood. She chose to evolve into a Florges—a species completely stripped of the capacity for skyward flight.
Deep within her soul, when balancing the scales between fiercely safeguarding her companions versus soaring freely through the open sky... the former had invariably proven to be countless times more vital. As long as she could flawlessly shield and protect the surviving young children of the collective, then being permanently grounded was a reality she could accept without a single shred of regret.
Locked in his absolute silence, Kazuya didn't let his focus be pulled by Floette's transformation; to this very second, he didn't even register that she had officially evolved.
Dozens of seconds later, a succession of chilling, razor-sharp commands ground out from the gaps of his teeth:
"Dispatch runners to locate Arcanine, Florges, and Feraligatr. Petition them to deploy a detachment of their martial elite to assist us in garrisoning and holding our home."
"The Goodra clan is to immediately re-garrison the swamp. Maintain a flawless watch over that choke point; do not allow a single Pokémon from the Rocky Mountains or the snowfields to breach that perimeter to enter the northern grassland."
"The Bastiodon line will remain stationed to hold the inner sanctum. Keep a strict watch over the remaining dragon cubs, and maintain seamless cooperation with our allies."
"Every other mature dragon... will mobilize alongside me. We march into the Rocky Mountain range to hunt down the Archeops. We wipe them out entirely."
Every single word carried a suffocating, lethal edge.
Facing an adversary he mathematically couldn't conquer, he could endure and bide his time.
Witnessing the destruction of the agricultural pastures, he could still swallow his anger.
But the moment the children of the Dragon Clan were ruthlessly murdered... Kazuya couldn't tolerate that reality for even a fleeting second.
He knew with absolute certainty that given the Dragon Clan's hollow anti-air capabilities, launching a deep pursuit to hunt down a flock of Archeops within a cutthroat warzone like the Rocky Mountains was as difficult as ascending the heavens.
Yet his prolonged silence just now hadn't been spent in empty despair. Since he had articulated this resolution, he had naturally formulated the exact method to secure their annihilation.
Granted, this strategy required leveraging the strength of an entirely separate clan. But that detail didn't matter. He had harbored designs regarding that specific clan for a long time anyway, and they could hardly be counted as innocent; they had aggressively launched an offensive against them in the past.
Perfect. He would leverage their raw, unbridled power to make the Archeops flock pay for this blood debt in full.
If he chose to swallow this grievance and continue to bide his time, he didn't know how the members of the Dragon Clan would process it, but he personally wouldn't be able to accept such a pathetic version of himself.
Therefore, Kazuya refused to endure any longer. On his trajectory back to the grassland, he had personally encountered the Archeops flock and witnessed them fleeing straight toward the Rocky Mountain range with his own eyes. As for which exact mountain peak they had scurried onto, Kazuya didn't know—but he possessed an ocean of methods to run them down.
The assembled dragons were thoroughly struck by the suffocating, lethal malevolence radiating from Kazuya, standing frozen in place without dare to twitch a single muscle. For the very first time in their lives, they realized that their normally tolerant, benevolent Big Brother held an unimaginably terrifying facet to his soul. It was a crushing pressure that indiscriminately shook the absolute depths of every living entity.
"Move out!!"
Kazuya's roar reverberated across the vast expanse of the grassland.
With that singular bellow, the entire northern grassland sector completely erupted into motion.
In the dead peak of summer, the atmosphere blanketing the grassland turned thoroughly, ruthlessly lethal. The moon hung high in the skyward vault, its lunar radiance intensifying with such erratic power that it nearly mimicked a second sun. The entire earth appeared to be physically baking under the crushing moonlight.
The three great native clans governing the southern grassland immediately mobilized twenty of their martial elites each, deploying them to the Dragon Clan's northern perimeter to assist their friends in holding their home.
Meanwhile, the remaining forces of the Dragon Clan—the Rampardos, Cyclizar, Kommo-o, and Altaria lines—converged into a colossal, sweeping vanguard. They ploughed straight through the sticky, humid parameters of the swamp, marching with absolute certainty toward the Rocky Mountain range.
Even though the swamp environment brought intense physical discomfort to their frames—and for the vast majority of these dragons, this marked their very first time stepping into the mire—their steady strides remained entirely unshakable, devoid of even a shred of retreat.
Every single wild Pokémon along their trajectory, upon colliding with this sweeping juggernaut composed of over a hundred roaring dragons, fled out of the path without a single moment of hesitation. A staggering number of wild creatures were so thoroughly struck with absolute terror that they collapsed into the underbrush on the spot, desperately playing dead.
By this time, Kazuya had finally registered the evolved Florges beside him. A Florges commanding the Eternal Flower form projected a profoundly mysterious, highly perilous aura. Yet Kazuya didn't allow his focus to linger, merely casting a brief look before withdrawing his gaze.
The current state of his soul didn't grant him the emotional leeway to dedicate his energy to celebrating his companion's evolution. His entire heart was completely, ruthlessly consumed by a singular, burning objective—the Archeops flock.
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