As the new turn began, Deoxys switched to Speed Forme, and a Thunderbolt crackled through the air, instantly knocking out Pelipper.
Next up was Ludicolo.
With the rain boosting it, Ludicolo's Swift Swim ability activated, sending its speed skyrocketing to its absolute peak.
Deoxys had no way of knowing this and stayed in Speed Forme.
But under Swift Swim's effect, Ludicolo's speed was actually a hair faster than Deoxys in Speed Forme.
"Now! Leaf Storm!"
Countless razor-sharp leaves swept out like a green tempest, slamming hard into Deoxys.
In Speed Forme, Deoxys had relatively low Defense, and the hit carved through well over half its HP. It let out an agonized shriek, body swaying on the verge of collapse, but it fired back with a Hyper Beam that instantly knocked out Ludicolo.
"It's not over yet!"
Cynthia sent out her final Pokemon: Sceptile.
The Key Stone had already been reclaimed.
As the radiance of Mega Evolution blazed to life, Mega Sceptile took the field.
At that moment, Deoxys switched back to Defense Forme.
Mega Sceptile didn't have Swift Swim. Even in its Mega form, that didn't change.
"Use Frenzy Plant!"
The most powerful Grass-type move at maximum force.
Countless vines erupted alongside massive, sweeping leaves.
A critical hit.
With a thunderous crash, Deoxys's purple body finally gave out, its HP bar hitting zero.
"We won!"
"Incredible! Cynthia, you legend!"
"That rain combo was the turning point. Almost went sideways."
"That Deoxys was seriously strong. The mechanics were so complex, but Cynthia's in-the-moment reading of the situation was top tier."
The battle over, Cynthia let out a long, slow breath.
Just then, Giratina, which had been shadowing the ship all along, suddenly let out a fierce, resonant roar.
It gave Cynthia a single nod, then streaked through the sky like a meteor, hurtling straight toward the massive asteroid.
The scene shifted. A grand cutscene began to play.
Giratina plunged into the heart of the asteroid, unleashing its full power. Countless dark green beams shot from its body, colliding violently with the asteroid's core in a chain reaction.
BOOM.
A thunderclap that shook the heavens. In an instant, the enormous asteroid was obliterated. Countless fragments scattered through space like fireworks, catching the light of the sun in a breathtaking display.
Cynthia sat quietly before her screen, watching it all unfold.
The shattered remains drifted like a meteor shower across the dark expanse of space.
Something flickered in her eyes: awe, emotion, and something like relief.
A memory from childhood surfaced, a legend about a hero, playing out now in this game in almost exactly the same way.
This was only a game. But what she felt in that moment was completely real.
That kind of power...
Someday, she would reach it too.
Cerulean City.
Inside the villa, sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and across the living room.
Kairos was lounging on the leather sofa, tablet in hand, scrolling through the morning news.
After the harrowing battle the night before, the outside media still hadn't fully pieced together what had happened in the Ghost World, but reports about a "mysterious flash of light" and "spatial tremors" were already flooding every channel.
Most of these reports were vague, and some had clearly been suppressed by the authorities, who were labeling it all as some kind of unusual natural phenomenon.
It was obvious that the League wanted to keep what had actually happened in the Ghost World out of the public eye.
Kairos swiped past a few headlines without much interest and closed the page.
He turned his head, gaze drifting to a large transparent tank nearby.
Omanyte was cheerfully spinning around in the water, its tentacles occasionally brushing against the glass. It seemed to be in a pretty good mood.
Compared to when it had first hatched, Omanyte was noticeably larger now, the patterns on its shell sharper and more defined. It had clearly been thriving.
To better care for this Pokemon from an ancient era, Kairos had spent a bit of time that morning researching its diet. The results had genuinely surprised him. The little creature liked spicy food.
He had tested several different berries, and it had sniffed most of them and looked away.
But one particular bright red berry, the kind that could send other Pokemon into agony from the heat, it had devoured happily, and when it was done, it blew a stream of bubbles in the water with an air of thoroughly savoring every last bite.
That kind of taste was genuinely rare among Pokemon.
According to the dietary guides Kairos had read, most Water-type and Rock-type Pokemon tended to prefer mild or high-energy foods.
He shifted his gaze to another corner of the room.
There, Chandelure floated quietly in midair.
And Gengar was draped over the back of the sofa like a blob of purple jelly.
These two Ghost-types sat at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Omanyte when it came to eating.
In principle, as long as they had enough Ghost-type energy or high-concentration spiritual power nearby, they didn't need to eat physical food the way ordinary Pokemon did, and had no real flavor preferences to speak of.
As long as the energy supply was steady, they stayed in peak condition.
The only reason they ate at all was that Kairos cooked out of boredom, and the food was good enough that they had simply started joining in.
He let his gaze drift a little further and spotted Dragonite sitting in the corner, contentedly gnawing away at a large bucket of Energy Cubes.
That one was straightforward: pure gluttony.
Whatever was edible, it would try to eat. And its digestive system seemed to operate like a bottomless pit. The nickname "Chubby" had been earned fair and square.
Kairos pulled his attention back and reached for something he had brought back from the Reverse World: the centerpiece of his haul, the Ghost-type Slate.
The moment he took it out, the otherwise calm living room stirred with a sudden breeze.
Chandelure sensed the shift almost instantly. The flame above its head leapt upward, and deep within the pale blue fire, a trace of eerie purple flickered to life.
Gengar practically launched itself off the sofa back, eyes locked onto the slate with unblinking intensity, a thin trail of drool inching toward the carpet.
Kairos set the slate gently on the coffee table.
A low hum resonated through the air.
Rings of visible violet energy rippled outward from the slate, and both Ghost-types closed in immediately, drinking in the energy that radiated from it.
Watching this, Kairos's regard for the slate climbed another notch.
What a find. A genuinely extraordinary find.
This kind of boost was nothing like the gradual gains of conventional training. It was a direct, across-the-board enhancement, more effective than even Rare Candy. After absorbing energy for only a short while, Chandelure's aura had already begun to shift.
By Kairos's read, if Chandelure had previously been at the high end of Champion-tier, it had now firmly stepped across the threshold into the upper echelon of that tier, well within the strongest cohort at that level.
Gengar, whose evolution had been more recent and whose strength had started slightly lower, around early Champion-tier, had already surged to at least mid Champion-tier on the back of the slate's power.
And this was just the beginning of the absorption. If they fully digested the energy stored in the slate, breaking into Legendary-tier would be well within reach.
If other trainers on the outside ever found out how fast this worked, every single one of them would lose their minds, even someone like Steven.
Speaking of Legendary-tier, Kairos let out a quiet sigh.
The Spiritomb incident in the Ghost World had ended without lasting harm, but it had been a wake-up call.
This world was not nearly as peaceful as it looked on the surface. The dangers lurking in the shadows could surface at any time.
And the more worlds he reached through the Transit Scrolls, the more complicated and dangerous things were going to get. If he kept handling situations the way he had this time, running to Giratina or Mewtwo whenever something was beyond him, that was not a sustainable strategy.
Better to rely on himself. Strengthening his own capabilities had become genuinely urgent.
Kairos couldn't help but think back with a wry sense of irony.
When he had first arrived in this world, all he had wanted was to quietly work as a game developer. Becoming a trainer had never been part of the plan.
But plans rarely survive contact with reality.
If there was no avoiding it, then he would face it head-on.
He needed to bring his strength up to a level where he could count on it.
At least to the level of a Tier-Two Divine.
Fortunately, reaching that goal was not out of reach.
The resources he had on hand were already quite substantial.
The Ghost-type Slate in front of him was a major breakthrough point. If he used it properly and pushed his core team into Legendary-tier, his overall combat power would leap to an entirely different level.
On top of that, there were the usable items waiting in the system's mission rewards, plus whatever rewards were sure to come from collecting more Sacred Beast Pokedex entries and developing the Faith System further. The path forward was already mapped out clearly enough.
As long as he followed it steadily, reaching Tier-Two Divine was only a matter of time.
As for right now, this particularly hectic stretch had finally come to a pause.
The Ghost World crisis had been resolved. The animated series in the new world was going well.
Before his next visit to that world, he had a rare window of quiet.
Time to sit down and properly take stock of everything this run had brought in.
Kairos settled back into the sofa, gaze resting on the floating system panel as his thoughts began to organize themselves.
After last night's battle, combined with the ongoing game operations across several worlds, his Emotion Points had surged again. The numbers on the screen flickered a few times before settling on a figure that left him genuinely satisfied.
Twenty-five thousand points.
Back in the day, a number like that would have sent him into a fit of joy. It was a small fortune.
Now, it still felt good, but it no longer seemed out of reach.
The haul had come from many places: fear and excitement from Rescue Team of Time players navigating tense dungeon runs, frustration and renewed determination from players in Emerald failing and starting over, and of course, the emotional reactions from audiences in the Fourth World and the Reverse World watching his animated series, all those conversations about where the story was going and the feelings it stirred.
The Rescue Team side especially seemed to have reached a pivotal part of the story, and the emotional feedback from players there had been unusually intense.
Beyond the Emotion Points, the biggest prize was clearly the Ghost-type Slate, no further explanation needed.
On top of all that, Kairos knew his relationship with Giratina had shifted in a real way.
The great dragon still wore its usual aloof and unapproachable air, but those parting words before it left had made clear it now regarded him as one of its own.
That meant the next time he had something he couldn't handle on his own and went to find the Ghost Dragon in the Reverse World, the door would be a lot easier to open.
And with Will, the master of the Ghost World, as a close ally, everyone in the Ghost World lineage had effectively become a reliable resource.
If he ever needed a rare Ghost-type for assistance, or wanted to make use of the Ghost World's unique geography for something specific, it would all be a single conversation away.
That network of relationships was worth more than any tangible item.
Kairos brought his attention back to the mission panel.
[SS-Rank Special Mission: Unrest in the Ghost World!]
[Mission Brief: The ancient defenses of the Ghost World are weakening at an alarming rate. A catastrophe brewing from deep within is on the verge of spilling over, and its influence has already begun to bleed into reality.]
[Mission Status: Completed.]
[Condition Met: Used the game to guide and strengthen Ghost World trainers, enabling them to resist the unrest. Guided Mewtwo as an ally to defeat Spiritomb. Crisis resolved with full success.]
[Mission Rating: Perfect.]
At the word Perfect, the corners of Kairos's mouth curved upward.
That was the highest rating, wasn't it?
The process had its tense moments, especially when Spiritomb erupted ahead of schedule and he had to take a beat to figure out a counter, but outcomes were what mattered.
Getting a Perfect rating on an SS-Rank mission meant the rewards were going to be something worth seeing.
As he tapped to confirm and claim them, four golden spheres of light burst forth and hovered in the air, radiating a warm, inviting glow.
Kairos blinked. Four rewards?
High-tier missions usually gave two, and that was already considered generous. Four felt almost extravagant.
Then again, this was an SS-Rank mission with a Perfect rating. Anything less would have seemed off.
He reached out and tapped open the first sphere.
"Congratulations, Host. You have received 50,000 Emotion Points!"
Kairos's eyebrow went up.
That felt good. Really, genuinely good.
He had sunk over twenty thousand points into rewards for the Ghost World players. At the time, he had felt a small pang of uncertainty, wondering if the investment would pay off.
It had more than paid off. He had gotten it all back and then another thirty thousand on top of it.
A clean profit.
With this fifty thousand added to what he already had saved, he was sitting on real wealth now.
In high spirits, Kairos opened the second sphere.
The light faded. A peculiar stone materialized in his hand.
۞۞۞۞
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