The power unleashed by Super Blazefire was unquestionable, but it came at a price.
Monferno's sanity was being slowly devoured.
In the Aura Fusion state, Ash and Monferno were completely synchronized. Monferno's thoughts, emotions, and physical condition were laid bare to Ash, and Ash's will flowed just as clearly back to Monferno.
But the moment Super Blazefire erupted, Ash felt something go terribly wrong.
Monferno's consciousness thinned until it was barely perceptible. In its mind, only a single thing remained.
A violent, raging will.
Nothing else.
No reason. No restraint.
This was likely the true cost of Super Blazefire: power gained at the expense of sanity.
'Monferno, don't lose to it!'
Ash's voice thundered directly into Monferno's heart.
'This is your power! You can't let it consume you!'
Monferno's crimson eyes trembled. Its body, already coiled to charge at Gengar, froze mid-motion.
'That's right. Control it! Power like this shouldn't control you. You should control it!'
'Paul is watching us.'
'Don't you want to prove yourself to him? Let's show him together what your potential truly is!'
"Huo…"
A hoarse sound escaped Monferno's throat.
Since entering the Blaze state, its fists had been clenched tight, but now, slowly, its fingers began to loosen.
Sanity crept back into its mind.
Without Aura Fusion, without Ash's voice anchoring it, Monferno would already have gone berserk, burning through every scrap of power in a blind rampage.
But now, it felt Ash's worry.
And guilt welled up inside it.
'I made my Trainer worry again…'
"Huo!!!"
Monferno straightened, clenched its fists once more, and roared toward the sky.
The flames on its back surged even higher, the firelight roaring upward like a pillar, climbing dozens of meters into the air.
Yet in stark contrast to the raging blaze, Monferno's eyes had returned to clarity.
They were no longer bloodshot with madness.
It turned toward Ash and raised one hand, giving him a firm thumbs-up.
Ash laughed, fists clenched in excitement.
"Well done, Monferno! Now let's counterattack!!"
Only then did Giselle finally speak, as if waking from a dream.
"Your Monferno's Blaze is terrifying. That's far more than a fifty-percent boost."
She narrowed her eyes.
"But even so, it's still only at Middle level. Facing a Mid-High level Gengar is still pushing it."
In truth, the moment Monferno lost control earlier had been her best chance to strike.
Giselle wasn't someone who hesitated out of misplaced fairness.
If an opponent couldn't control their power, exploiting that flaw was simply correct play.
But she had been stunned.
That Blaze, its intensity and pressure, had frozen her in place for dozens of seconds.
It was the first time she had ever witnessed fire like that.
And in those few lost seconds, she had missed her only chance.
"How will we know if we don't try?" Ash said with a grin.
"Monferno, Fire Punch!"
Right now, he was just as exhilarated as Monferno itself.
Today was the perfect chance to see just how terrifying Super Blazefire truly was.
"Huo-cha!!"
Flames exploded around Monferno's clenched fist.
It stomped the ground, and its body shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.
Only a blazing afterimage streaked across the battlefield.
In the next instant, Monferno appeared directly in front of the airborne Gengar.
The sly grin on Gengar's face froze.
This speed was far too fast.
BOOM!!
Monferno's fist slammed down like a falling meteor.
A thunderous roar echoed through the sky as Gengar's purple body was smashed out of the smoke, crashing into the ground below and carving spiderweb cracks across the field.
"Don't let up. Flamethrower!"
Still airborne, Monferno drew in a sharp breath and unleashed fire.
But this was no ordinary Flamethrower.
The torrent of flame that erupted looked closer to Blast Burn, an ultimate-class attack.
The fire slammed into the ground where Gengar lay, detonating in a blinding explosion of orange-red light. Flames raced along the cracked terrain like living vines, scorching the earth black within half a meter.
Gengar was completely engulfed.
As the inferno spread, the temperature across the arena soared. Even the spectators felt heat like midsummer blazing through the heart of winter, and many instinctively shrugged off their coats.
Paul stood unmoving in the stands, eyes locked on the battlefield.
It wasn't just the level jump.
That Super Blazefire, something he had never managed to trigger, had activated instantly under Ash's command.
And this was only their first battle together.
Was it really that simple?
Perhaps it wasn't that Chimchar had failed him.
Perhaps the truth was far harsher.
They had simply never been compatible.
His methods were wrong for Chimchar.
Worse still, when Chimchar had erupted with Super Blazefire in the past, it had lost its sanity completely.
Now, it had happened again.
Yet Ash had somehow pulled Monferno back from the brink.
That wasn't something Paul could do.
If it had been him, even if he hated to admit it, his only option during those early Blaze eruptions would have been brute force. Overpower the opponent before the flames burned everything out.
Control would have been impossible.
Ash's method was different.
And the key was obvious.
That mysterious power within Ash's body.
A power no ordinary Trainer could possess.
On the battlefield, the flames finally subsided.
Monferno descended from the air and landed firmly on its feet, eyes fixed on the smoke-shrouded center.
Its body was shaking.
Two massive fire eruptions.
A forced evolution. Aura Fusion. Super Blazefire.
Every possible debuff was stacked.
It had nothing left.
If Gengar still stood, Monferno wouldn't even be able to summon an Ember.
The smoke thinned.
Gengar lay sprawled on the ground, tongue lolling, completely motionless.
Silence held for a breath.
Then the referee raised his flag.
"Gengar is unable to battle. Monferno wins!"
They won.
An Mid level Pokémon had actually defeated an Mid-high Level opponent.
Winning under such conditions meant only one thing.
This victory was entirely thanks to the Super Blazefire Ability.
"A massive reversal!" the host exclaimed excitedly."The Monferno that was just being forced back step by step has completely turned the tables and instant-killed Gengar in the blink of an eye! Is this Monferno's true strength?!"
In truth, even with his extensive experience, the host had no idea what he had just witnessed.
The power Monferno erupted with at the end resembled Blaze, yet Blaze only enhanced Fire-type moves. Even with a fifty percent boost, it should have been impossible for Monferno's strength to rise so explosively in such a short time.
So what was that power?
Was it Monferno's real strength, or the result of Blaze erupting beyond its normal limits?
The host could not tell.
But one thing was undeniable.
Monferno had won.
In the special spectator seats, Leon rubbed his chin thoughtfully, a spark of interest in his eyes.
"Interesting. That eruption just now should have been Blaze, right? But that Blaze was far stronger than a normal one."
Cynthia nodded in agreement.
"Yes. Before Blaze activated, Monferno was inferior to Gengar in every measurable aspect. But after the eruption, its attack power completely surpassed Gengar's. Conservatively speaking, that Blaze provided at least a one-hundred-and-twenty percent boost to Fire-type moves."
The standard Blaze increase was around fifty percent.
One hundred and twenty percent was already outrageous.
And even that might have been an underestimate.
"This Monferno isn't ordinary," Cynthia continued. "And Blaze doesn't just seem to enhance Fire-type moves. Its physical attributes also improved to varying degrees. The most obvious is speed. That speed clearly surpassed Mid Level."
Leon frowned slightly.
"That's the strange part. Blaze shouldn't affect speed or physical strength directly. Even accounting for individual variance, this is far beyond what Blaze should do."
"Most likely," Cynthia replied, "this Monferno has an exceptionally special constitution. I sensed its potential the moment I saw it, but I didn't expect it to reach this level."
She paused, then spoke with quiet certainty.
"As long as it's trained properly, becoming a future Champion should not be a problem. And with that Blaze power inside it, it may even be difficult to match among Champions."
Cynthia had already been optimistic about Monferno's potential.
Under Ash's guidance, that potential had fully bloomed. In an incredibly short time, Monferno had risen from Low to Mid. Evolution played a role, but raw talent was the true foundation.
More importantly, Monferno's battle talent was terrifying.
Blaze was a percentage-based boost. If Monferno's Blaze scaled the same way, then as its level increased, the magnitude of that boost would only become more absurd.
That was why Cynthia believed that once Monferno reached Champion level, even other Champions might struggle to contend with it.
Leon raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? You rate it that highly?"
Cynthia was famously rigorous. She never made exaggerated predictions.
Yet now she was saying that Monferno could not only reach Champion level, but also stand near the top among Champions.
That was no small praise.
"I'm optimistic about Monferno," Cynthia said calmly. "But I'm even more optimistic about that boy."
Her gaze shifted downward to Ash on the battlefield.
"If it's him, he can definitely bring out Monferno's full potential. We can look forward to it. In the near future, an interesting opponent may very well stand before us."
Monferno's talent was one thing.
Ash's ability to discover, nurture, and control that talent was what truly impressed her.
Just look at Paul.
Setting aside how long Chimchar had stayed with him, his methods had been excessively violent. He tried to force power out through desperation, and it backfired.
Ash, on the other hand, triggered Chimchar's true power within days of capturing it.
The contrast was undeniable.
This was not a matter of favoritism. There was a genuine gap between Paul and Ash.
And Cynthia was very curious to see what would happen when the two finally collided head-on.
"Ash is indeed interesting," Leon admitted. "But he's still a bit inexperienced. For him to truly stand before us, it will take at least two or three years."
That evaluation was already extremely high.
In two or three years, Ash would only be seventeen or eighteen years old.
Cynthia had become Champion at eighteen, but she had not truly reached Peak Champion strength until she was twenty.
Leon's words meant that by eighteen at the latest, Ash would need at least one Pokémon at Champion Peak to be worthy of standing on equal footing with them.
Cynthia smiled, a stunning curve at the corner of her lips.
"Two or three years? Why do I feel like he'll be coming for us in less than a year?"
Leon froze.
"Less than a year? That's a bit much! If Ash can train a Champion Peak Pokémon in under a year, I'll take off my own GG Cape!"