Of course, this was all just speculation on Xuan Qiu's part. To find out if his theories were actually true, he would need to get back to the fleet and have a proper talk with his old leader to confirm.
As the battle outside raged on, Xuan Qiu noticed that Phantylia seemed strangely careful about not making an enemy out of Herta. From the very beginning, she had only launched direct, frontal attacks, completely ignoring other vulnerable parts of the space station.
If she had truly wanted to tear the place apart, Xuan Qiu wouldn't have been able to block her movements so easily.
"This doesn't match her usual style at all..." he muttered, watching the giant shadow shift. "What kind of plot is she brewing now?"
His intuition proved right moments later. Asta's frantic voice cut through his comms, and a live projection snapped open right in front of him.
"Mr. Xuan Qiu, Mr. Stephen! For some unknown reason, a massive riot has broken out among the staff," Asta explained, her voice shaking slightly. "They are demanding we apprehend you and hand you over to the enemy, claiming you're the one who drew the Lord Ravager to our docks!"
Behind her on the screen, Arlan could be seen leading a thin line of security guards, desperately trying to hold back a frenzied crowd of researchers and engineers.
"Catch the culprit!" "Hand him over, and the Antimatter Legion will leave!" "Don't block the path, I don't want to die here!"
The panicked workers screamed and shoved against the shields, completely losing their minds. A few were even clawing at the faces of the security personnel.
"Miss, I've locked down the main elevator shaft," Arlan shouted over the din, looking back at Asta. "We need to retreat to a secure location immediately!"
The madness was spreading fast. More and more staff members were joining the push, and even a few of Arlan's own guards were showing signs of hesitation and sheer terror. Seeing the front line crumbling, Arlan abandoned his post, grabbed Asta by the arm, and pulled her down a secure side corridor to evacuate.
Without their commander to keep order, the room turned into absolute chaos. The mob surged toward the elevator doors.
"The elevator is locked from the bridge! Damn it, Miss Asta must be working with them! She wants to trap us here to die!" "Find her! Hand her over to the Legion alongside the developer!"
The crowd became completely unhinged, scattering to hunt down the Station Master, but Arlan had already hidden her well. Seeing the path blocked, several workers from the maintenance department stepped forward.
"Leave the console to us. Give me ten minutes." "I'll assist!"
While they didn't possess Asta's master clearance keys, these technicians knew every physical wire and circuit loop in the walls. They quickly bypassed the digital lockouts, forcing the heavy elevator into a manual override mode that completely ignored the station's central security system. Within minutes, a heavy crowd piled inside, setting the controls to descend straight toward the lower sections.
"So this is her secondary trap..." Xuan Qiu frowned, his eyes narrowing. "It definitely looks like something Phantylia would cook up."
The bizarre, aggressive behavior of the staff made it obvious that they were operating under a massive psychic cloud. Using their deepest fears as a spark, she had ignited the darkest corners of their minds to hijack their thoughts.
But a mob of ordinary civilians couldn't do much real damage. If Xuan Qiu wanted to, he could simply use a wave of raw psychic energy to freeze them all in their tracks. To keep things clean, he chose to summon an Alakazam, instructing it to use its mind power to hold the elevator mechanism in place, stopping the car from moving an inch.
This would keep the rioters locked away upstairs so they wouldn't wander down and cause a distraction. After all, even when dealing with a stray dog, one had to respect the owner; these people belonged to Herta, making them incredibly awkward to handle roughly.
"Ah! Uncle Yang, Himeko, save me!"
Just as Xuan Qiu focused on sealing the elevator, March 7th's startled cry cut through the air.
It wasn't just her. The entire Express crew, along with Yanqing, were suddenly lifted off the metal grating by an invisible, crushing force. They floated into the air, moving slowly but surely toward the freezing void outside Xerneas's protective barrier.
Worse, the psychic grip was absolute. They couldn't move a single finger, let alone fight back. Yanqing tried using his mind to command his flying swords to strike the enemy and break the focus, but the blades simply shattered against Yveltal's dark aura.
Welt, his boots hovering off the deck, focused his mind. A miniature, swirling black hole bloomed right beside Yveltal's wing, violently tearing away a large portion of the monster's crimson body. Golden blood gushed into the void.
But drawing upon the endless pool of destructive energy within its core, the beast quickly brought the wound under control. The shattered pieces of its body began to knit back together at a terrifying speed as it drifted away from the gravity well. Welt sighed inwardly. With his physical movements completely locked down, aiming a fatal blow through raw perception alone was far too difficult.
"A psychic grip?"
Xuan Qiu recognized the strategy instantly. He immediately unleashed his own psychic power, locking onto his allies to pull them back, entering a fierce tug-of-war against Yveltal's mind.
Seeing the edge of the safety barrier just a few feet away, the trailblazers managed a brief sigh of relief as their descent slowed.
"Caw!"
Yveltal unleashed that unnatural, piercing shriek once more, dark energy gathering rapidly along its curved wings.
"It's charging up a massive attack! We need to interrupt it!" March 7th yelled. Everyone could see the danger, but the psychic pressure kept them completely pinned in mid-air. Even if they could break the freeze, their standard weapons couldn't pierce the dark field surrounding the giant.
Welt attempted to open a second gravity rift, but the chaotic energy waves in the air scrambled his focus, causing the blast to detonate miles away from the target. Yanqing had already exhausted his entire supply of swords.
Xuan Qiu's brow furrowed. He knew exactly what was coming—Oblivion Wing, Yveltal's signature attack. While he knew the beam wouldn't be able to shatter Xerneas's life barrier, the proxy general wasn't aiming at the wall.
Crack!
With a sudden burst of overwhelming force, Phantylia shattered Xuan Qiu's psychic grip. The Express crew was violently dragged straight past the threshold of the barrier, exposed to the open, freezing vacuum of space.
"Not on my watch! Zygarde, use Thousand Arrows!"
Xuan Qiu finally unraveled her true objective. She was deliberately forcing him to split his focus, accelerating his energy consumption so he wouldn't be able to stall the clock. Whether it was the initial assault on the docks, the madness spreading through the researchers upstairs, or this sudden attack on his friends—every single move was calculated to make him spend his reservoir.
Phantylia, a master of emotional manipulation, could read a person's heart like an open book. From his actions, she had already deduced that Herta was someone he wanted to partner with, the Express crew were allies he wanted to protect, and Yanqing was a youth under his care. As long as she threatened those lives, Xuan Qiu would be forced to squander his strength to save them.
He had no choice but to play her game.
"Oh!"
Just as the trailblazers braced for impact, a colossal, mechanical green figure materialized in the blackness before them, absorbing the full weight of the blast.
At the same frame, thousands of glowing green energy constructs materialized in the void like a storm of arrows, screaming downward to pierce Yveltal's wings, pinning the dark titan in place.
With the enemy distracted, Xuan Qiu used his psychic power to gently pull the pioneers back inside the safety of the station. Stelle's eyes shone with pure awe as she stared out at Zygarde's magnificent, giant form. Even as Xuan Qiu pulled her back, she scrambled against his grip, her arms flailing as she muttered, "Wait, don't pull me back yet! Let me look at it for just a few more seconds..."
Welt stood beside her, adjusting his glasses as the lenses gleamed with absolute fascination. He completely agreed with the girl's sentiment.
This creature named Zygarde was a masterpiece. It was a living, organic breathing entity, yet its physical structure perfectly mirrored the lines of a giant, high-spec mecha. It was absolutely flawless. If there weren't so many young juniors standing around him, the veteran would have probably been cheering even louder than Stelle. Even so, he stretched his neck, his eyes glued to the glass to drink in every detail.
Xuan Qiu recalled Xerneas, choosing to project his own personal life field to keep the station stabilized. While his own raw output couldn't match a Pokémon's natural aura, with Zygarde actively suppressing the enemy outside, the defensive pressure on his shoulders vanished.
Recalling the life dragon would save him a significant amount of energy.
Turning his head toward the small projection beside him, Xuan Qiu called out, "Stephen! Has your office seriously still not cleared a path to Herta?"
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