◉◉◉◉◉
The tail Kael had been about to bring crashing down onto Basculin stopped midway as he deliberately pulled back his strength.
The momentum of his charge gradually slowed under the drag of the water.
Staring at the motionless Basculin in front of him, Kael's eyes were full of confusion.
"What is this?"
"Is it surrendering?"
"Or... is this a trap?"
Still keeping a wide, safe distance between them, he considered the possibilities.
Then, as if noticing that Kael had halted his attack, Basculin lifted its head toward him and lightly opened and closed its mouth.
"Hummm..."
A wave carrying a strange meaning spread rapidly through the water.
Kael froze for a moment.
Then the suspicion in his eyes shifted into something more complicated.
Surprise.
And disbelief.
"So it really... surrendered?"
With the heightened perception granted by his resilient soul, Kael could easily sense the sincerity and honesty in the message Basculin was sending.
For a wild Pokémon born and raised in nature, with instincts still pure and uncomplicated, Kael found it easier to trust his own senses than to assume the creature was lying.
But this still felt far too anticlimactic.
After finally meeting an opponent whose strength genuinely matched his own, after feeling the excitement of a hard-fought battle he had not enjoyed in so long, it had all ended just like that.
Inside, Kael felt the same sick frustration as throwing a full punch only for it to land in cotton.
"This makes no sense..."
From what he understood of Basculin as a species, they were naturally bad-tempered, violent, and highly aggressive. They were not the kind of Pokémon that gave up easily.
And based on this one's performance so far, it clearly was not some weak-willed individual either.
"It hasn't even taken serious damage. So why surrender now?"
Kael frowned as he thought it through.
The reason, in truth, was simple.
But Kael, even while living as a Sobble, still tended to think from a human perspective, and because of that, he overlooked several key factors.
First, Basculin might be naturally violent and destructive, but the one standing in front of him now was also a strong territorial ruler.
In terms of physical strength and innate potential, it was already among the best of its kind.
And over time, shaped by all it had experienced, that inborn savagery had been quietly worn down.
Maybe it had lost a little of its recklessness, but in return, it had learned to think more before acting. That was one of the reasons it had managed to survive and rule such a vast lake.
Faced with a kind of Pokémon it had never seen before, one that also displayed such frightening strength, Basculin was naturally going to think more carefully about the danger.
In a situation like this, some simpler, more mindless member of its species might actually have fared better by charging straight ahead without hesitation.
Second, regardless of how much battle experience Basculin had or how capable it was, at the end of the day, it still belonged to a species whose intelligence was not particularly high.
Its psychological resilience was far weaker than a human's.
Kael's effortless defense against its full-force collision had already planted the idea in its mind that Sobble was slightly stronger than itself.
Then Kael's manipulation of the currents to slow it down had reinforced that belief even further.
And the final step, the one that truly shattered Basculin's will, had been when Kael vanished into the dark water and disappeared into the shadows.
That deep, suffocating darkness, and the sense that some unseen danger could strike and swallow it at any moment, was something Basculin would never forget.
And though the modified Pound Kael had landed at the end had not dealt much true physical damage, on a mental level it had completely broken Basculin's fragile courage.
From that point on, it no longer had the will to resist.
And so the fight had ended in this abrupt, unsatisfying way that left Kael deeply irritated.
Ding.
A crisp, pleasant chime rang inside his mind.
At last, after far too long, the system notification finally sounded again.
...
Defeated Pokémon: Basculin
Experience +25
...
Only now did Kael truly relax.
The system awarding experience meant the battle was officially over.
As for what came next...
Kael glanced at Basculin, which still had its head lowered in surrender, and blinked softly.
The hearts of wild Pokémon were very pure. For a species like Basculin, whose intelligence was not especially high, you could almost describe them as innocent.
A behavior like lying simply did not exist for them.
In truth, only Psychic-type Pokémon with intelligence equal to or surpassing that of humans could ever pull off something as complicated and emotionally layered as deceit.
So Kael had no concern that Basculin was secretly harboring some dramatic thought like, One day I'll return stronger, and you'll regret looking down on me.
For Pokémon as straightforward as these, trust came easily.
Leaving Basculin alone with its head still lowered, Kael turned his attention to the system panel and began examining it carefully.
After this battle, he had clearly gained something new.
He needed to confirm it properly through his status screen.
...
Species: Sobble
Level: 12 (14/100)
Ability: Sniper
Moves: Pound, Growl, Origin Pulse, Aqua Ring, Water Gun, Bind, Water Pulse
Evaluation: A strange life-form born from data turbulence and cracks in the void. The unusual aura from another world has drawn the attention of the incarnation of the north wind.
Held Items: Dynamax Band, Cosmic DNA of Deoxys, Speed Forme
...
First, his level had risen to 12.
Compared with the previous two cycles, his growth this time had been painfully slow.
And for someone with the highest starting point he had ever had, this Sobble body, that really did not make sense.
But there was no helping it.
Too much had happened lately.
The dense chain of battles, most of them against enemies far stronger than he was, meant that ever since escaping that little pool in Molten Season Forest, Kael had hardly gained any real combat experience at all.
The fact that he had even reached level 12 was probably mostly thanks to the passive experience the system naturally accumulated for him at low levels.
That disappointed him a little, but it did not make him particularly anxious.
After all, he was now in the marine park, a place that was peaceful, stable, and under human supervision, with almost no real danger.
He had time.
Time to grow.
Time to develop properly.
Then his eyes moved lower, to the move list.
"Water Pulse?"
A flash of understanding crossed Kael's face.
"Just as I thought."
"So it finally came."
"My new move."
◉◉◉◉◉
~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
◉◉◉◉◉
For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!