Kairos glanced over at Marshadow.
"For gathering faith energy, is it the same as what you said before? As long as people feel reverence and gratitude toward the Rainbow King, that's enough?"
It was a critical question, because the answer would determine his entire next move.
If it required some enormously complicated ritual, or if only the most fanatically devoted believers could generate it, things would be far too difficult. After all, the main tool at his disposal right now was the game.
Spreading the Rainbow King's name through the game, or letting players experience the Rainbow King's power and goodwill firsthand so they naturally felt reverence and gratitude: that seemed like the most realistic path forward.
Marshadow heard the question and nodded, a peculiar light flickering in those large eyes, as though it were turning over an old memory.
"That's roughly right, but the emotion has to be strong, and it has to be genuine. If it isn't intense enough or sincere enough, nothing will come of it." It hovered in midair, waving its small hands as it tried to make things clearer.
"It's a strange thing. You can't just shout 'Long live the Rainbow King' and expect it to work. That might fool other people, but it won't fool the rules." As it said this, Marshadow curled its lip, like something unpleasant had crossed its mind.
"For instance, if you put up a figurine of the Rainbow King and handed people a pile of money to make them bow down and worship, it still wouldn't produce a single scrap of faith energy."
"If it worked that way, I would've tried it a long time ago."
Marshadow spread its hands, looking completely resigned.
It had genuinely thought about that kind of shortcut before. After all, money could accomplish remarkable things in this world. Give people enough of it, and they wouldn't just chant slogans. They'd get down on their knees in front of a statue without a second thought.
But the truth was that bought faith was worthless under the rules. It couldn't be converted into even a trace of power. Faith energy demanded sincerity, plain and simple.
Kairos listened, then nodded slowly.
So that was how it worked. The straightforward commercial route was out. He had to actually reach people.
Still, that wasn't necessarily so hard. As long as the storyline landed right and the atmosphere hit the right notes, getting players to feel genuine reverence and gratitude toward the Rainbow King wasn't going to be much of a stretch.
"Got it. I'll head over in a bit."
Marshadow froze for a moment, then pressed him.
"What exactly are you planning to do?"
It had just laid out every complication it could think of, and here he was looking completely unbothered after hearing all of it. Did he have something up his sleeve?
Kairos's reply was the same as always.
"That's classified."
Marshadow: "......"
It rolled its eyes so hard it was practically an athletic event.
This guy, supposedly a partner, and yet he insisted on keeping secrets at the worst possible moment.
What an insufferable human.
What on earth did the Rainbow King see in him?
Just as Marshadow was gearing up to complain, it sensed something. Its body, which had been drifting freely through the air, stopped dead.
"Hm. Looks like he made it."
Its gaze shifted toward a dark corner in the distance. The spot had been completely empty a moment ago, but now a shadow was slowly rising from the ground. In the next instant, it moved like something alive, racing across the floor at tremendous speed and appearing directly in front of Kairos in the blink of an eye. As the shadow dissolved, a figure stepped out of nowhere.
It was Will.
But Will looked nothing like he had before.
Kairos still remembered their first meeting inside the Ghost World passage. Will had looked rough, deep circles under his eyes, his whole presence radiating the kind of exhaustion that only comes from being under sustained, crushing pressure.
Now he looked like a different person. There was still a sharpness to him, but the suffocating weight was gone. His entire bearing had shifted, as though he'd shed years off his life.
The reason was obvious enough.
The crisis gripping the Ghost World was being resolved step by step, and the burden on his shoulders had naturally grown much lighter.
Will walked forward, eyes full of gratitude, and placed a firm hand on Kairos's shoulder.
"Thank you. The Ghost World won't forget what you've done."
His hand trembled slightly. He was feeling more than he could put into words.
And honestly, he had every reason to.
Things were better now than they had ever been. The front lines were practically packed with trainers, and what had started as a nightmare scenario was turning into something that almost looked manageable.
He'd worried at first that flooding the Ghost World with outside trainers would create chaos, or that unfamiliarity with the environment would leave them exposed to the spiritomb's mist. Those concerns had turned out to be completely unfounded.
Those trainers had thrown themselves into the work like they'd been lit on fire, each one moving with startling efficiency.
And by following the game's guidance, both the outside trainers and his own people had made it through with almost no casualties. It was nothing short of a miracle.
In the past, an outbreak of this scale had always meant losses. No way around it.
This time, they'd hit zero.
Every bit of that credit belonged to the game.
Will spoke again, his tone serious.
"Pass a message along to whoever helped make this happen. Once this is over, if there's anything the Ghost World has that they want, just ask."
The Ghost World wasn't as resource-rich as the outside world, but as the sacred home of Ghost-type trainers, it held its share of rare things. Rare Ghost-type resources and items in particular were the kind of things money couldn't buy out in the wider world. Whatever the other party asked for, if the Ghost World had it, he wouldn't hesitate for a second.
Kairos nodded, his expression calm.
"No problem. I'll pass it along."
He understood exactly where Will was coming from. For Will, this spiritomb incident had been a dead end with no way out. If they'd tried to fight it head-on, watching the Ghost World fall apart would have been the best-case scenario.
And then a single game had pulled them back from the edge. Of course gratitude was owed.
Just then, Marshadow, which had been drifting nearby, floated closer.
It dropped down toward Will's feet, stared at the elongated shadow there, and reached out with its senses. A flicker of surprise crossed its face.
"Oh? Your Gengar actually broke through to that level?"
Marshadow's perception was sharp under the best of circumstances, and especially sharp when it came to Ghost-type power.
Just now, from within Will's shadow, it had felt something different. A kind of power that had pushed past ordinary limits and brushed up against something far higher.
Will was caught off guard for a moment, then nodded with a wry smile.
"Yeah. Didn't see that coming myself."
He paused, then kept going.
"Some rewards I got from the game gave Gengar a massive boost. I only meant to let it settle and build on what it already had, but somehow it actually pushed through."
Even as he said it, there was still a trace of disbelief in his voice. Like even now he hadn't fully wrapped his head around it.
In this world, crossing that particular threshold was extraordinarily difficult. Plenty of Champion-level trainers spent their entire lives stuck at that final step and never made it across.
And his Gengar had stumbled through it, of all things, because of a handful of game rewards.
It felt like a dream.
Standing nearby, Kairos turned it over quietly in his mind.
Come to think of it, didn't that make Will the first trainer in this world to reach the Legendary tier?
That was significant. If word got out, the entire League would be shaken.
Then again, it made sense. Will was already among the strongest trainers in the world. By rights he should have been capable of pushing further long ago. He'd simply never had the right opening, or the right resources, until now.
The game had given him both.
Still, this world did seem to place real limits on how far a Pokemon could grow.
Kairos thought of the people from the Reverse World. They started at Champion-level as a baseline, and a good number of them were clearly at the Legendary tier or beyond. Some were even stronger than that.
Battles at that level were practically unheard of here.
Here, Champion was the ceiling.
That had to be connected to the world's own constraints. Maybe the ambient energy wasn't enough, or some underlying rule was capping how high Pokemon could go. The specifics were unclear, but worth looking into. It mattered a great deal for his own path.
That said, as the game kept delivering rewards and more trainers broke through to the Legendary tier, it was only a matter of time before the gap started closing. And as he continued to advance, the rewards would only get richer.
Eventually, the overall level of this world would probably be pulled upward by a significant margin.
While Kairos was turning all of this over, Marshadow beside him was clicking its tongue, envy written plainly across its face.
"Tsk. Getting a Pokemon from a world like this to reach that level... whatever this game is, it's seriously impressive."
Even using the phrase "a world like this," there wasn't much dismissiveness in its gaze. Just a growing curiosity. Things that could bend the rules had a way of getting attention.
"Congratulations, either way. If you run into questions going forward, feel free to come find me. Once you've crossed that threshold, the road ahead gets a lot smoother." Marshadow waved a generous hand, settling into the air of someone who'd been around the block a few times.
Will nodded his thanks immediately.
"Really appreciate it."
Having a genuinely Legendary-tier Pokemon offer guidance was the kind of thing most people only got to dream about.
Marshadow might not look like much at first glance, but its strength and experience were beyond question.
"I need to get back to the quests. At this rate, all the Ghost Pokemon the mist infected should be cleared out within three days."
Will gestured toward the distance, where a good number of trainers were still hard at work.
He needed to be out there doing his part. Standing around watching others handle everything wasn't his style.
Kairos nodded.
"Alright. Once that's done, leave the spiritomb to me. Keep in touch."
The spiritomb problem still needed Giratina to actually resolve. All he had to do was get everyone to the right place.
Will was already turning to leave when he stopped.
His expression sharpened, and his gaze moved toward the distance.
At the same moment, Marshadow caught something too. In a flash it landed on Kairos's shoulder.
A ring of dark radiance spread outward from its body, instantly wrapping around Kairos and blurring his silhouette until he seemed to dissolve into the surrounding shadows.
"Looks like someone's coming."
Marshadow kept its voice low.
Kairos looked in the direction it indicated.
Two figures were making their way through the faint mist toward them.
The distance was still considerable, but Kairos recognized one of them immediately.
A woman in a black coat, dark hair falling loosely over her shoulders, holding what looked like an ancient tome. Her walk was easy and unhurried, carrying an air of quiet authority, the kind that comes from holding power for a long time, threaded through with something harder to name, like she herself was a question nobody had quite figured out how to answer.
Caitlin.
One of the Sinnoh region's Elite Four, a well-known Psychic-type trainer, someone people described as having the heart of a girl and the bearing of a queen.
And walking beside her was a figure even harder to overlook.
A tall woman in a long black trench coat, short dark hair, and sharp crimson eyes. She carried herself like a drawn sword, commanding simply by being present, and yet there was a beauty to her that was entirely her own.
Cynthia.
The Sinnoh region's Champion. The trainer people called the strongest.
Kairos blinked.
Seriously? Right now?
He pulled himself together quickly, though.
It was probably because of Ghostly Hunter GO. The game had blown up and drawn trainers from everywhere. As the Sinnoh region's Champion and one of its Elite Four, they'd naturally be watching something this unusual very closely, and might have come to see it for themselves.
Cynthia in particular was already one of his players.
Even so, the Ghost World was enormous. Running into them here specifically?
That really was something.
Kairos kept his thoughts to himself and stayed perfectly still.
He was under Marshadow's concealment right now. As long as he didn't give himself away, he shouldn't be easy to spot.
While he was thinking it through, the two women had drawn close.
Cynthia's gaze paused briefly on Kairos's side, like she'd caught a hint of something, but it shifted quickly to Will and stayed there. She didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual.
"Lord Will. It's been a while."
Cynthia spoke first, her voice cool and clear.
Will, upon seeing the two of them, looked briefly surprised, then smiled.
"Cynthia. It really has been too long since our last match."
He glanced toward Caitlin.
"And this is..."
Cynthia turned slightly toward Caitlin at her side, a faint smile touching the corners of her mouth.
"This is Caitlin. She's..."
"Oh, I know who she is. Hard not to." Will nodded, stepping in before she could finish. "One of the most well-known Psychic-type trainers out there."
But Caitlin wasn't looking at Will.
Her eyes were fixed on a spot nearby, precisely where Kairos was standing.
Her gaze narrowed slightly, and something strange stirred behind those pink irises.
As a psychic, her senses went well beyond what most people could pick up on.
She could tell someone was there: a person hidden behind some kind of power.
And the feeling was odd. If she hadn't been paying attention, she might have walked right past without noticing at all.
That got her attention instantly.
"Hey, you. What are you hiding over there for?"