Excitement was written all over everyone's faces.
They stood up straight in front of Oba Genjo, waiting for their leader's next orders.
Genjo leaned back against a tree and sat down.
Only after panting for quite a while did he slowly calm down, and some color gradually returned to his face.
He did not speak.
He merely raised one arm in silence.
Then he rolled up his sleeve all the way to his elbow.
His right arm—
was completely black.
It looked as if it had been coated in black pigment, the kind that had seeped directly into his skin.
On the inner side of his arm,
close to the elbow,
there was a clearly visible feather-shaped outline.
The pattern resembled the plume of a bird,
yet it was also somewhat different.
The tip at the top split apart from the middle,
making the whole design
look even more like a giant capital letter "Y."
The color of the symbol
was even darker than the pitch-black tone of Genjo's arm.
It was like a light-devouring black hole.
Just one glance at it
made it feel as though one's gaze would be sucked in.
And that was not all.
The powerful aura of darkness and death radiating from that mark
gave off an overwhelming pressure.
Genjo quietly stared at his own arm.
His expression was complicated.
A few hours earlier,
when they had entered the unknown ancient ruins where Mew was resting, this arm of his had still been perfectly normal.
After entering the ruins,
they searched through the place,
and as they had hoped, they found Mew, who had just awakened and was still dazed, still in its absolute weakest state.
By having his subordinates recklessly burn through their own life force to stall Mew,
and taking advantage of Mew's pure and kind nature, as well as its inborn compassion toward all Pokémon,
Genjo used an untested device he had bought at an enormous price from an underground evil organization in another alliance—
and against all odds, he had actually succeeded in capturing Mew!
That result drove him into absolute ecstasy.
Although the Mew sealed inside the device was still struggling constantly, trying to break free,
Genjo desperately suppressed it.
He forcibly wrestled against it head-on,
temporarily trapping it inside.
And after that,
while investigating these ruins,
they made an entirely new discovery.
These ruins were incredibly ancient.
Their history could be traced back almost to an era before human civilization even came into existence.
Moreover,
to their even greater surprise,
this did not appear to be a ruin built specifically for Mew, that Second-tier Legendary.
Its original owner was someone else entirely.
It seemed that only after that original master had left this place
did Mew come here and fall into slumber.
The moment they realized this,
Team Dark immediately began investigating the identity of the ruins' original owner.
A place capable of becoming Mew's sleeping ground—
without question, the original master had to have been an existence standing at the very peak.
Very soon,
with their full manpower working together and after a carpet-style search,
this not-so-large ancient ruin yielded a hidden passage.
They followed the passage inward.
After crossing a long, narrow corridor steeped in darkness,
they arrived at a concealed stone chamber.
It was a pitch-black room.
So black that it made people feel fear and their scalps go numb.
The Team Dark members
instinctively tried to light torches and switch on flashlights.
But the instant those lights appeared, they were swallowed by some unknown force.
After several failed attempts,
they gave up on using torches and flashlights.
Instead, they released their Pokémon
and had them use Flash,
trying to illuminate the area.
But unexpectedly,
Flash too was swallowed the instant it lit up.
What was more,
this bizarre phenomenon
made everyone feel their hair stand on end.
The more unknown and incomprehensible something was,
the more terrifying it felt.
And that was still not the end of it.
What happened next shocked them even more.
Within that endless darkness where not a trace of light could be seen,
they suddenly discovered
that they could actually still see the path clearly.
Their vision was indeed still filled with darkness.
But for some reason,
real scenes would inexplicably appear in their minds.
The sensation
was like being hypnotized, or directly trapped inside some kind of illusion.
Everyone whispered among themselves and talked to one another.
After realizing that every single person was experiencing the same thing,
silence once more fell over that sinister space.
A chill
spread from the soles of their feet through their entire bodies.
This place...
was eerie and terrifying!!
At that moment,
Genjo suddenly started moving forward without a word.
The crisp sound of his footsteps
echoed with unusual clarity through the shadowy space.
Even though his field of vision was nothing but darkness,
using the scene reflected in his mind,
he advanced little by little.
After passing through several intersecting and complicated passageways,
he finally reached the very deepest, most central part of the ancient ruins.
Soon,
the Team Dark members under his command followed as well.
Their boss had already taken the lead himself and gone ahead.
Naturally, they could not just remain where they were without moving.
When they entered the deepest chamber,
everyone was once again profoundly shaken by the sight emerging from the darkness before them.
Even while their vision moved through boundless blackness,
they could still clearly perceive that, at the far end of that darkness,
there stood a towering altar.
Behind the altar
was a wall of black stone.
It was covered in a powerful aura of death and ill omen.
Etched into the stone wall
was an image drawn in carved lines.
It was a Pokémon soaring through the sky with its wings spread wide.
Its appearance somewhat resembled a supreme aerial predator, like a great raptor.
Its enormous wings stretched open as though they could blot out the sky.
The outer sides of the wings were black feathers.
The inner sides were red, twisting along the dark lines.
Behind it trailed a long tail.
Its entire form
took on the shape of a capital letter "Y."
Its body
overflowed with an indescribably dreadful aura and pressure.
It was like a god of death filled with the stillness of annihilation itself.
It was only a mural carved into a wall,
yet it still made people feel an urge to kneel down and worship.
That chilling despair that seeped into their bones—
everyone present
knew they would never forget it for the rest of their lives.
Only then
did they truly feel how insignificant and powerless they were as human beings.
They had never felt anything like this
even when facing Mew before.
Genjo's entire expression had completely frozen.
He stared at that exquisitely carved mural.
Stared at that terrifying Pokémon soaring with outstretched wings.
Then, in a murmur,
he spoke a few words.
"Wings of Death... Yveltal..."
(End of Chapter)
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