Draconis knew almost nothing about everything regarding the Galar region.
Where were Calyrex, Eternatus, Zacian the King of Swords, and Zamazenta the King of Shields now?
As night fell, Draconis ascended the city walls with Serperior, gazing at the horizon as it gradually darkened in the distance.
The setting sun was sinking bit by bit below the horizon, burning the clouds into a crimson red, like the unextinguished fires of war.
The evening breeze, carrying the lingering scent of gunpowder, brushed past his ears, blowing away the cheers of victory from the daytime, yet unable to disperse the heavy haze in the hearts of the people living in this city.
Behind the city walls, ragged Commoners and heavily wounded soldiers were everywhere.
Gallot, the Lord of Cyllage City, was speaking to his subordinates with a solemn expression.
Everyone present knew very well that the Corviknight legion they had defeated today was merely a drop in the bucket.
In other parts of Kalos, countless castle towns were still facing invasions from enemy forces.
Worse still, the Royal City had also been attacked. The King had withdrawn from worldly affairs due to the tragic death of the magical beast by his side.
Gallot personally brought a bowl of vegetable and meat stew to Draconis.
"Lord Draconis, I am very sorry that I cannot entertain you properly."
Cyllage City had suffered one attack after another, and the supply lines were almost cut off. This bowl of vegetable and meat stew was the best food they could offer at the moment.
Draconis looked at the bowl of stew, then at the people below, and shook his head. "Better give it to someone who needs it more!"
"My Lord—" A bitter smile appeared on Gallot's face.
"Three days. I will stay in Cyllage City for three days, then I will head to the Royal City to see the situation there," Draconis said.
—
Kalos Region, West, Geosenge City.
This was the location of the Kalos Royal City.
The night was deep. In the deepest part of the Royal City's underground, a tall man was constantly flipping through ancient books on a bookshelf.
The man's eyes were bloodshot. Beside him lay a small flower; that flower was no longer bright, having lost its original color.
That was precisely Floette.
A few days ago, a large army of magical beasts from Galar launched an aerial attack on Geosenge City to execute a decapitation strike.
This sudden enemy raid resulted in the loss of countless Commoners' lives.
And his Floette had also lost its life in this war.
After experiencing the initial despair, anger, and sorrow, AZ suddenly thought of a technology left behind by an ultra-ancient civilization hidden beneath the Royal City.
Named the Life-Death Conversion Device, this machine could transform Pokémon between life and death—that is, resurrecting dead Pokémon and causing living Pokémon to die.
"If I have it, Floette can return to my side."
AZ's fingers tightly gripped the yellowed pages of the ancient book, his gaze fixed intensely on the words recording the secrets of the ultra-ancient civilization, his breathing hurried with an almost obsessive urgency.
The candlelight in the underground ruins of the Royal City flickered in the drafts, stretching AZ's tall but hunched shadow long and casting it onto the cold stone walls, like a lonely beast trapped by sorrow.
The Floette beside him lay quietly. Its once delicate and bright petals had long since lost all vitality, curling up limply, and its emerald green leaves were dry and brittle, no longer possessing the agility of swaying gently in the wind.
In the eyes of ordinary people, magical beasts were just magical beasts, but in AZ's eyes, his Floette was his closest companion.
But now, this tender and small flower had completely vanished under the iron hooves of the Galar invaders and the shrieks of the Corviknight.
With every extra glance at Floette's remains, the crimson in AZ's eyes deepened. Heartache like a twisting knife gnawed at his already fragile mind.
After the initial dazed helplessness came a rage that burned everything and a heart-wrenching sorrow.
The Life-Death Conversion Device.
Every character in the ancient book was like a life-saving straw that he gripped tightly.
It was a forbidden creation left by an ultra-ancient civilization, capable of reversing life and death, returning departed souls to the world, and stripping away fresh life to turn it into energy.
The world feared this machine that defied the laws of heaven and earth, viewing it as the source of calamity. But at this moment, AZ could no longer care about any laws of heaven and earth or any forbidden price.
He only wanted his Floette back.
"As long as it reappears in this world—" AZ muttered to himself, his voice as raspy as if ground by sand, "you can open your eyes again, shake your petals at me once more—and return to my side."
He abruptly closed the ancient book and stood up stumblingly, his tall frame appearing exceptionally lonely in the empty underground ruins.
After the enemy raid, perhaps due to the strong resistance from the people of Kalos, Geosenge City had fallen into an eerie quiet.
The Galar army did not set foot here again; instead, they went into the heart of Kalos to capture other territories and cities, attempting to turn this Royal City into an isolated island.
Geosenge City's external communications were cut off. Commoners lived in fear, nobles gathered all day to discuss whether they could escape, and the King's army constantly patrolled the Royal City, on guard against the impending enemy raid.
But as the King, AZ issued a final command to his ministers, butlers, and subordinates.
He began to frantically have people collect all materials that could power the device, requisitioning all the Royal City's Artisans and Scholars. Ignoring everyone's advice and fear, he spent day and night assembling and calibrating that forbidden device left by the ultra-ancient civilization.
The machine's metal skeleton slowly took shape in the darkness, and the ancient crystal embedded at its core glowed with a ghostly cold purple light.
Finally, a crystal device shaped much like the Eternal Flower slowly rose from within the Royal City.
AZ's eyes were strictly Locked-On to the tall machine before him.
The resurrection device—he had successfully replicated it!
Next was to activate the device—
Except...
AZ fell into hesitation.
Because according to the records left by the ultra-ancient civilization, this machine was powered by the life energy of magical beasts.
To resurrect Floette meant that more lives would have to perish.
"Your Majesty—"
The voices of the Artisans and ministers beside him trembled.
AZ closed his eyes tightly, then took a deep breath and ordered the surrounding army and subordinates: "Go find those wild magical beasts around the Royal City and bring them all here!"
"Your Majesty, you mustn't!" a minister tried to persuade him.
"Assemble the army and have everyone capture those wild magical beasts together. Those who disobey shall die!"
AZ's eyes were bloodshot. He could not hear his subordinates' trembling admonitions, nor could he hear the wails of the Commoners in the distance.
In his entire world, only Floette's withered form remained, along with that bone-deep obsession: "Resurrect it."
What the price was, he didn't care.
How the world would judge him, he didn't care.
Whether heaven and earth would send down punishment, he cared even less.
As long as he could bring Floette back to life, even if it meant exhausting the strength of all Kalos, even if it meant bearing infamy for ten thousand generations, even if it meant falling into an abyss of eternal damnation, he was willing.
"Wait for me a little longer—soon, very soon we will be reunited." AZ's voice was extremely soft.
—
Three days passed in a flash. During this time, the Galar army had sent scouts to investigate.
But when the other side saw Dragonite's figure patrolling the surroundings from afar, they were immediately terrified and turned to flee.
In just three days, Cyllage City barely propped up its skeleton from the dilapidated ruins, cleared the debris, repaired the city walls, and morale was reconsolidated through repeated patrols and drills.
Lord Gallot led everyone to manage the city's affairs in an orderly manner, and even organized a reserve army composed of Commoners and soldiers for day and night training.
Draconis knew this was just a drop in the bucket.
But he had to leave.
"Lord Draconis, thank you very much!" Upon hearing that Draconis was about to leave, Gallot led the crowd to see him off reluctantly.
Draconis nodded slightly. He didn't say much, but simply mounted Dragonite and then began to head toward the Kalos Royal City, Geosenge City.
Dragonite's wings sliced through the sky, the wind howling past his ears as the ground receded rapidly beneath them.
Draconis sat upright on the dragon's back, his gaze fixed ahead—the silhouette of Geosenge City had already emerged in his field of vision. But the closer he got to the Royal City, the more intense that unsettling agitation in the air became.
It was no longer the smell of gunpowder, nor the aftershocks of war, but the aura of panic, struggle, and life being forcibly plundered.
Before even reaching the city gates, Draconis could clearly see the scene on the ground.
In the forests, meadows, and ridges surrounding the Royal City, Kalos soldiers in armor were everywhere.
They held ropes and special cages, moving in groups of three or five, rampaging through the woods like thugs, startling groups of wild Pokémon into fleeing in all directions.
A Fletchling flapped its wings in panic to take flight, only to be caught by a net thrown by a soldier;
A Bunnelby burrowed into the ground in its haste, yet was still forced out of its hole by a spear and dragged into an iron cage;
Even the gentle Bidoof were roughly seized and stuffed into pitch-black prison carts.
The cry-like Growls of Pokémon rose and fell, iron cages clanged piercingly as they collided, and soldiers shouted,
Chasing and dragging, their eyes held no pity, only numbness and indifference.
Draconis was momentarily stunned.
"That is—" He subconsciously barked out, "Stop!"
Dragonite understood instantly, and a dragon roar that shook the mountain forest descended from the sky, stirring up an incredibly fierce current of air.
Feeling this terrifying aura, the soldiers who were capturing Pokémon froze, their legs going weak, and the tools in their hands clattered to the ground.
They looked up in horror to see a massive, imposing Dragonite hovering in the sky, its dragon eyes cold and its pressure like a mountain.
The deterrent power of a Dragon-type Pokémon instantly plunged the scene into dead silence.
Draconis flipped down and landed steadily on the ground.
"What are you doing?"
His voice was calm, yet it carried an unquestionable sense of pressure.
The leading captain of the soldiers warned with forced bravado: "Who are you? We are here on His Majesty's orders to capture these magical beasts for—for the Royal City's use!"
"Use?" Draconis's gaze swept across the prison carts stuffed with Pokémon. The Pokémon in the cages were shivering, their eyes full of fear.
Looking at this scene, he understood in an instant.
The activation of the ultimate weapon required the life energy of Pokémon. Therefore, AZ had ordered the capture of these wild Pokémon, trying to use their life energy to activate the ultimate weapon to resurrect Floette.
"To use their lives to power that machine your King built, right?"
The captain of the soldiers looked at the terrifying magical beast behind this mysterious man and trembled all over, not daring to look up: "My Lord—we are following the orders of His Majesty the King to capture wild magical beasts. We do not know the details of anything else, only that those who disobey orders shall be executed on the spot!"
The surrounding soldiers also lowered their heads. Some showed guilt, some were indifferent and numb, and some trembled in fear.
They were not doing this willingly; they had simply become executioners under the King's mad orders.
Draconis closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
He slowly opened his eyes, no longer any warmth in his dark pupils as he pointed at those cages: "Release all the magical beasts."
"My Lord! This—this is the King's command!" the captain of the soldiers cried out in protest.
"The King's command?" Draconis sneered, his aura suddenly surging. "Watching innocent lives be sacrificed—does this deserve to be called a King's command?"
He spoke no more but took out Kyurem's Poké Ball.
With a flash of white light, a bone-chilling cold frantically spread out with Draconis as the center. The moisture in the air instantly condensed into ice crystals and fell.
A giant dragon, ice-blue all over and with a freezing posture, emerged from the light, its wings spreading out like ice blades as its cold eyes swept over every soldier present.
Kyurem—the legendary ice dragon of the Unova region, a legendary-level combatant that truly stood above ordinary Pokémon.
Merely by appearing, a thick layer of white frost had already formed on the ground.
"Roar—!!"
A majestic ice roar shook the fields. The sky changed abruptly as a gale carrying ice shards swept the scene. All the soldiers were instantly frozen to the point of shivering, even the weapons in their hands were coated with a layer of frost.
That overwhelming pressure originating from a legendary Pokémon was more piercing, colder, and more irresistible than Dragonite's.
The captain of the soldiers turned as pale as paper, his legs going soft as he knelt directly on the ground, trembling uncontrollably: "A magical beast—!!"
The other soldiers were even more scared out of their wits, throwing down their armor and weapons one after another, not even having the courage to look up.
"Open all the cages," Draconis spoke again.
No one dared to object again.
The soldiers scrambled to the prison carts, frantically undoing chains and prying open iron locks.
Clang, clang, clang—the cages opened one after another.
Fletchling, Bunnelby, Bidoof, Oddish—one by one, the frightened Pokémon gave a grateful look to Draconis and Kyurem, then scrambled out of the cages, fleeing headlong into the depths of the forest, leaving behind only figures still shaken from the ordeal.
In just a short moment, all the captured Pokémon had escaped.
Draconis withdrew his gaze, no longer looking at these shivering soldiers, but instead cast his gaze toward the Kalos Royal City.
In an unnoticed corner.
A small green core was silently watching all of this.
With Kyurem's appearance, a powerful force sufficient to affect the ecological order of the Kalos region instantly swept across the entire land.
In a far-off land, within a deep, dense, and vibrant forest, a Pokémon resembling a deer with eight branch-like antlers on its head and a blue-and-black body suddenly looked up, its gaze warily cast in one direction.
In the Valley of Death, a place devoid of any breath of life, a massive Pokémon resembling a large bird with crimson wings and tail feathers simultaneously looked up, gazing in one direction.
In the next instant, these two Pokémon left their habitats simultaneously, racing toward the direction of Cyllage City.
....
Power Stones PLZZZZZ
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