"Aren't you just riding high because the Vast White Dragon chose you over me? What is there to flaunt?" Damon spat, his voice laced with bitter resentment. "Back then, I was recognized by the Vast White Dragon too."
"Then do you know why the Vast White Dragon ultimately chose me and rejected you?" N locked eyes with Damon, exposing the raw truth. "It is because your mind is twisted, and your motives are corrupt."
"Furthermore, Damon, the coordinates you calculated for the Sword of the Vale are completely wrong. That is the exact reason I had to interject and stop you." N pleaded earnestly, trying to appeal to his reason. "Stand down, Damon. It is still not too late."
"No! Those are nothing but your own groundless assumptions! My calculations are absolute!" The arrogant Damon completely brushed aside N's warnings, refusing to validate a single word.
"Feng Che, I am leaving this sector to your hands," N communicated urgently. "I will map out a path to extract Victini. The poor thing is far too naive—it was thoroughly manipulated by Damon's lies into serving as the control hub for the castle again."
Up along the high lanes, Feng Che's four Legendary deities were desperately marshaling their raw physical mass to push the Sword of the Vale toward the designated maritime coordinates. Yet, Victini's output was monumentally immense; even under the joint pressure of the four gods, guiding the fortress was an exceptionally grueling task.
"Victini, channel your authority! Supercharge Conkeldurr and Darmanitan's energy parameters!" Damon bellowed.
Victini let out a sharp, crystalline cry, and a fraction of a second later, two massive, V-shaped torrents of iridescent energy violently erupted from its crown. The twin columns of light slammed dead-center into Damon's partners.
Conkeldurr's physical vessel instantly swelled to several times its baseline volume, its upper torso bulging with hyper-dense muscle layers that closely mirrored a Mega Swampert's build. Brandishing its massive concrete pillars, it swung the heavy stone with terrifying, roaring momentum.
Darmanitan's standard spherical chassis dynamically warped, rippling with thick layers of raw, defined muscle fibers that transformed the beast into a literal, raging silverback gorilla running rampant through a jungle.
Even the Sigilyph floating in the upper lane, desperately mapping evasive loops to clear Corviknight's press, began to glow with shifting, volatile runes.
"That youth is permanently deadlocked, holding the Light and Dark Stones concurrently. His human body is serving as the primary biological medium to anchor the runaway Dragon Pulse, meaning his mind cannot afford a single micro-second of distraction!" Damon analyzed maliciously.
"My partners—focus all parameters and strike that youth directly!"
"Conkeldurr, use Bulk Up!"
"Darmanitan, discharge Flamethrower!"
"Sigilyph, use Air Cutter!"
The exact millisecond Damon's commands cleared the lane, N began dragging his heavily fatigued frame forward, desperately crawling toward Victini's coordinates. Saturated under the extraction process, Victini was continuously bleeding out massive waves of energy to pilot the mechanical grid of the castle.
Right at that critical juncture, Feng Che smoothly unclipped a premium capsule, deploying a partner no one in the arena calculated.
A tiny, star-like Mythical Pokémon flaunting three elegant wish tags upon its crown materialized in the clearing—Jirachi.
"Jirachi, clear the distance!"
Feng Che telekinetically drew the Wish Pokémon to his side, smoothly funnening the excess mass of the runaway Dragon Pulse straight into Jirachi's vessel. A micro-second prior, the crushing accumulation of telluric energy had been on the absolute threshold of violently rupturing his own cells.
"Jirachi, this uncompressed earth mass—your system can safely anchor and absorb it, correct?"
Feng Che was fully aware that by its very taxonomy, Jirachi operated as an absolute, bottomless reservoir capable of storing any format of raw energy. As long as its core could siphon a high-enough threshold of power, it held the baseline capability to manifest any conceptual wish.
"Jirachi can comfortably manage this!"
Jirachi gave a firm nod, its frame instantly emitting a dense, soothing mantle of golden luminescence. Within a single fraction of a second, Feng Che registered the crushing structural pressure weighing on his nervous system drop significantly.
Right at that exact millisecond, Darmanitan's torrential Flamethrower and Sigilyph's razor-sharp Air Cutters converged upon Feng Che's coordinates. The atmospheric pressure of the wind blades violently fed the thermal mass, exponentially scaling the offensive multi-hit damage loop of the firestorm.
A massive, sweeping sea of fire roared across space, the inferno heavily wreathed in thousands of spinning fire blades.
"Jirachi, lock down the vector!"
A brilliant, deep-blue telekinetic flash ignited within Jirachi's eyes, and a translucent, shimmering barrier of Protect violently crystallized around Feng Che.
The roaring sea of fire slammed dead-center into the shield, completely halted. Seizing the millisecond window, Incineroar stepped into the forward lane, unhinging its jaws to execute a massive, structural inhalation.
The entire firestorm was cleanly vacuumed and siphoned straight into Incineroar's core via its Flash Fire affinity.
Its twin shoulders violently ignited with brilliant, white-hot flames, wrapping its torso like a massive, regal winter coat. Reversing its stance, it let out a deafening roar, expelling a hyper-compressed, spiraling Flamethrower from its blazing fire belt targeted straight at Conkeldurr.
"Darmanitan, shift parameters—Zen Mode!" Damon screamed frantically.
Darmanitan's chassis instantly transitioned, transforming its stone-hard form into a dense shield to anchor the line of fire right before Conkeldurr.
"Sensational! Conkeldurr—leverage your muscular coefficient and hurl that Darmanitan like a literal bowling ball straight through that youth's position!"
Sustained within Zen Mode, Darmanitan's structural density multiplied until its mass scaled to a full ton. Yet, Conkeldurr effortlessly hoisted the heavy boulder with its bare limbs, pivoting its torso to launch the ballistic projectile straight toward Feng Che.
However, mid-transit, a devastating, high-velocity Hydro Pump violently cut through the workspace from the blind spot, smashing the heavy projectile cleanly off the Sword of the Vale's terrace.
"Darmanitan, abort Zen Mode! Discharge a vertical Flamethrower to re-establish lift!" Damon roared in panic, terrified of losing his partner.
Darmanitan fluidly reverted to its standard form mid-fall, expelling a massive column of fire toward the floor to successfully anchor its momentum, landing heavily back onto the castle grounds.
"Sigilyph, use Psychic!"
"Conkeldurr, use Slash!"
"Darmanitan, use Flame Charge!"
Sigilyph's eyes flashed with intense telekinetic authority, directing a massive Psychic payload to crush Feng Che's cognitive lines. Damon explicitly intended to violently sever Feng Che's mental link with the leylines.
His intellect was fully aware of the astronomical returns hidden within the alignment of the Dragon Pulse. Managing the nexus granted a Trainer absolute dominion over the regional earth network, alongside a supreme blessing from the natural order—and under specific anomalies, it held the data required to awaken the legendary Viridian Power.
The Viridian Power... an absolute, pinnacle tier of cosmic capability.
As long as my line successfully stabilizes this Dragon Pulse, I shall rightfully inherit that god-tier authority.
To think N would be granted a heavenly opportunity of this scale, only to choose to cooperate with a complete outsider.
Damon's internal alignment was completely warped by envy, his features twisting into a feral scowl as his gaze locked onto N, who was painfully dragging his frame toward Victini.
"Just what scale of natural affinity does this monster command? To be born with the innate capability to seamlessly resonate with the minds of all Pokémon..."
"Conversely, despite carrying the sacred lineage of the Hero of the Vale, my own system was left completely barren of any special attributes."
"Even the Light Stone I spent years tracking down was aggressively claimed by his hand first." Damon recalled with immense, white-hot resentment how N had effortlessly stepped ahead of his timeline to awaken the Vast White Dragon, Reshiram.
"Hmph! As long as my hand permanently secures the absolute authority of the Dragon Pulse across this campaign, everything will be vindicated! By that hour, boundless prestige and bottomless fortunes will be nothing but playthings within my palm!" Damon gloated internally.
Damon's mental fortitude and moral alignment are exceptionally abyssal—however, his status renders him the absolute finest proxy candidate to govern the remnants of the People of the Vale, Feng Che calculated calmly.
During my last audience within the League's High Command, the telemetry confirmed that the Supreme Council will never authorize a single monolithic entity to establish absolute, unified sovereignty over an entire region. Such a consolidation severely compromises their macro-management matrix.
Consequently, my strategy requires distributing my eggs across separate baskets: the People of the Vale, the Dragon Clan, and Team Plasma.
On the public stage, the Unova region will project an illusion of intense political division and competing syndicates—yet beneath the surface, every single string will be securely bound to my sovereign hand.
Through this calculated detour, I shall comfortably reign as the absolute, undisputed master of Unova.
The Unova region commanded an immense wealth of premium mineral reserves, though its natural herb indices sat below Sinnoh's parameters, and its berry production matrices were outstripped by Hoenn's climate.
Once my shadow empire locks down absolute, administrative control over these three key regions... the global order will comfortably bow before my throne.