Directly above the Dragon Pool, there was a blue stone emitting a faint glow.
After the Salamence leader and Drake left together, Aoki walked towards the Dragon Pool.
As he passed the Dragon Pool, he used his chip to scan the liquid within it.
He found that the liquid indeed contained rich Dragon-type energy, but also many other things that his chip couldn't analyze.
The reason was a lack of reference objects.
However, there must be something miraculous or some special structure within this mountain.
Extracting energy from the Dragon Tomb and then transferring it to the Dragon Pool, endlessly, in an infinite loop?
Aoki decided that after Shelgon finished absorbing, he would "appropriately" collect some to take back; perhaps it could yield some results.
Anyway, from the Salamence leader's demeanor, it seemed he wasn't very concerned about this Dragon Pool. Was it because he genuinely didn't care, or because he trusted Aoki?
Let's just assume he didn't care.
He bypassed the Dragon Pool and arrived directly beneath the stone wall.
Only upon reaching this spot did he realize how magnificent and spectacular the Rayquaza statue truly was.
This statue seemed to be a life-sized replica of Rayquaza, and the liquid in the Dragon Pool flowed from Rayquaza's mouth.
The blue glowing stone Aoki saw was Rayquaza's eye at that moment.
What surprised Aoki was that out of Rayquaza's two eyes, only one had color. From a distance, he thought it was due to fading over time.
But upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't fading; the other eye was just a small indentation, and the object originally embedded there was missing.
One eye still had a blue stone embedded in it, which looked quite mystical.
Aoki levitated himself, appearing before the dragon head of the Rayquaza statue, and reached out to touch the stone.
Upon contact, he felt his surroundings change. He blinked a few times to confirm the transformation before his eyes.
He found himself in a misty white place, surrounded by white fog. The air here was very thin, and the temperature was very low. If he hadn't immediately used his psychic powers to create a barrier around himself, Aoki suspected he might have frozen solid.
Although it was just a place similar to an illusion, the physical sensations were so real.
"This place… seems to be high altitude," Aoki looked around again, making some guesses about where he was.
Whoosh—Roar—
Just as Aoki was about to look around, he heard a long cry, accompanied by a dragon's roar.
Then, all the white mist and clouds began to churn, as if something extraordinary had appeared, stirring up the entire cloud layer.
From within the churning clouds, Aoki saw segments of a green figure.
It was like a dragon, yet like a snake.
Immediately after, a massive dragon head appeared before Aoki. Its green skin and two yellow eyes stared directly at Aoki, with almost no emotional fluctuations visible in them.
"Rayquaza…" Aoki murmured, looking at the Pokémon that had appeared before him, unsure how to describe his feelings at that moment.
Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza—the three most legendary mythical Pokémon of the Hoenn region. Rayquaza could stand independent of Groudon and Kyogre, because it alone could overpower them.
The Sky High Pokémon! Rayquaza! Also, the sole overlord of the sky in the Pokémon world!
Aoki stared at it, and for some reason, no matter how complex his feelings were at that moment, he felt no fear.
He wasn't sure if it was because he thought this place was an illusion, or if he felt that Rayquaza wasn't hostile towards him.
Roar—
Suddenly, something unexpected happened.
The sky, which had been filled with white mist and clouds, now began to change.
A dark, black hole, with red lightning-like patterns, appeared in mid-air.
This black hole slowly grew larger, as if devouring everything. Rayquaza, being a Pokémon with a very strong sense of territory, naturally could not tolerate something so brazenly invading its domain.
Without a word, its body straightened, as if transforming into a green longsword.
As the sword's speed increased, Rayquaza's body also underwent some changes. The most obvious was that the green on its body became more vivid, looking like it had turned into an emerald, and long, thin yellow lines resembling dragon whiskers also appeared.
"Mega Rayquaza… Dragon Ascent?" Aoki watched as Rayquaza charged towards the black hole.
Boom!!!
After a tremendous roar, all the white mist, clouds, and air scattered, creating a large vacuum zone.
Rayquaza's Dragon Ascent stopped the continuously expanding black hole, and it even seemed to show signs of shrinking.
However, the red lightning around the black hole grew more intense, slowly spreading out.
Mega Rayquaza circled the black hole, its dragon roars echoing, as if communicating with something.
But not much communication happened before Rayquaza seemed to grow furious. Its mouth opened wide, and an orange-yellow energy ball condensed within it, growing increasingly dense, with the potential to explode at any moment.
Even Aoki seemed to be able to sense the energy level that the energy ball in Rayquaza's mouth might possess at that moment.
However, it ultimately couldn't be unleashed.
Because from higher up in the sky, a halo of light shot down, like the first ray of sunlight piercing through the clouds in the morning, warm and peaceful.
When this halo of light shone on the black hole, the black hole instantly seemed to encounter a natural enemy, rapidly shrinking until it disappeared.
But Aoki vaguely seemed to see an eye flash and disappear within the black hole.
Seeing the black hole vanish, the energy ball in Rayquaza's mouth also gradually dissipated, and a potential natural disaster was thus averted.
However, Rayquaza did not revert from its Mega Evolved state. Instead, its eyes were fixed on the place where the halo of light had appeared. Faintly, a four-legged Pokémon could be seen, appearing and disappearing.
Arceus!
To appear in such a state, and within Rayquaza's high-altitude territory without being directly attacked by Rayquaza, Aoki could only think of Arceus.
Rayquaza let out a few low growls towards Arceus.
Then, a rectangular blue object, like a brick, slowly descended from the halo of light and stopped in front of Rayquaza.
For the first time, Aoki saw surprise in Rayquaza's eyes.
But immediately after, this blue stone slab suddenly shattered, breaking into many small blue fragments.
Rayquaza's expression changed. It opened its mouth and swallowed many of the blue fragments, watching as the remaining pieces disappeared.
Immediately, it became enraged, glaring fiercely at Arceus above.
In the end, however, it still did not make a move. With a flick of its dragon tail, it chased after the scattered stones.
The scene before his eyes gradually faded, but a faint voice appeared in Aoki's ears.
"Human…"