The Dark Continent was an incredibly vast landmass, its exact size unknown to anyone.
Even the areas Akira and the others had traversed during this time were but a tiny fraction compared to the depths of the continent.
Like a lone island in the vast ocean, it was insignificant.
Just as Akira and the others faced the hidden trump card of the Twin-Tailed Snake, a terrifying presence slowly awakened.
Deep within the Dark Continent, far beyond the edges of the known regions, lay a place where darkness and void intertwined.
Everything here was steeped in shades of gloom—not only was the sky dim, but the ground was also ink-black.
The air was thick with ethereal black mist, identical to the one that shrouded the Twin-Tailed Snake.
The only difference was that the mist here was far denser. Even without touching it, a mere glance was enough to send chills down one's spine.
In such a bizarre place, no normal creature should have been able to survive.
And yet, here, there existed a multitude of grotesque beings.
They came from various species—some were snakes, others wolves…
But they all shared one common trait.
Their bodies bore strange, patchwork-like seams, with large-scale alterations evident in their forms.
Some had their heads and tails reversed, while others had two right hands.
Yet, in this land of black mist, their freakish appearances seemed entirely unremarkable.
At the same time, their auras were overwhelmingly powerful—any one of them could dominate the outer regions as a ruler.
But these formidable beings were merely the whimsical creations of the Demon King, casually crafted on a whim.
This alone spoke volumes about the Demon King's terrifying capabilities.
They shared a single unified name—Demonic Beasts.
Creatures forged by the Demon King were known as [Demonic Beasts].
At the heart of this region, a figure shrouded in shadows sat upon a throne.
Though it remained motionless on the seat, no creature dared to look directly at it.
Those who attempted to gaze upon it would either lose their sanity, becoming mindless beasts, or dissolve on the spot into pools of blood—or worse, mutate into horrifying abominations.
This was an existence that could not be witnessed!
Like a being from the Cthulhu mythos, nothing could approach it unscathed. Wherever it passed, only scenes of hellfire remained.
It resembled a statue, devoid of any vitality, utterly indistinguishable from a living creature.
As if sensing something, the Demon King suddenly opened its tightly shut eyes.
Those were eyes unlike any human's—nor did they resemble the predatory gaze of wild beasts.A pair of icy eyes, devoid of any superfluous emotion, like a machine.
Unfathomably calm.
After the baptism of endless years, the Demon King could no longer remember how long it had lived. It only knew it had been an eternity.
So long that it had forgotten many things, even its emotions had nearly vanished, leaving only the faintest trace of feeling.
It was precisely to preserve this last vestige of emotion that the Demon King began seeking out various things to pique its interest.
For instance, on a whim, it would create bizarre creatures to see how they would turn out.
This was how the monsters in the Black Mist Region came to be, and so too the Hellbell Snake in the swampland.
A few seconds later, sensing the feedback from within, a flicker of curiosity appeared in the Demon King's eyes.
A hint of expression emerged.
It had been a long time since its last awakening, and it cared little for how long it had slumbered.
After all, lifespan meant nothing to it.
At its level, it no longer needed to worry about mortality, able to live on endlessly.
Its power was also the mightiest in the entire world!
The entire Dark Continent was its backyard, with nothing capable of capturing its attention.
Precisely because it possessed ultimate power and had lived too long, the Demon King had lost interest in all things under heaven.
Year after year, day after day, it could only sit upon its throne, slumbering endlessly.
But today, something mildly interesting had occurred.
A wisp of its shadow had been summoned!
Over the long years, it had been summoned quite a few times, but always just a shadow.
Summoning its true form was utterly impossible.
As for why it had been summoned so many times, that was due to abilities it had casually bestowed in the past.
Just among those it could remember creating, several types had the power to summon it.
They only needed to pay a certain price for a chance to summon a fragment of its presence.
Of course, this shadow's power was negligible compared to its true form, diluted countless times over.
Moreover, it lacked autonomous consciousness, only roughly identifying targets to attack before dissipating after a few strikes.
Even without attacking, it would quickly fade away.
Yet even so, the tiniest fraction of the Demon King's power was enough to reign supreme in the borderlands.
After all these years of slumber, it would only awaken briefly when sensing a summons.
[Summoned again...]
[This time by...]
With a thought, the Demon King quickly traced the summoning ripple to its source.
[Those twin-tailed snakes? After so long I'd nearly forgotten—they did have that ability.]
The Demon King's eyes shifted as it recalled creating the twin-tailed snakes.
Speaking of which, it remembered creating something else around the same time.
Some kind of musical score, wasn't it?
That seemed relatively recent, as the memory remained fairly clear.
There were several small areas around that little lake, inhabited by creatures it had relocated there.
"Humans," they were called, if it remembered correctly.
To this day, the Demon King vividly recalled the joy of discovering music from the humans of the Six Continents.
That remained the only thing it considered truly worthwhile.
After reaching the pinnacle of power, nothing else had ever captured its interest.
Finally, after turning a vast region into a hellscape, it chose to travel to every corner of the world.
It sought with all its might to find something that could pique its interest.
In the end, it discovered the Six Continents, where it found humans who had already settled there for some time.
The Demon King paid no heed to the feeble strength of the humans on the Six Continents.
For it, nothing in this world could compare to its own power.
Yet it had discovered something unique in the humans of the Six Continents—something absent elsewhere in the world.
Music, for example.
It had to admit that this small island at the heart of the lake was indeed the most peaceful place in the entire world.
This was why these humans could live in tranquility and develop so many interesting things.
Among them, what fascinated it the most was music—a peculiar form of sound, ranging from grating to exquisite, with vast differences.
Music also encompassed various instruments, which were tools capable of creating such sounds.
From then on, it took only a short time to compose musical scores in its own distinctive style.
These scores were divided into four movements, each representing one of the four mainstream instruments: harp, violin, piano, and clarinet.
As scores created by the Demon King, they naturally carried eerie effects.
These four scores were collectively known as—the Dark Sonata!
After reminiscing for a while, the Demon King felt boredom creeping in again, urging it to return to slumber.
Its emotions were dwindling...
Perhaps one day, it would become an existence devoid of all feeling.
Maybe it should just destroy this world before that happened?
After all, it would be useless to it by then, and it was already unbearably bored.
With such thoughts in mind, the Demon King prepared to sink back into sleep.
Yet, just as it was about to drift off completely, another sensation surged within it.
Its shadowy projection had been shattered!
...
At the edge of the Dark Continent, in the heart of a vast swamp, the usual sunlight was nowhere to be seen.
At this moment, both the sky and the ground were filled with an eerie black mist that sent chills down one's spine.
Accompanied by gusts of powerful, sinister winds, the scene was one of utter chaos.
The entire team of over twenty people stood frozen, most staring ahead with terror-filled eyes.
They were as if petrified—no matter how intense their fear, they could not move an inch.
Ging and Beyond both wore grim expressions, the same thought flashing through their minds simultaneously:
[What the hell is this thing?!]
But Akira was different.
Akira remained composed, gazing at the Demon King's projection. Even though he sensed the enemy's formidable strength, he stayed calm.
Glancing at the spreading black mist around him, Akira turned his attention back to the projection and thought to himself:
[So this is the so-called Demon King...]
[Even if it's just a shadow... its power truly lives up to the title.]
Akira gave a slight nod, acknowledging the Demon King's strength.
However, with only a shadow to gauge, he couldn't estimate the true extent of the Demon King's power.
All he knew was that the real entity must far surpass this projection.
Yet even this mere shadow had reached SS-rank!
According to the information Marshadow had relayed, its aura even slightly surpassed Marshadow's own.
This inevitably raised the question: just how powerful was the Demon King's true form?
Akira estimated it to be at least SS+, most likely hovering between SS+ and SSS-.
In other words, at the threshold between SS and SSS.
Having witnessed Jin's breakthrough to SS-, Akira realized one thing:
He might have underestimated the gap between each tier!
The gap between A-rank and S-rank was already like heaven and earth, and the difference from S-rank to SS-rank was even more vast.
So what about the leap from SS-rank to SSS-rank?
Just how enormous was the gap?
Akira couldn't estimate it—he could only say it far exceeded anything he could imagine.
This was also why he believed the so-called Demon King was unlikely to have reached the realm of SSS-rank.
Since it hadn't reached SSS-rank, then it could still be dealt with.
...
At that moment, Akira suddenly noticed a new incubation bar appearing in his mind!
The timing of this incubation bar was extremely coincidental—it had manifested almost simultaneously with the appearance of the Demon King's shadow.
Moreover, this incubation bar was peculiar.
Its progress was incredibly slow, making it seem as though it wasn't moving at all compared to its lengthy form.
But Akira knew it was simply because the progress was difficult, making it appear stagnant.
Because he had experienced a similar incubation bar before.
And it was that very bar that had given birth to the Legendary Pokémon, Kyogre.
So… was this another Legendary?
Akira's eyes widened slightly as he realized this incubation bar must be connected to the Demon King.
A Legendary Pokémon tied to the Demon King…
His mind raced with excitement, but he quickly reminded himself that now wasn't the time for speculation.
Because the shadow before him was already preparing to strike!
...
The shadow had a pair of eyes identical to the Demon King's, though they were even more indifferent than its true form.
More frigid.
The Demon King's true body already had extremely weak emotions, and this infinitesimal shadow's emotions were even more diluted—only a sliver of consciousness remained.
Silently observing the motionless Akira and the others, the shadow showed no reaction, only the black mist around it seething.
At any moment, it could lunge forward and devour them all, just as it had with that two-tailed Snake—leaving not even scraps behind.
In its eyes, these were nothing more than the lowest of ants.
Even bothering to attack them was a tremendous waste.
With this mindset, the shadow's gaze grew even more disdainful as it looked down upon them from above.
A trace of contempt flickered in its eyes.
The next moment, Akira's lips curled slightly.
A sudden upheaval erupted on the battlefield.
Dark storm clouds abruptly gathered in the sky, unleashing a torrential downpour in an instant.
Countless raindrops fell, completely drowning out the eerie winds and replacing them with a tempest.
The rain seemed endless, as though it could pour forever.
Then, the sky above the grasslands was torn open—revealing a pair of cold yet wrathful eyes.
They were yellow eyes, rimmed with red, exuding an aura of natural authority.
Under that gaze, the shadow felt an inexplicable emotion surge within it.
An emotion called fear.
It… was afraid!
Because what it faced was none other than the [God of the Sea]—Kyogre.
A massive, azure beam of light shot into the heavens!
At the same time, an ancient and boundless oceanic presence spread outward.
Radiating at incredible speed, every creature that sensed this aura instinctively prostrated themselves—filled with nothing but terror, dread, and reverence.
For this was the might of a deity…
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