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Heavy, iron-dark storm clouds spread across the vast sky like a descending curtain, pressing down upon a land long stripped of life.
Sand and dust roared through the air, whipped into endless storms by violent winds that scattered humanity's lingering pollution across every corner of the world.
Rivers had dried.
Vegetation had withered.
Nature's balance once delicately maintained had been shattered by unchecked consumption, leaving behind nothing but death.
What had once been towering skyscrapers, bustling streets, and radiant city lights were now only cold ruins, broken concrete and twisted steel stretching endlessly into the distance.
The noise of crowds.
The lively cries of Pokémon.
All of it had faded into nothing more than echoes preserved in the records of history.
Only the wind remained.
A wind that never ceased howling through shattered ruins, screaming across collapsed streets, as if mourning a world that had truly died.
---
Othyr City.
Once a thriving metropolis in the Alola region.
Humanity's reckless destruction of the surrounding environment had rendered it uninhabitable, turning it into a frozen dead zone and erasing it from the map.
Perhaps during humanity's peak, a handful of environmental preservationists had tried to save what remained.
But after the Nightmare Pokémon invasion—
humanity no longer had the luxury.
And so, Othyr City became a forbidden land, untouched for centuries.
Today—
after hundreds of years without a single human footprint—
the ruins welcomed a new outsider.
---
"Hmm—"
A low hum suddenly rippled through the air, breaking the monotonous wail of the wind.
Beneath the oppressive leaden clouds, the frozen sky twisted.
Space itself blurred and distorted.
A pinprick of brilliant white light appeared then violently expanded.
In the blink of an eye, it became a glowing ring nearly three meters in diameter.
The air trembled.
Pale pink fragments of energy poured out like liquid light before fading into nothingness.
Then—
a massive dark-purple figure burst through the ring like a meteor falling from the heavens.
The last remnants of pink psychic energy coiled around his arms like dying flames, torn apart by roaring winds and scattered into glittering motes.
Kael was panicking.
He had just escaped death in subspace—
only to immediately find himself plummeting from the sky.
Gravity seized his body, transforming freefall into an overwhelming downward force.
"Whooo—!"
Razor-sharp wind screamed past his ears, faint pain biting into his hardened skin.
Kael spread his limbs wide, desperately trying to slow his descent.
Useless.
His crimson eyes narrowed as the dark-yellow desert below rushed closer and closer.
Kael trusted his evolved body's durability—
but he had never tested whether it could survive a fall from this height.
And he wasn't willing to gamble.
The wilderness was unforgiving.
Even if the fall didn't kill him outright, severe injuries would turn him into prey for Nightmare Pokémon.
Recovery required time.
Time he wouldn't have.
He couldn't let himself keep falling like this.
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"ROAR!"
Kael let out a thunderous shout.
His rock-solid muscles tightened all at once, his frame visibly swelling as power surged through him.
"Bulk Up!"
A skill he had only just acquired still unfamiliar was unleashed on pure instinct.
A radiant sheen spread across his dark-purple skin, as though coated in liquid steel.
His attack and defense surged instantly.
But it wasn't enough.
Kael clenched both massive fists.
"CRACK!"
The frigid air was crushed in his grip, releasing a sharp cry.
A biting chill surged along his arms.
"Ice Punch!"
A move meant for close combat was forcibly repurposed midair.
Blue-white frost erupted from his fists, blasting downward like the breath of an ice dragon.
"CRACK—CRACK—!"
Thin, translucent layers of ice rapidly formed below him, stacking one after another.
"BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!"
Shards exploded outward, scattering through the air.
Bone-chilling cold crawled over Kael's body, raising goosebumps even through his resilience—
but his descent slowed.
Only slightly.
He wasn't an Ice-type Pokémon.
Creating fragile ice barriers mid-fall using Ice Punch was already beyond what should have been possible.
The ground was dangerously close now.
Kael's sharp vision could already make out individual grains of sand rolling across the surface.
His speed had dropped—
but not enough.
New world.
Unknown threats.
He needed to be cautious.
Suddenly—
Kael closed his eyes.
His mind emptied.
Calm.
Stillness.
Like an ancient monk in a forgotten temple, detached from fear.
BOOM!
The power buried deep within him detonated.
Azure Aura surged outward, crashing into the ground below like a violent storm.
The force erupted upward, colliding with gravity itself.
A massive updraft formed beneath Kael, resisting the fall.
Then—
CRASH!
Sand and debris exploded skyward.
The dark-purple figure slammed into the desert, vanishing beneath the surface.
A massive crater formed—then collapsed as sand poured inward.
Silence returned.
The wind howled once more, as if nothing had happened.
The outsider from the sky—
had seemingly perished before taking even a single step in this dead land.
---
THUMP!
Sand burst outward.
A thick, powerful dark-purple hand punched up from beneath the dunes.
Kael was alive.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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