"What's wrong?"
Lena tensed up, Arbok raising its head with fangs bared.
Barton waved his hand forward. His Golem lumbered into position to block the path.
Kairos's eyes were locked on a corner of the system map. At the edge of a low valley up ahead, a deep red heat signature marked something powerful lying in wait. The intensity of that crimson glow was unmistakable: a powerful Ghost-type Pokémon.
Next to that red dot sat several faint green markers, barely hanging on. From what Kairos had seen before, green meant allies. Those had to be Night Watcher tags.
"Valley entrance up ahead, right side, about three hundred meters out." Kairos kept his voice low. "We've got a situation. Something seriously dangerous, and there might be Night Watchers trapped in there."
The other three turned to look.
The valley entrance was choked with jagged rocks that blocked their line of sight, but they could all feel it: a bone-chilling presence seeping out from that direction. They'd been doing this long enough to know when something was way out of their league.
Their detection gear was picking up nothing but static.
Which meant Kairos was probably dead-on.
"Damn it... we actually ran into one?" Rex's face went dark. "Can we loop around?"
"Going around would cost us at least an hour and take us straight into heavier danger zones." Kairos studied the map. "This thing's sitting right on the flank of our route. It's set up to ambush anyone passing through."
A shrill, ear-splitting roar tore through the air from the valley entrance. The sound was saturated with pain and rage.
Several quick, panicked shouts followed. Energy flared. Then everything went quiet.
The presence started spreading rapidly in their direction.
"That's a Night Watcher distress call!" Lena's expression shifted. She seemed to recognize the Ghost World Lineage's signals.
"Shit!" Rex spat.
The Night Watchers weren't pushovers. Whatever was out there had to be strong.
"Barton, Lena, you're with me. We're going to check it out."
Rex's voice cut through the tension. "Kairos, you grab the supply crate and fall back to the fortress. Report this and get reinforcements. My Machoke, Barton's Golem, and I will try to keep that thing busy."
There wasn't a trace of hesitation in his eyes.
Machoke dropped into a combat stance, muscles bulging, eyes locked hard on the valley entrance. The fear it had shown against Gengar earlier was completely gone.
Barton stepped up beside him. The rocky armor on his Golem ground and creaked, ready to take a hit.
Kairos looked at Rex with some surprise.
This foul-mouthed guy who'd been complaining nonstop was now, when it actually mattered, showing real guts. He was putting himself and his team in the line of fire so Kairos could escape with the knowledge of the route.
Rough around the edges, but solid underneath.
"What about you?" Kairos asked.
"We're tougher than we look! Quit wasting time and go!" Rex barked, already pulling out Poké Balls to call in backup.
Kairos shook his head. His gaze moved past Rex toward the valley entrance, where the hostile presence was growing more violent by the second.
"No need. I'll take care of it."
"What?!"
Rex, Lena, and Barton froze. They stared at Kairos like he'd completely lost it.
Take care of it himself?
The aura rolling off that thing from hundreds of meters away was making their skin crawl. That was Elite Four-level danger.
Even if their whole team worked together, they might not last five minutes.
"Have you lost your mind? Even the Ghost World Lineage couldn't stop it. With that kind of presence, that's an Elite Four-level crazed ghost! This isn't some training exercise!"
Rex was practically yelling.
Kairos didn't bother explaining. He just tossed out another Poké Ball.
Ghostly blue flames rose in silence. Not the warm glow from before, but something cold and suffocating.
Chandelure's body, forged from black metal and frigid fire, drifted forward. It floated in front of Kairos, its flame core fixed on the valley entrance as a massive, overwhelming aura rolled out.
Far beyond quasi-Elite Four level.
"E-Elite Four level?!" Rex's eyes went wide as plates. "No... more than that!"
His jaw dropped. The shock from seeing Gengar earlier was nothing compared to this.
He'd thought Gengar was Kairos's ace. He never imagined there'd be a second Pokémon with this kind of terrifying power.
Lena gasped and stumbled back a step. Arbok coiled itself tighter, its serpent eyes filled with fear. Even Barton, usually stone-faced, gripped his shield harder. Golem let out an uneasy rumble.
The thing at the valley entrance seemed furious at Chandelure's undisguised presence.
BOOM!
A massive boulder, easily several tons, lifted into the air by some invisible force. It came screaming toward their position.
Before the rock even got close, a wave of cold psychic pressure slammed down on them, thick with madness, malice, and raw destructive intent.
"Watch out!" Rex roared.
Machoke bellowed, about to charge.
"Chandelure, Heat Wave."
Kairos's voice stayed calm, but it cut through the chaos with an odd clarity.
The ghostly blue flames around Chandelure surged.
The fire transformed into a roaring tide that erupted forward in a wide arc.
WHOOSH!
The incoming boulder touched the ghostly blue flames. It didn't explode. It just melted, dissolving at a visible rate until there was nothing left.
The psychic assault crashed into the wall of fire. The ghostly blue flames flickered for a moment, then burned the attack clean away.
The wave of fire kept going, slamming hard into the right side of the valley entrance.
RUMBLE!
Rocks shattered under the extreme heat.
Through the billowing dust and smoke, a massive figure emerged.
A colossal Trevenant, standing over four meters tall.
Its body was a twisted mass of pitch-black, charred tree trunks and thorned vines. In the hollow pits where its eyes should be, two burning masses of crimson light glowed. An impossibly dense black aura wrapped around its entire frame, and countless wraith-like wisps howled and churned across its surface.
One massive arm still radiated energy from hurling that boulder.
Early Elite Four-level crazed presence crashed over them like a tidal wave, hammering their nerves.
"Trevenant! Elite Four level!" Rex's voice cracked with despair.
A crazed ghost at this level, pumped up by the Ghost World surge, had unimaginable destructive power.
Then it hit him.
Wait. That Chandelure's strength...
The crazed Trevenant roared. Its crimson eyes locked onto Chandelure and Kairos.
Its massive body exploded forward with shocking speed. Countless pitch-black, spike-covered vines tore through the air with ear-splitting shrieks, blanketing everything in front of it.
Wherever the vines passed, even the air seemed to corrode, leaving faint black trails.
"Shadow Ball."
Kairos called out the move.
Chandelure hovered in place. Its ghostly blue flame core spun rapidly.
Black energy spheres the size of human heads condensed and fired off like rapid-fire cannons.
Each Shadow Ball struck the tip of an incoming vine with surgical precision.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosions blended together into one continuous roar.
Black energy and shredded vine fragments scattered everywhere.
Trevenant's vine assault was torn apart, but more vines kept growing, tangling forward like an endless dark tide.
Trevenant roared again. Its massive trunk shook. Countless black, seed-like points of light shot from its surface, raining down toward Chandelure's position.
When those black points hit the ground, they absorbed the surrounding Ghost World death energy and swelled into pitch-black, red-eyed forms.
So it had been carrying that many Banette all along.
Dozens of Banette rushed toward Chandelure in a swarm.
"Will-O-Wisp, ring expansion."
Kairos's command came without hesitation.
The flames around Chandelure contracted for a moment, then dozens of ghostly blue fires drifted outward. They intercepted the charging Banette swarm with perfect accuracy.
There were no violent explosions. The Banette touched by Will-O-Wisps ignited like paper, consumed by ghostly blue flames and collapsing to the ground.
Just as the Will-O-Wisps cleared the field, Trevenant's massive form vanished from where it stood.
The next instant, it reappeared diagonally above Chandelure.
A giant claw wrapped in dense black energy carried terrifying force as it came crashing down at blinding speed.
This strike had all its power behind it.
"Watch out!" Rex and the others' hearts jumped into their throats.
It closed the distance?
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
Then I'm not holding back.
For the first time, he activated the effect of his character skill [Dragon's Majesty]: "Pressure Domain."
HUM!
An invisible, crushing pressure from the deepest reaches of Dragon-type bloodlines erupted outward with Kairos at the center.
This wasn't energy. This was pure presence, the kind of suppression only Dragon-types could produce.
Dragon's might blanketed dozens of meters in every direction.
Trevenant took the full brunt of it. Its descending claw froze mid-strike.
In its crimson, maddened eyes, fear and confusion flickered for the first time.
It was as if the thing in front of it wasn't a human but a Dragon-type Pokémon several times more powerful than itself.
Its crazed psyche, driven wild by the Ghost World surge, crumbled under that immense pressure.
Its movements locked up for just a moment.
That instant was fatal at this level of combat.
"Overheat!"
Kairos commanded.
Chandelure reacted immediately. Its ghostly blue flame core shifted from cold to blazing red, as if a miniature sun had ignited inside its body.
Massive Fire-type energy compressed to its absolute limit, then erupted all at once.
A concentrated beam of fire tore through the Ghost World's dim sky and struck dead-center on Trevenant's massive chest, still frozen by dragon's might.
BOOM!!!
Blinding firelight swallowed Trevenant's entire body.
Violent shockwaves exploded outward in concentric rings, stripping away a layer of the black rock beneath them.
Scorching heatwaves mixed with the smell of burning wood rushed forward.
The white-hot glow lasted several seconds before it finally faded.
When the light cleared, Rex, Lena, Barton, and all their Pokémon stood frozen in place.
Trevenant's massive body had visibly shrunk.
A huge charred cavity, over two meters across, had been blasted clean through its chest.
The trunks and vines around the edges were still smoldering with black smoke.
Around the cavity, the crimson light had been snuffed out completely, leaving only a lifeless gray.
Its massive body swayed once, then crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact. Dust kicked up in a thick cloud.
Dead silence.
One hit.
Just one hit.
An Elite Four-level crazed Trevenant, obliterated under Chandelure's attack.
The entire area fell into a deathly quiet.
Rex's mouth hung open. His Adam's apple bobbed, but no sound came out.
He looked at Kairos's still-calm profile, then at Chandelure hovering in front of him with its flames slowly shifting back to ghostly blue, as if that world-ending strike had never even happened.
His gaze dropped to the massive charred corpse on the ground. A chill mixed with shock ran straight through him.
Lena's face had gone pale. She stared at Kairos with a mixture of shock and awe.
Arbok beside her was pressed flat against the ground, trembling.
For the first time, intense emotion showed on Barton's face. What he'd just witnessed was so far beyond anything he'd imagined.
They finally understood why this young guy named Kairos had dared to come into the Ghost World with them. Why he'd dared to face down an Elite Four-level Ghost World Pokémon.
Because he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He didn't just have a peak quasi-Elite Four Gengar. He also had a terrifying Chandelure capable of killing Elite Four-level crazed ghosts in a single strike.
And that invisible pressure at the end, the one that had left even their minds blank...
That had come from him, too.
Just who the hell is this guy?