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Back in the temple dungeon.
Li Xiang silently waited for the deus ex machina that Li Zhehan had mentioned.
Originally, the four Sun Cult members had nearly been surrounded and beaten by the Snow Cult followers, but the old Dharma King stopped them.
Now, the group sat in dejected silence.
The cell door, though battered, remained unnaturally sturdy—no one had made a dent in it.
Earlier, someone had tried shouting to see if anyone else was nearby, only to be harshly shut down by the disabled man.
"Don't bother. They won't hear you. The dungeon was designed with sound-absorbing Bouffalant fur woven into the walls. Your voice won't carry."
Some refused to believe it and kept yelling, even as their voices grew hoarse. But no response ever came.
Eventually, they gave up.
Some broke down crying, others leaned against the walls in a daze, and a few watched everything with cold indifference.
Yet there were still those who clung to hope.
"They didn't take my watch. It's already 2 PM. Given the Association's response time, help should arrive soon."
Li Zhehan comforted Li Xiang and Mrs. Yin. Though he had faltered briefly, he quickly steadied himself—after all, he was the family's pillar.
Mrs. Yin didn't speak, only gripping Li Zhehan's hand and leaning against his shoulder.
Silence filled the cell.
Then—the ground shook.
The entire dungeon trembled, sending the prisoners into a panic.
"Get to the corners!"
Li Zhehan shouted, pulling his wife and son toward the wall.
On the hay, the disabled man chuckled. "Well, well. Looks like dinner's off the menu. The temple's rising. Those guys are probably making their move now."
"Making their move? What move?" Li Zhehan yelled over the quaking. Dust rained from the ceiling.
"You think they kidnapped us to hold us for ransom?"
The man sneered. "They want our lives! To infuse their 'god' with humanity, to turn it into a god of human nature—something they can control!"
He rambled on, spewing cryptic nonsense—about life-absorbing stone tablets, infusing life energy, creating a true god.
Li Xiang listened, his heart pounding.
'Isn't this the Ultimate Weapon?!'
Anyone who played Pokémon X and Y would remember this ancient superweapon. Powered by the life energy of Pokémon, it held unimaginable power.
In the games, a man named AZ used it to transform a regular Floette into the Eternal Flower Floette, granting himself immortality.
He even repurposed it as a weapon, ending a war at the cost of countless lives.
Even Mega Stones were indirectly tied to it.
What the disabled man described sounded exactly like the Ultimate Weapon!
'But… wasn't it only supposed to absorb Pokémon life energy?'
Had this world's version been upgraded to target humans too?
'Humanity? How do you even absorb that?!'
Li Xiang's face darkened. If this man was right, they were in serious danger.
…And his claims were scarily plausible. After all, their captors' motives had been a mystery from the start.
As he stewed in thought—the tremors stopped.
The thick, vine-bound cell door suddenly swung open, the tendrils shrinking like snakes. Outside stood several figures in dark red robes embroidered with a sun and Volcarona motif, their expressions icy.
Ghost and Psychic-type Pokémon flanked them.
The prisoners surged forward, ready to rush out, but as the Pokémon's eyes glowed, their bodies locked up.
Li Xiang was no exception. Unlike before, his mind stayed clear—only his body refused to obey.
Glancing around, he saw the same frozen terror in the others' eyes.
'The mind-controlling Pokémon isn't here? Are these just lackeys?'
Fury burned in Li Xiang's chest, but the bitter truth remained: he couldn't even fight these "lackeys."
Under the New Sun Cultists' direction, the prisoners were forced into a single-file line and marched out.
Strangely, the disabled man remained unaffected.
Even he seemed stunned, staring blankly at the cultists, but the cultists' faces stayed blank, as if all emotion had been stripped away.
Li Xiang's jaw clenched, his eyes darting between the Pokémon and their handlers.
Something felt off.
Their eyes were alert, but their movements were stiff, almost robotic—like puppets on strings.
'Why? What's happening?'
His instincts screamed at him, but he couldn't pinpoint the cause.
He wracked his brain, scouring his Pokémon knowledge for answers—and a way out.
At this point, he couldn't rely on outside help. He had to save himself.
Eventually, he narrowed it down to a few possibilities:
i) Mind Control: They were being manipulated by Pokémon.ii) Team Galactic's Will-Suppression Tech (from the manga): A method to erase individuality, turning people into hive-mind drones.
iii) Dark Crystal Tech (from Pokémon Ranger): Devices like the Capture Styler and Remote Styler could hijack Pokémon—maybe even humans.
iv) Control Armor/Gloves (also from Ranger): Gear that enslaved both people and Pokémon.
It had to be one of these…
'Unless this world has something even worse.'
Li Xiang couldn't be sure. This world was full of unknowns.
But soon, he ran out of time to think.
More and more prisoners were pulled into the procession, funneled into the darkness ahead. The cultists moved effortlessly without light, only deepening Li Xiang's unease.
After about ten minutes of marching—
Through gates, down corridors—
The swollen crowd of hundreds was herded into a vast hall.
Despite the numbers, the space felt cavernous, far from cramped.
Li Xiang's head stayed locked forward, forcing him to take in the room piece by piece. The far end held a towering stone throne atop a long staircase, its back stretching to the ceiling.
Below it, a mural of Volcarona encircled by the sun, but the focal point wasn't the art.
It was the forest of engraved stone pillars—And the massive, radiant flower blooming above them all.
'Dammit!'
'It is the Ultimate Weapon!'
Li Xiang's vision swam. 'How the hell did these cultists get their hands on this?!'
He remembered the Kalos legends about the Life Pokémon restoring the land, but the Ultimate Weapon was never mentioned.
'Which meant it shouldn't exist here!'
Yet here it was—modified to work on humans.
'Are you kidding me?! Where's the rescue team?! We're out of fucking time!'
Li Xiang fought the urge to faint, forcing himself to scan the room.
The throne now held an elderly man in ornate robes, his face as blank as the cultists'.
'Is this the Archbishop? Is he brainwashed too? Or… is the real mastermind someone else?'
His gaze shifted left, landing on a massive, one-eyed treant with roots dug deep into the earth.
Massive was an understatement—it stood at least three to four meters tall, dwarfing any ordinary Trevenant.
'A Totem Pokémon?'
No, it lacked the aura. Just a freakishly large variant.
'Wait—are its roots spread throughout the entire temple?!'
Remembering the tangled veins in the walls, Li Xiang's teeth ached at the thought.
'How strong must this thing be?'
"Hehehe… Everyone's here?"
A shrill, grating laugh cut through the hall.
Li Xiang's eyes snapped toward the sound.
Two rotund, eerily similar men in dark robes stood beside a pair of Malamar, smirking.
'Malamar!'
Li Xiang's breath hitched.
These Pokémon were infamous for their hypnotic powers, capable of bending others to their will. The Pokédex even claimed they'd influenced major historical events.
The point was, Exaggeration or not, their reputation was well-earned.
This explained the cultists' behavior.
But who were these two?
"Y-Yes, everyone's present, my lords."
The cultists leading the prisoners dropped to their knees, kissing the men's shoes.
"Ugh, you're so gross. Knock it off."
One of the fat men shoved his Malamar. "The boss is upstairs setting traps to stall those Association fools. We gotta hurry, or we'll catch hell."
'Boss?'
Li Xiang took a slow breath. His Three-Blind Perception training was kicking in—his head was regaining mobility.
Nearby, the two men stripped off their robes, revealing bloated bodies clad in shimmering silver fabric that resembled metal.
"Hurry! Get these meat sacks onto the pillars!"
One barked orders while the other strode toward a control panel.
Li Xiang managed a glance, spotting cables snaking up the walls to the flower above.
The second man typed furiously, arguing with a technician.
"Lu Zhong, how much longer?! You've been 'adjusting' this thing forever!"
"If you think you can do better, be my guest."
The technician—Lu Zhong—snapped back. "If you idiots hadn't screwed around, we'd be done by now. The board will hear about this."
"Tch, go cry to them. You think I care?"
The fat man waved him off. "I didn't take this job to play nice."
"Hmph. Save that bravado for the boss."
Lu Zhong smirked. "And stop hoarding the Snow God's corpse. It's company property—a byproduct of the plan."
"Ugh, you're such a nag! I'm just safeguarding it!"
The man stomped his foot, pointing at a metallic pod in the pillar forest. Inside lay a fiery-red creature.
"You're no better! You took 'samples' from the Sun God! That's also against protocol! Once it awakens with human consciousness, it'll come for you first!"
"Whatever. I'm done talking to you."
Lu Zhong turned back to his console. As he worked, the Ultimate Weapon above began to glow.
Meanwhile—Li Xiang barely registered the prisoners being dragged toward the pillars, his mind reeling.
'The board… the company… the Snow God is dead… becoming a god… humanity…'
The flood of information was overwhelming.
As the crowd thinned, Li Xiang finally saw the center of the pillar forest. There sat a sleek, silver pod covered in intricate patterns.
Inside lay a moth-like Pokémon—snow-white body, twin orange-red horns, a black face, and a blue-black underbelly with dark-speckled, flower-like wings.
A Bug/Fire-type Volcarona.
This had to be the Sun Cult's so-called "god."
The one they claimed was "Volcarona is Volcarona, but the god is the god."
It seemed unconscious, motionless in its pod.
'Probably tied to the dead Snow God's energy…'
Before he could ponder further, the first batch of prisoners were lifted onto the pillars, then dropped to the floor like discarded dolls, their eyes glassy and vacant.
Dead.
Just like that. No sound, no struggle.
'They're really dead!'
Li Xiang's blood ran cold.
'Why is time moving while I'm thinking?! We're running out of—'
His thoughts screeched to a halt as the line ahead dwindled.
'Where's the damn deus ex machina?!'