It had to be a lucky guess.
Gengar refused to believe that Lilligant could see through its Absolute Invisibility, so it vanished from sight once again, disappearing on the spot.
Julian looked at Lilligant. If the first time had been a lucky shot, the second time surely couldn't be another fluke, right?
As he was thinking this, he saw Lilligant hurl another Energy Ball toward its left side.
Seeing the direction, Julian's expression shifted.
He knew exactly where Gengar was hiding in its invisible state—right in the trajectory of the Energy Ball.
Along that path, a pitch-black Shadow Ball suddenly materialized and collided with the Energy Ball.
With a loud boom, the power of both moves canceled each other out.
And amidst the residual shockwaves, Gengar was forced out of its invisible state again.
"Gen~"
Gengar: "You can see me?"
Gengar asked curiously.
It could sense that although Lilligant was strong, it wasn't powerful enough to make Gengar feel threatened. So how could it possibly detect its location?
Could its combat instincts really be that sharp?
Lilligant: "Within the Brava Arena, I can perceive everything."
It didn't beat around the bush and gave a straightforward answer.
"So that's how it is."
Julian nodded in understanding.
He truly hadn't known about this before. After all, during the previous battle in the Grandtree Arena against Kleavor, the other party hadn't shown this ability—or perhaps it had, but it just wasn't as noticeable.
Now with Gengar using Absolute Invisibility, Lilligant's heightened perception became strikingly apparent.
Hearing that, Gengar felt a bit depressed. After all, Absolute Invisibility was one of its key advantages. As long as its opponent couldn't break through this ability, Gengar could toy with them at will.
But now, this ability was no longer effective.
It seemed it would have to rely on raw strength to defeat Lilligant—no more sneaky tactics.
Thinking of this, Gengar, feeling a bit annoyed, made a face at Lilligant. As a mischievous Pokémon that loved pranks, it preferred underhanded methods over straightforward battles.
"You can't scare me anymore," Lilligant declared.
With a sharp cry, it stomped its long leg hard against the ground, and with a loud thud, its body transformed into a streak of light, vanishing instantly from its spot.
In terms of Type matchups, Lilligant—a Grass/Fighting-type Pokémon—had absolutely no advantage against Gengar, a Ghost/Poison-type. In fact, it was completely countered by Gengar.
Pure Fighting-type moves were completely ineffective against Ghost-types, while Grass-type moves dealt only half the damage to Poison-types.
If it weren't for Lilligant's King form, which helped it somewhat mitigate this Type disadvantage, it would have truly been at Gengar's mercy.
As a side note, among all eighteen types, pure Grass-type and pure Rock-type Pokémon were the most heavily countered, each being weak to five different Types.
And the least countered Types were Normal-type and Electric types, which were only weak to Fighting-type and Ground-type moves respectively.
Type advantages and disadvantages were ingrained in a Pokémon's very genes. Even a First-class Legendary was not exempt—if it was weak to a Type, it would still take more damage from it.
That said, stronger Pokémon did develop greater resistance to the Types they were weak to, though they could never fully ignore them.
Even Metagross hadn't been able to achieve complete immunity in this regard.
Watching Lilligant charge toward it, lifting its left leg covered in white light—clearly a Mega Kick.
"Use Dazzling Gleam," Julian said.
Against Lilligant, Julian had to step in and give Gengar some strategic direction at times.
Since the King form made Lilligant immune to negative status conditions, Gengar's Poison-type moves were practically useless here.
With the enhancement of the Ultimate treasure the Poison Pearl, once Gengar's Poison-type moves hit, they had a 100% chance to inflict poison, and Poison-type move power was even increased by 50%.
But with Lilligant's King form, which was immune to poisoning, even the boosted power of Poison-type moves mattered little.
After all, the main strength of Poison-type moves lied in inflicting poisoned status condition to gradually wear the opponent down.
Now that whole strategy was completely shut down.
The Poison Pearl's guaranteed poisoning versus the King form's poison immunity—seemingly a contradiction—actually followed a priority rule where the King form's effect overrode the Poison Pearl's.
Julian had initially been pleased that Lilligant was Type-countered by Gengar, but thinking about it now, he realized he might have celebrated too early.
Dazzling Gleam could deal some damage, but that wasn't the main goal—Julian just wanted the "dazzle".
A burst of intense light erupted from Gengar's left hand, forcing the charging Lilligant to instinctively close its eyes.
But since Lilligant could still sense Gengar's location, being unable to see didn't really hinder it much.
But the moment it closed its eyes, its movements inevitably became slightly sluggish and stiff.
And in that brief window, Gengar had already transformed into a shadow, clinging closely to the ground.
The next instant, the Mega Kick landed right where Gengar had been standing. But just as the kick touched down, Gengar's shadow had already reappeared behind Lilligant.
A Shadow Punch infused with Ghost-type energy shot toward Lilligant's back.
Swish—
The Shadow Punch landed, but it struck nothing but air.
"Gen?"
Gengar was instantly confused.
"Above," Julian's voice came through.
At this moment, Julian's expression had grown somewhat serious. Because of Lilligant's level, he had not really taken it too seriously before, but now he realized he might have underestimated his opponent.
Just now, when Gengar appeared behind it, Lilligant's Mega Kick had just entered its ending phase, and the time it took for the Shadow Punch to reach Lilligant's back was practically nonexistent—so there should have been no time for it to react at all.
Yet Lilligant had still managed to dodge it effortlessly, and it had done so during the ending phase of Mega Kick, forcibly stopping its momentum to evade. This high-difficulty maneuver was truly impressive and surprised Julian.
Now Lilligant was above Gengar, bringing its Mega Kick down like a battle axe, fully leveraging the advantage of its long legs.
"Gen!"
Gengar hastily gathered a Dark Pulse in both hands and launched it upward to meet the Mega Kick.
Since it was a rushed attack, the Dark Pulse wasn't particularly powerful, and like bamboo being split by an axe, the Dark Pulse was cleanly sliced in two.
BOOM!!
The Mega Kick slammed squarely into Gengar's head, sending the plump ghost flying like a kicked ball.
It even bounced a couple of times after hitting the ground.
Julian covered his face—the way it flew off was honestly a bit too funny.
"Gen!"
The kicked-away Gengar quickly stood back up and tried to rub the bright red mark on its head, only to realize—its arms were too short to reach, and its expression instantly turned rather interesting.
Gengar: ( ⓛ ω ⓛ *)
Julian was also speechless. This chubby ghost, had it really not realized its arms were short until now? Forget touching its head—even reaching its own butt was a struggle, okay?
And they were in the middle of a battle—could it stop messing around.
"Gengar, be serious," Julian glared at it.
"Gen!"
Gengar: "I have been serious the whole time!"
*****
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