Chapter 605: Am I Qualified to Be Your Big Brother?
Seeing his older brother surrounded and attacked, Charizard was sweating profusely with anxiety. Before his dragon body could even fully take flight, the Fire Blast in his mouth had already been unleashed.
Boom!
The Fire Blast exploded right beside Kazuya, clearing away a good number of the approaching small fry for him.
Floette and the Goodra clan also hurriedly used their moves to provide cover for Kazuya. Their speed was slow; though they were more than capable of defense, stopping the Arbok from swarming Kazuya was something they simply couldn't manage in time. Even after a wave of counter-moves, dozens of the stronger Arbok still endured the flames and lunged at Kazuya like a swarm of locusts.
"Rua!"
Kazuya conjured a ball of fire in his palm and slammed it against the ground. A thick, robust pillar of flame instantly erupted from beneath his feet (Fire Pledge/Heat Wave variation), completely enveloping Kazuya himself within the attack radius.
Yet, this pack of Arbok acted like kamikaze moths diving into a flame, forcefully biting through the firewall into Kazuya's body, using their long coils to constrict him with all their might.
As the column of fire dispersed, Kazuya's entire dragon body was tightly bound by massive purple snakes. This sight alone, let alone experiencing it firsthand, was enough to strike terror into anyone watching from the side.
"Meaa!!"
Seeing this, Sliggoo cried out in sheer desperation. The energy within his body surged drastically as he tried to force himself to shatter the boundary of evolution over and over again. But having only recently evolved, he was still a very long way off from the Lv. 50 required for his second evolution. How could he possibly force another evolution right now?
At this moment, Sliggoo felt nothing but pure regret for dragging his Big Brother into this. If he had known it would turn out like this, he should have told his Big Brother everything from the very beginning. He had been far too self-righteous!
"Roar!"
Charizard didn't have as many complex emotions running through his head as Sliggoo. Shrouded in blazing flames, he rammed headfirst into the mass of snakes hanging off Kazuya.
Right at that moment, the Overlord Arbok intercepted him mid-path. With a vicious whip of his tail, he punctured and sent Charizard flying backward. He didn't stop there; instead, he relentlessly pursued the falling Charizard.
The Overlord Arbok hadn't mistaken his opponent. His goal was crystal clear: eliminate the smaller Charizard to force the giant one to completely lose his composure, and then slowly wear the giant dragon down using the lives of his Arbok underlings.
Swish!
Arbok's long tail snatched the flying Charizard right in front of him. Opening his massive jaw that stretched nearly ten meters wide, he prepared to swallow Charizard whole into his stomach.
Yet, at that exact moment...
"...Our battle isn't over yet."
Two massive dragon claws clamped down tightly on Arbok's upper and lower jaws. The terrifyingly familiar sensation made Arbok's eyes widen, his pupils trembling in pure disbelief.
This guy... wasn't he completely pinned down by the other Arbok?!
Shouldn't he already be heavily injured and on the verge of death?!
Boom——!
A column of water, compressed like an artillery shell (Hydro Pump), was forcefully pumped right down Arbok's throat. His eyes rolled up repeatedly as his brain dissolved into a completely blank slate.
There were far too many things he couldn't comprehend. For instance, why could this creature with a flaming tail spray water from his mouth?
Arbok no longer had the luxury or energy to ponder. The fighting intent completely drained from his eyes. He needed to run... or he would be killed... He was truly going to be slaughtered by this fire dragon!
Unable to think through the chaos, Arbok hurled the Charizard coiled in his tail away and thrashed backward in a panic, forcing the battered Kazuya back several steps. Immediately after, he dove straight beneath the poison pool, fleeing into the distance without ever looking back.
"Stop him! Don't worry about me over here!"
Kazuya's voice thundered from beneath the heap of snakes. He knew with absolute certainty that they could never let an insidious, cunning, and vengeful creature like this escape, or the Dragon Clan would never see peaceful days again.
"Roar!"
Charizard didn't waste a single word, beating his wings to intercept the escape path. Floette and the Goodra clan also moved in a coordinated ring, forming a living fortress wall to encircle the Overlord Arbok.
The Goodra clan had sacrificed their speed specifically in exchange for pure tankiness. Coupled with their [Steel] typing, it was physically impossible for Arbok to break through their defensive line to escape anytime soon.
On the other side...
"A pack of minor pests! Did you honestly think this would be enough to kill me? Wiping you all out... I alone am more than enough!"
A raging fire ignited across Kazuya's body. The intense flames seemed to possess a conscious will of their own, spontaneously shaping into a brilliant red cloak that billowed behind him.
Dozens of Arbok, like summer cicadas reaching the absolute end of their lifespans, plummeted from his body in plumes of thick black smoke, completely stripped of their life force.
Kazuya spread his wings, which boasted a massive wingspan of over ten meters, and spiraled in place. A vortex of fire like a localized tornado tore upward from beneath his feet (Fire Spin). The exaggerated cage of flames trapped him and dozens of remaining Arbok within, forming a death match arena Kazuya had personally laid down.
Before this pack of Arbok could kill him, they shouldn't even dream of leaving this place alive.
Brick Break.
Dragon Tail.
Rock Slide.
Bulldoze.
Crunch.
Move after move code-named destruction. Under every single strike, one or multiple Arbok turned into discarded souls.
When the fiery vortex finally dispersed, only a single giant dragon covered in puncture wounds and venom stood in the clearing, surrounded by a dense layer of snake corpses floating upon the poison pool.
Seeing this from afar, the pupils of countless hidden swamp Pokémon trembled violently. They never expected that a creature so staggeringly powerful existed—one that practically relied on his own individual might to annihilate the loathsome and formidable Arbok clan. Kazuya's silhouette was permanently seared into the eyes of these Pokémon at this very moment.
The surviving Arbok and Ekans who witnessed this scene were also utterly scared out of their wits. They scattered frantically in all directions, completely abandoning any care for their leader's survival.
Pokémon were simple creatures in this regard: they mirrored the exact attitude you showed them. The Overlord Arbok had never treated the lives of his underlings with respect; at the critical juncture, he couldn't blame his underlings for leaving him to rot.
In reality...
"Ar-bok!!"
The Overlord Arbok could no longer care about his fleeing subordinates. He noticed his body was continuously shrinking—the direct consequence of losing his Overlord status.
To begin with, Arbok maintained his rule purely through the massive backing of his clan. With the entire Arbok lineage shattered and routed, his authority as the King of the Swamp naturally dissolved by more than half.
Seeing Arbok's currently pathetic, half-dead state, the surrounding onlookers in the swamp completely lost their fear of him. They no longer recognized Arbok as the Overlord.
This swamp had returned once more to an era without a king.
"Meaa..."
Looking at Kazuya's horrific wounds, tears constantly spilled from Sliggoo's eyes. He wanted to become stronger. He wanted to become the power his Big Brother could rely on. Even if he was used purely as a tool, it didn't matter. Sliggoo just wanted to be of use to him.
"As a man, stop crying at the drop of a hat. I'm not dead yet."
Kazuya let out a heavy breath, a few stray sparks coughing out of his mouth. He glanced at Sliggoo, his face intentionally putting on an expression of mock distaste.
"Meaa!"
Sliggoo nodded heavily, forcefully blinking the tears back into his eyes.
"Flo-ette."
Floette flew over in a flash, putting her entire soul into using Wish to heal the catastrophic wounds on Kazuya's body. Her eyes were filled with immense heartache, her lips pursed tightly to stop herself from crying.
To Floette, Kazuya was also a little dragon she had taken care of since infancy. Even though he always insisted on calling himself the Big Brother, Floette had always looked after Kazuya as her younger brother.
"Finish that guy off."
Kazuya's gaze swept downward, his vision locking onto the fallen Arbok. At this moment, the Arbok was only a little over ten meters long, looking no different from a common Arbok. He looked as pitiful as a common earthworm.
"Goodra!" xN
The Goodras weren't about to pass up an opportunity to beat a down-and-out foe. Furthermore, unlike the Kommo-o lineage, their clan didn't possess a strict code of honor that demanded one-on-one duels. If a Kommo-o were to gang up on another Pokémon, they would feel a profound sense of guilt, perhaps even losing their appetite for several days. The Goodra clan suffered from no such psychological hang-ups; ganging up on their arch-nemesis Arbok brought them absolutely zero mental burdens.
"Rua!"
Kazuya found it unfulfilling just to watch, opening his mouth to chip in with a Flamethrower. However, him acting up like this made it impossible for Floette to properly administer her healing. Infuriated, she used the Eternal Flower in her hand to give Kazuya a firm therapeutic tap on his skull.
But Kazuya didn't care in the slightest. He had precisely timed his antics around his severe injuries, knowing Floette wouldn't actually hit him hard. Only by securing his personal participation percentage in the beatdown could he comfortably settle down and accept treatment quietly.
"I'm severely poisoned, I need Pecha berries or antidote herbs."
Sensing the status of his body, Kazuya turned his head to speak to Floette. That sensation felt as if what was currently flowing through his veins wasn't blood, but boiling water scalding his blood vessels at every passing second. If he didn't secure a cure fast, Kazuya feared his life would genuinely be cut short. In the face of this level of toxicity, even his gruesome external physical trauma seemed trivial.
Besides, he could always use his own Aura Power to mend the flesh.
"Pecha!"
Floette nodded, immediately flying out to search the surroundings for antidote herbs. Although she wasn't familiar with the swamp environment, fortunately, she knew exactly what antidote herbs looked like.
And in a swamp, antidote herbs were unexpectedly abundant. Considering Kazuya's massive physique and deep poisoning, Floette used her vine whips to gather at least four or five pounds of herbs before heading back.
In truth, it didn't take long at all—only about three minutes.
But during these brief three minutes, the one who collapsed wasn't just the Arbok, but Kazuya as well. It was just that the former was dead, while the latter was completely paralyzed and unable to move an inch.
Every species of Poison-type Pokémon possessed toxins with distinct biological effects. For instance, the Tentacruel line caused violent physical agony, the Seviper clan brought about neurological paralysis, and the Arbok line carried a powerful physical numbing effect.
"Flo-ette."
Upon flying back, Floette first stuffed two pounds of antidote herbs directly into Kazuya's mouth. Following that, she rapidly used her vines to mash the remaining herbs into a pulp, smearing the medicinal paste over the punctures on Kazuya's body.
"Roar."
Charizard walked over to Kazuya's side at this time. He sat down like a helpless puppy, looking completely at a loss as he stared down at Kazuya's state.
"I'm fine, I'll be able to move in a bit."
Kazuya comforted him, then turned his head to look at the approaching Sliggoo.
"Let me ask you a question. With me acting as your Big Brother... do I pass as qualified?"
Sliggoo began dropping little pearls of tears again. Choking on his sobs, he couldn't form words at all, only nodding his head continuously as his definitive answer.
Of course.
No matter how many times time is wound back, and no matter who stands before me...
I will always choose you to be my Big Brother.
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