Upon seeing the stone in Cain's hand, the man's eyes lit up.
It was something he had once possessed and then lost; for those twenty-five years it had ceaselessly lingered in his mind. The moment he saw it, he recognized it instantly: that was the spatial stone he had dreamed of day and night.
"Leave that stone here, leave your storage space as well, and I'll allow you to leave with your Pokémon. As long as you have sufficient strength, you'll be able to go and snatch another spatial stone; who knows, maybe then we can even return to the Pokémon world together."
"My name is Brad, I'm from the Unova region. If you manage to return alive to the Pokémon world, you can come look for me; I'll give you sufficient protection. Of course, all of that is on the condition that you hand over what I need."
Brad's face showed an expression of self-satisfaction.
As someone who had once been chosen by the Unova League to participate in the expedition to the Continent of Time and Space, although he failed to return successfully, in his own perception he had always been Unova's pride, the prodigy of his era, with incomparable potential.
And although Cain, who stood before him, had also managed to enter this place—proving his potential—Brad had lived more than twenty additional years. In that time, the growth he had obtained was not something an ordinary League member could imagine.
Added to the fact that he himself had been a League member, he knew well the shortcomings of League trainers when it came to survival and combat in wild environments.
What was regrettable was that he had run into Cain, someone who completely ignored his words.
"Heh, heh, heh... I used to wonder why the League didn't prepare more spatial stones to ensure that everyone who entered could return. Now I finally understand: entering this place itself is a sieve, a test to verify whether those who enter truly have the qualifications to become real administrators of the League."
"And people like you, who have been eliminated by the passage of time, are in fact not fit to return to the Pokémon world at all! Your existence only serves to warn those who enter later: they must not end up like you, failing and living here for twenty-five years, because once you fail for that long, you completely lose recognition of yourself."
Cain's words were filled with contempt.
"If you're a loser, then you should obediently accept your role as a loser and seek to survive as such, instead of adopting the pose of 'I've already been through this' and believing yourself superior just because you've lived a few more years. That blind ignorance is probably the true reason for your failure."
Upon hearing Cain's words, Brad's face changed instantly; his beard-covered face seemed to wrinkle entirely.
Cain did not know what Brad had lived through nor did he know the true secrets of this continent, but his words struck precisely at the most vulnerable and painful point in Brad's heart, the one he least wanted to expose to others.
"You asked for it!" Brad roared in a low voice, his gaze sharp, like a beast that has already locked onto its prey.
"Ferraalggrr!" Feraligatr roared, carelessly throwing aside the injured Pidgeotto it had been holding. It crouched low with all four limbs against the ground, kicking up large amounts of mud as it lunged toward Cain.
"Yadon!" Seeing Feraligatr's movement, Slowking's eyes filled with intense waves of psychic power. A massive amount of psychic energy burst forth from his body and spread in all directions.
Several spheres of Psychic-type energy instantly condensed and shot toward Feraligatr.
At his side, Drapion also surged forward, charging straight at Feraligatr. Although in terms of strength he was clearly inferior, when it came to fighting, even knowing he was weaker, Drapion would not feel the slightest fear.
Feraligatr opened its mouth wide and, upon seeing the black energy spheres controlled by Slowking, spat out three consecutive jets of water, precisely striking all the spheres, without halting the momentum of its arms and legs in the slightest.
Bang!
Drapion collided head-on with Feraligatr. After less than three seconds of struggle, Drapion was thrown aside.
Although Cain's Drapion was also a Pokémon specialized in the use of strength, the difference in level between it and Feraligatr was simply too great. The gap in raw power could not be made up for by innate talent alone. That it had managed to hold on for three seconds was already something surprising, both to Cain and to Brad.
That Feraligatr had knocked Drapion away was not something unacceptable to the latter. Before launching the attack, Cain had already warned it that the opponent was very strong, at least far stronger than both it and Slowking together, and that it had to be prepared to suffer at any moment.
However, during those three seconds of confrontation between Feraligatr and Drapion, Slowking had already prepared a rather special welcome gift for Feraligatr.
A sphere of energy condensed from Slowking's psychic power, compressed until it was barely the size of a palm, yet containing an enormous amount of psychic energy.
Feraligatr looked at the sphere that Slowking hurled at it, and a ferocious smile suddenly appeared on its face.
Bzz—
From high above the mountainous sky, a buzzing sound suddenly arose, like the sound of an insect beating its wings at great speed.
Looking up, one could see a Pokémon diving toward Cain at extremely high speed. Its red compound eyes sent chills down one's spine.
A Yanmega!
A smile also appeared on Brad's face, and his words carried a tone of mockery mixed with admiration: "I admit that your strength isn't weak; even among the group that entered together with us, you were someone outstanding. But unfortunately, no matter how much talent you have, in the end you can't compete with the difference brought by twenty-five years of time."
At the same time, Feraligatr's two claws rose from the ground, wrapped in dense Ghost-type energy that completely covered its hands, and it swung them toward Slowking's sphere of psychic energy.
Boom!!!
A massive explosion occurred. Feraligatr was pushed backward, but aside from having a bit more dust on it, it suffered no real damage. The Ghost-type energy of the move Shadow Claw successfully neutralized Slowking's psychic power.
Seeing that there were no longer any obstacles in front of Cain, Feraligatr advanced rapidly once more, while the Yanmega in the air drew ever closer, exuding an imposing presence.
Brad looked at Cain, who had not moved at all, and his beard tightened again as a cruel smile appeared on his face.
The people of the League have enormous shortcomings in real combat!
(End of chapter)