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A deafening roar, like the roar of an ancient beast, sent a violent sound wave sweeping across the entire arena, causing ripples in the protective barrier.
A massive, ferocious figure landed with a thud.
It was much taller than an ordinary Simisear, covered in thick, dark red fur like charcoal, with arms as thick and gnarled as ancient tree branches, reaching its knees, its knuckles massive, wreathed in wisps of never-extinguishing crimson flames.
Its eyes burned with a molten, golden-red glow.
Just its standing posture exuded a heavy pressure.
The hard battle tiles beneath its feet visibly softened and turned red, emitting a sizzling sound.
"Roar."
The Simisear slammed its fists against its muscular chest, producing a drumming thud, its challenging gaze like a tangible spear of flame, piercing directly at Ash.
Burt's face had already turned pale, sweat beading on his forehead, and he almost stumbled as he retreated to the safe zone at the edge of the protective barrier.
To control it? That was simply a pipe dream.
This giant ape was currently roaring only for its battle instincts and the will left behind by the previous Gym Leader.
"Charizard!"
Ash's voice showed no signs of backing down; instead, his opponent's ferocity ignited an even fiercer fighting spirit in him.
"Engage, Air Slash."
The light of the Poké Ball burst in Ash's hand, and a clear, powerful Dragon roar instantly overpowered the Simisear's roar.
A colossal orange figure soared into the air, its broad wings suddenly unfurling, blotting out the sky.
Charizard's sharp pupils instantly locked onto the powerful enemy on the ground, and without hesitation, its wings flapped at high frequency.
A piercing sonic boom ripped through the air.
Several giant, crescent-shaped wind blades, solid as reality, materialized out of thin air, carrying a shriek that seemed to cut through everything, like the scythe of the Grim Reaper, hurtling from different angles towards Simisear's head, chest, and vital points on its abdomen.
Where the wind blades passed, the air was forcibly pushed aside.
Simisear's molten giant eyes erupted with fierce light.
Facing the wind blade storm, it neither dodged nor retreated.
The muscles of its thick right arm bulged like mountain rocks, and the flames coiling around it suddenly surged and compressed, instantly transforming into a gigantic Fire Punch, almost solid, like a red-hot branding iron.
Simisear roared, and its massive, unembellished Fire Punch slammed head-on into the first few Air Slashes.
Boom!
The wind blades and the giant Fire Punch collided violently; there was no stalemate, only a crushing disintegration.
The Air Slashes shattered into pieces like fragile glass, exploding into a shower of pale light specks, instantly ignited by the high temperature, like a brief rain of sparks.
Simisear's massive body merely swayed slightly; the enormous recoil not only failed to push it back but was instead converted into a furious forward momentum.
Its thick, pillar-like hind legs stomped hard on the ground, and its massive body transformed into a scorching red afterimage, carrying a hot wind, and fiercely pounced towards the Charizard in mid-air.
Each step left a deeply molten, scorched footprint on the ground.
"So fast, such strong autonomous battle consciousness!"
Ash's pupils suddenly contracted to pinpricks; the opponent's instantaneous burst of speed far exceeded his estimation, "Charizard, ascend rapidly!"
Charizard's reaction was lightning-fast; its wings suddenly unleashed maximum thrust downwards.
Its massive body was yanked upwards by an invisible giant hand, instantly ascending over ten meters, barely dodging the giant fiery claw's grapple.
Simisear's offensive was like a volcanic eruption, continuous and relentless.
Missing its attack, its massive head suddenly reared back, its fanged maw opening to an exaggerated angle, and deep within its throat, a crimson-gold light furiously condensed.
A terrifying pillar of fire, like a torrent of crimson magma, spewed from Simisear's mouth.
This was no longer a Flamethrower, but a crimson giant python, twisting and roaring, relentlessly pursuing Charizard along its rapid ascent trajectory with an undying ferocity.
This Simisear has probably been immersed in Elite high-tier for many years.
Professor Oak judged the opponent's strength.
"Intercept with Flamethrower, suppress it head-on."
Ash's roar exploded, without the slightest hesitation.
If there's no escape, then fight fire with fire!
In mid-air, Charizard felt the terrifying high temperature behind it, capable of vaporizing it.
Charizard's vertical pupils burned with equally unyielding flames.
Its wings instantly folded tightly against its body, and its massive frame forcibly twisted into a dive posture during its high-speed climb.
Its abdomen, like a volcanic furnace about to erupt, instantly glowed to its brightest.
The next moment, a torrent of flames, containing all of Charizard's fury, spewed from its mouth like a spear of judgment.
It slammed fiercely into the crimson fire python chasing from below.
Two torrents of flames, from different Pokémon yet both containing destructive energy, collided in mid-air like two burning meteors.
A terrifying explosion beyond words.
Light furiously tangled, ripped, and devoured.
A giant fireball suddenly expanded in mid-air.
The blinding glare instantly swallowed everyone's vision.
The shockwave generated by the explosion, like a tangible tsunami, mixed with high-temperature heat waves, violently burst outwards in all directions.
Bang bang bang bang!
The front protective barrier groaned violently, intricate energy patterns flashed wildly, instantly covered in dense, spiderweb-like scorched marks.
The air was filled with a pungent smell.
"Is…is this really a Gym Battle?"
Iris's voice trembled without her even realizing it, as she clutched the railing tightly.
Amateurs see the destructive light and shadow effects, while experts can glimpse the terrifying chasm in energy levels.
In her perception, Charizard's seemingly suppressed incandescent flames, at their core, had a temperature and condensation level that subtly surpassed Simisear's awe-inspiring crimson-gold torrent.
This Charizard… its level couldn't be!
The Simisear on the ground moved.
It keenly captured Charizard's momentary relative stagnation when it was fully spewing flames.
Its massive body suddenly crouched down to gather strength, its leg muscles instantly swelling to their limit, its tough tendons taut as rock.
The molten tiles beneath its feet collapsed with a roar under its terrifying power.
Boom!
Using the immense recoil force from stomping its feet, Simisear's massive body, like a cannonball, tore through the still-lingering fiery aftermath and shot skyward with a terrifying speed completely disproportionate to its size.
Its giant right fist, carrying the momentum to incinerate all things, ripped through the scorching air, aiming directly for Charizard's relatively vulnerable chest and abdomen.
This punch concentrated all the ferocity of its battle instincts.
"It's Fire Punch! Block it with your wings!"
Ash's roar sounded almost simultaneously with the deadly punch's wind.
Dodging was no longer possible.
In the nick of time, Charizard's massive left wing suddenly folded inwards, instantly tensing to its limit.
A layer of energy glow rapidly circulated and condensed on the surface of its left wing.
With a dull, heart-stopping thud, Charizard's massive body was sent flying sideways, tumbling uncontrollably, as if struck head-on by a high-speed train.
The immense impact instantly sent it hurtling away!
On its left wing, a large area of scorched black, with specks of sparks, fluttered down, and at the edges, even molten traces could be seen; the air was filled with a burnt smell.
However, in this instant of unbalanced retreat, Charizard displayed its well-honed battle instincts.
It endured the intense pain and scorching heat from its wing, and its massive body suddenly spun in mid-air at an incredibly agile angle.
Its thick Dragon Tail whipped fiercely through the air like a giant whip, producing a Explosion, forcefully halting its tumbling momentum, and stabilizing its posture once more.
Charizard burned with even fiercer, more unyielding flames.
"Air Slash, cut off all its escape routes!"
Ash's voice was filled with extreme excitement at seizing the opportunity.
Charizard's pain was his pain, but this pain instantly transformed into a trumpet call for a counterattack.
Charizard endured the intense pain, flapping wildly at speeds beyond its limit.
Not one, but dozens!
Countless condensed, crescent-shaped wind blades, their edges glinting with deadly cold light, instantly formed like an enraged swarm of bees, carrying a shriek that tore through everything.
They were not chaotic, but precisely covered all possible landing spots for Simisear, where its old strength was spent, new strength hadn't yet risen, and its body began to descend!
A net of death, composed of pure wind blades, descended upon Simisear!
Simisear let out a roar mixed with pain and fury.
After continuously unleashing powerful moves and enduring Charizard's Flamethrower, its breathing was noticeably heavy and erratic, and the height of the flames swirling around its body had also significantly decreased.
Facing this inescapable blade net, the fierce light in its eyes intensified.
The fierce flames around its body surged violently, disregarding consumption, forcibly forming a layer of flowing flame armor on its surface.
Bang bang bang bang!
Impact sounds as dense as rain exploded!
Most of the wind blades were shattered and incinerated by the violent flame armor, but several cunning wind blades still broke through the defense, fiercely striking Simisear's relatively vulnerable shoulder, back, and outer arms!
Simisear's massive body crashed heavily to the ground, emitting a dull thud.
Kneeling on one knee, its wounded right fist trembled uncontrollably from the intense pain and the previous violent collision.
It shook its numb fist, raised its head, and looked at the orange figure still stubbornly circling in the air, its eyes, for the first time, showed not only ferocity but also solemnity and respect.
However, the solemnity lasted only an instant. The ferocity, thoroughly enraged by the pain and the opponent's tenacity, instantly overwhelmed everything.
Simisear suddenly stood upright, its eyes completely transforming into two boiling blood pools, filled with a desire for destruction.
Its giant mouth opened and closed, and compressed fireballs, like a swarm of ignited meteors, furiously and erratically rained down on the Charizard in mid-air.
A dense rain of fireballs instantly covered half the sky, blocking almost all avenues of evasion.
The entire arena was like a target of countless meteors, with explosions echoing one after another and scorching heatwaves endlessly rolling.
Charizard's massive body instantly transformed into an orange lightning bolt, frantically weaving through the meteor shower.
It no longer sought height but instead performed extreme evasions at low altitudes with dazzling trajectories.
At times, it made sharp turns at almost right angles, fireballs whistling past its tail tip and exploding into brilliant sparks on the protective shield; at other times, it swooped close to the scorching ground, the violent airflow from its wingtips even forcing several incoming fireballs to veer off course, crashing into the edge of the arena and creating larger molten craters.
The cheers from the stands rose in successive waves.
Everyone was stunned by the terrifying agility Charizard displayed, which was completely out of proportion to its massive body.
Each perilous near-miss drew a collective gasp.
The high-intensity continuous burst attack was like the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Simisear's wild barrage of fireballs only lasted less than twenty seconds before clearly showing signs of exhaustion.
The fireballs shrank in size, their color reverting from blinding incandescence to crimson, and the frequency of their projection also significantly decreased.
Its huge chest heaved violently, each breath expelling scorching white steam, and the height of the raging flames around its body plummeted, even becoming flickering and unstable, like a candle in the wind.
"Its energy is almost depleted, Charizard!"
Ash's perception was extremely keen, instantly catching this fatal weakening period of his opponent.
His eyes gleamed, his voice slightly hoarse from extreme excitement and fighting spirit, "End it with our flames, Flare Blitz!"
"Roar!"
Charizard let out an earth-shattering roar.
It was the ecstasy of long-accumulated power finally finding an outlet.
The originally orange-red flames around its body instantly became incredibly intense; the next moment, like an intercontinental missile with its fuse lit, it plunged with an unyielding determination towards Simisear, who was kneeling on one knee on the ground, panting incessantly.
Dive! Accelerate! Accelerate again!
The air was instantly ignited and torn apart.
Behind Charizard's diving trajectory, a burning trail of destruction, dozens of meters long, stretched out.
The temperature of the entire arena suddenly soared to its limit, the protective shield emitting an unbearable wail, its light flickering wildly.
Simisear felt a fatal threat; fierce light flashed in its blood-red eyes, and its last reserves of strength were completely squeezed out.
It abandoned all defensive stances, raising its huge right fist again!
This time, there were no flames entwining it; all its power was poured into this one punch without reservation!
Its entire right arm's muscles swelled to their limit, the blood vessels under its skin bulged like coiling dragons, appearing a dark purple on the verge of collapse.
The air in front of its fist twisted violently and emitted a piercing shriek due to the compression of pure power.
This was its all-or-nothing, most primal, most savage burst of power.
"That's it!"
Ash's pupils reflected the impending collision, his voice extremely calm, yet burning with wild flames, "Extreme left turn before contact!"
The command and Charizard's actions were perfectly synchronized!
The diving Charizard's wings suddenly unleashed maximum thrust downwards and to the left.
Its massive body made a sharp turn at high speed.
In that fleeting moment of passing by, Charizard's thick Dragon Tail, like a long-planned steel whip, utilizing the centrifugal force of its body's rotation, struck Simisear's undefended right flank with terrifying speed and power.
A dull, heart-stopping thud of flesh colliding.
Simisear's massive body was sent staggering sideways to the left, as if struck by a battering ram, completely out of control!
The sturdy bones in its flank emitted a grating, shattering sound.
The flames around its body instantly dimmed, almost extinguishing, as if doused with a bucket of ice water.
The intense pain made it let out an earth-shattering wail.
"Opportunity!" Ash's roar carried the fervor of a do-or-die situation.
Charizard's wings suddenly crossed and folded against its chest, as if cradling a nascent sun.
All its power was relentlessly compressed and concentrated towards its chest.
A pure fireball, only the size of a basketball but radiating an energy that distorted space and made the protective shield fluctuate violently, instantly formed in front of Charizard's chest!
The fireball's light was contained, yet it held destructive energy that made the souls of all spectators tremble.
Simisear endured the crushing pain in its flank, struggling to lift its head, its blood-red eyes reflecting that fatal golden miniature sun.
Its survival instinct made it open its huge mouth, spewing out one last crimson flame. However, this flame was dim and flickering, like a candle in the wind, pitifully weak compared to its peak condition.
The golden fireball, like the eye of divine punishment, detached from Charizard's embrace, falling towards Simisear with a slow yet unstoppable trajectory.
Time, at this moment, stretched infinitely.
Silence.
When that golden fireball, containing destructive power, touched Simisear's desperate, dim, and flickering crimson flame, the entire world seemed to be muted.
All the commotion, gasps, and echoes of explosions were instantly erased by an invisible hand.
Immediately following was all-consuming light.
A pure light, indescribable in its color and intensity, suddenly erupted from the point of impact.
It instantly swallowed the entire arena, swallowed the protective shield, and swallowed everyone's vision.
The strong light pierced through the swirling dust, projecting every terrified face and every figure twisted by fear in the audience into huge, distorted, elongated shadows.
Following the light, came the sound!
The earth-shaking, terrifying explosion arrived belatedly! The sturdy alloy ground cracked, buckled, and peeled back like fragile biscuits.
The entire Gym building groaned under the aftershock of this blow, dust falling continuously.
When the strong light finally began to recede, when the loud noise gradually gave way to ringing ears, when the swirling, acrid-smelling smoke was laboriously drawn away by the arena's automatic ventilation system... the scene in the center of the arena slowly revealed itself.
At the edge of the deep crater, Simisear's massive body knelt in the ruins, like an ancient totem scorched by fire.
Its dense mane, once bristling like thorns around its neck, was now completely extinguished, drooping limply, charred and curled.
Its dark red fur had lost all luster, ashen like embers, with large sections carbonized and peeling off, revealing equally charred skin beneath.
It hung its head low, its eyes only showing dead grayness, only its chest still rising and falling very faintly, each breath expelling scorching black smoke.
Above the deep crater, Charizard's huge body hovered steadily in mid-air.
Its posture was no longer as flawless as when it attacked, showing fatigue, each flap of its wings no longer appearing light.
However, the light deep within its pupils was brighter than ever.
It was the pride and indomitable spirit of a warrior who had fought fiercely and defeated a formidable foe.
Simisear's huge body swayed violently; it seemed to want to prop itself up with its last willpower.
But its utterly depleted strength made it impossible.
The last flicker of light in its eyes completely extinguished, and its massive body, like a toppled mountain, crashed down with a heavy thud, falling into the scorching ruins and kicking up a cloud of hot dust.
Dead silence.
The referee's signal flag, with a slight tremble, finally swung down forcefully:
"Simisear is unable to battle! Charizard wins!"
Charizard, hovering in mid-air, slowly turned its head, looking past the lingering smoke and the heat of the lava, precisely Lock-On the trainer standing rigidly at the side of the arena.
It did not roar, nor did it breathe Flamethrower.
It simply slowly, and very humanly, raised its relatively intact right foreclaw, and towards Ash, forcefully and slowly waved its fist.
In that movement, there was an arrogance belonging to a strong one.
Then, it exhaled two streams of white steam with sparks and thick smoke from its nostrils, letting out a low, short grunt.
Hmph, that's all!
The huge orange-red body transformed into a streak of light, actively returning to the open Poké Ball in Ash's hand.
Ash tightly gripped the Poké Ball in his hand, which still held Charizard's residual warmth.
He slowly raised his head, looking past the huge molten crater in the center of the arena, still steaming with heat and a pungent burnt smell, and precisely pierced the other two Gym Leaders at the side of the arena with his gaze.
Cress's face appeared somewhat pale in the light; he subconsciously adjusted his non-existent glasses on his nose bridge, the depths of his ice-blue pupils still holding the shock that had not completely dissipated, and a hint of instinctive chill that arose when he was Lock-On by that gaze.
Cilan stood as straight as a javelin, his emerald green short hair seeming to have lost some of its luster; his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and the face that always carried a steady smile now only held a solemnity as firm as iron.
So strong! Even Simisear couldn't defeat it!
Ash's voice was not loud, even a bit hoarse from his previous shouts, yet it clearly pierced through the lingering hum in the arena and the suppressed gasps from the audience:
"Next."