Chapter 779: Natural Shelter
In this Hoenn region.
Aside from Ever Grande City.
Kazuya couldn't seem to think of anywhere else to go.
Originally, he had planned to just leave and head to other regions.
But after a brief discussion with his companions.
Everyone unanimously agreed in the end.
That they should stay.
Utilize the Hoenn region's unique terrain to roam around, settle down, and take this opportunity to improve their strength.
After they had traveled throughout the Hoenn region, they would then set off for the next region.
Thus.
Leaving Ever Grande City.
The six Pokémon decisively headed westward.
They had to cross a small stretch of ocean to reach the next island town.
This wasn't a problem.
The group simply took the yacht they arrived on.
It only took half a day to reach their destination.
The "Santorini" of the Pokémon world.
A city with little screen time in the anime, but a rather important city of water in the games—Sootopolis City!
A city Kazuya didn't particularly like.
"Lord Kazuya must be quite familiar with this city, right? After all, Senior Lorelei lived here later on."
Lucario, it could be said, brought up the very topic Kazuya wanted to avoid.
What he mentioned.
Was the exact reason Kazuya disliked this place.
That scumbag Wallace took away the "Little Cabbage" he had raised.
"Hmph, not familiar."
Kazuya snorted disdainfully.
"?"
Lucario tilted his head in confusion.
His two large ears flopped to the side along with the movement of his head.
"Meow!"
Skitty suddenly bit Kazuya hard.
She was super angry!
Upon learning that Kazuya had reincarnated as a Piplup but didn't come to find her, Skitty was furious enough to die!
Kazuya felt very helpless about this.
It wasn't that he hadn't been to Ever Grande City in his fourth life.
But by then, the Peace Daycare had completely changed. The new managers of the daycare were a young couple.
He didn't know if Skitty was still alive after over a hundred years, or where she went if she was, so he didn't look for her.
Who would have thought.
Skitty had actually stayed in the Ever Grande Forest the whole time.
And hadn't left that place for three hundred years until now.
"I won't do it again. Later, I'll introduce Lorelei to you."
Kazuya rubbed the little cat's head, coaxing her.
Honestly.
Living like this.
Made Kazuya feel as if he had returned to the days when Big Cat was still around.
That child was also quite prone to getting angry with him.
"Meow."
Skitty turned her head away, still angry.
"The structure of Sootopolis City is truly unique. You can't even walk in through normal roads."
Dragonite quickly interjected at this moment to change the subject.
"Ah, that's right. Sootopolis City is built inside the crater of a volcano. The entire city is surrounded by the volcano. To enter here, you can only take underground waterways or come from the sky."
Lucario seamlessly picked up the topic.
"I heard this place was formed by a meteor strike a thousand years ago."
"A miracle of nature."
"By the way, don't you guys think this place is a bit too perfectly suited to be a shelter?"
The group discussed while walking along the high mountain path.
They had climbed over the surrounding rock walls.
So they had to walk down the mountain path to enter the central area of Sootopolis City.
"This place is a massive natural shelter."
Mewtwo suddenly spoke up at this moment.
"Mm, it seems so. I sense quite a few Auras, right inside the mountain beneath our feet."
Lucario frowned, looking down, then turned to the Mewtwo beside him, "How did you know?"
Those Auras were quite far away.
Even he had only just sensed them.
At this distance, given the characteristics of psychic powers, He shouldn't be able to sense anything at all.
Which meant.
Mewtwo said that just now because He knew some other information.
"I heard Team Rocket talking about it before. They said when they came to the Hoenn region to meet with another organization, the location they chose was Sootopolis City. This place seems to be very important."
Mewtwo recalled some fragmented memories from the past.
At that time, He was still in the container, His consciousness wasn't very clear, so His memory of the contents he heard was incomplete.
"Oh~ It seems Sootopolis City holds a big secret."
Kazuya nodded thoughtfully.
Looking at the terrain of Sootopolis City.
This was indeed an excellent natural shelter.
Sootopolis City was located on an isolated island in the ocean, separated from the mainland.
This meant that there wouldn't be magical beasts constantly flying overhead.
The sky.
Held no threat.
And the essence of this isolated island was a volcano. The environmental temperature was consistently high year-round, and steep rock walls surrounded it in all directions.
This allowed Sootopolis City to not worry about magical beasts invading across the land surface, while also not fearing the severe cold.
The ground.
Held no threat.
The only source of threat.
Was the lake in the southern part of Sootopolis City that connected to the ocean.
But this was actually quite easy to solve.
They just needed to have Water-type Pokémon use massive boulders to block the underwater waterway.
With that, all external threats could be ignored.
As long as the magical beasts inside Sootopolis City were cleared out...
Then Sootopolis City would become a perfect shelter, a utopia of this era.
The Hoenn region would become the region with the highest number of survivors.
It presumably had everything to do with Sootopolis City.
The survivor population living on this island alone might rival the population of several shelters in other regions combined.
"Really, there are no magical beasts in sight in the city. But... there are no signs of humans either?"
Dragonite gazed down at Sootopolis City, feeling a bit strange.
"They're all hiding underground. It seems something happened?"
Lucario explained.
He felt the emotion of "panic" from those people's Auras.
It seemed a major event was currently unfolding in Sootopolis City.
A major event that could threaten the survival of the survivors.
Suddenly.
Rumble—!
The earth violently shook.
The intensity of the tremor startled Kazuya and his group.
"Meow!"
Skitty was so scared her fur stood on end, quickly pouncing into Kazuya's arms to hide.
She wasn't angry anymore.
She and Kazuya were the best of friends in the whole world!
"What's going on?"
Scizor frowned, scanning his surroundings, but couldn't detect the direction of the anomaly.
"It feels like powerful Pokémon are battling."
Dragonite reached out to steady herself against the wall beside her.
This kind of tremor was all too familiar to Champion-level Pokémon like them.
After all, only Champion-level battles could cause commotions of this magnitude.
"The epicenter seems to be coming from the center of the island. There's a giant tree there; it looks like a battle is taking place beneath it. Let's go see!"
Lucario stood at the edge of the mountain path, pointing towards the center of Sootopolis City's lake.
In the center of that lake.
There was a small island, and on the island stood a giant tree.
The scale of that tree was not small, its canopy incredibly dense, obscuring the situation on the entire island and preventing them from seeing what was happening there.
"What kind of tree is that? Why hasn't it withered?"
Mewtwo looked at the giant tree on the lake island with some surprise and doubt.
The Tree of Beginning hadn't withered.
Because the essence of the Tree of Beginning was a stone.
And stones don't need photosynthesis.
Whether this world had sunlight or not had no effect on the Tree of Beginning.
But on what basis did that tree survive?
"I don't know. Perhaps the survivors living in Sootopolis City know; we can just ask later."
Kazuya said casually.
The group said no more and hurried towards the battlefield at full speed.
They didn't sprint down the mountain path, but directly used their flying abilities.
Dragonite carried Scizor.
Mewtwo carried Lucario.
Kazuya held Skitty.
The six Pokémon leaped off the mountain path, gliding towards the lake island at maximum speed.
In just over ten seconds.
They leaped from the highest point, passed through the canopy of the giant tree, and landed simultaneously on the ground below.
Just as the six Pokémon landed.
They felt as if they were enveloped by the shadow of some massive object.
Looking up.
The eyes of all six Pokémon widened simultaneously.
Standing in front of them.
Were actually three Demon Gods radiating a sinister black aura!
"The three Regis?! Why are these three guys here?!"
The pupils of Lucario and Scizor shrank slightly.
Blocking their path.
Were exactly the corrupted three Regis. Three pillars standing over five meters tall; they weren't blind enough to mistake them.
Whether these three Regis were the ones that guarded the Tree of Beginning back then didn't matter.
What mattered was that these three Regis had clearly shifted their attention to them.
More accurately.
To Kazuya and Mewtwo.
"These three aren't the ones that guarded the Tree of Beginning back then. Let's take them out first."
Mewtwo said, immediately firing off a decisive Psychic attack.
Because He possessed a portion of Mew's memories, He could roughly determine the identities of these three pillars.
"Although these three aren't very strong, still don't be careless. Jump them."
Kazuya solemnly warned his companions.
These three Regis were at best at the low-tier Champion level.
For the six of them, they weren't particularly difficult enemies to deal with.
However, the three Regis had thick skin and tough flesh, making it easy for them to cause external injuries, which would lead to corruption by shadow energy—a considerable hassle.
Therefore, they couldn't be careless in battle.
They had to go all out, cooperate with each other, and resolve the enemies as perfectly and flawlessly as possible.
It was time to bring out the old tradition of jumping the enemy.
At the same time.
Kazuya quietly cast his gaze not far away.
Standing there were several humans and Pokémon.
The Pokémon had wounds emitting black gas, all wearing expressions of pain, seemingly having lost their combat capability.
Clearly, they were struggling to resist the corruption of shadow energy and couldn't fight in the short term.
One could only say.
Kazuya and the other five appeared at the perfect time.
Just in time to save this group of humans and Pokémon.
Of course.
They probably weren't just saving these people and Pokémon.
It should be said they saved the entire Sootopolis City shelter.
And what Kazuya cared about most was...
Those humans were protecting a middle-aged woman with red hair.
The woman's appearance shocked Kazuya, perhaps to the extent that he wouldn't be able to eat for a whole day.
Because.
She looked far too much like Lorelei!
She was practically the 32-year-old Lorelei!
However, there were still many differences in specific facial details, so Kazuya could be certain no "Lorelei Reincarnation" event had occurred; they were different people.
"A descendant of Lorelei and Wallace? Sootopolis City... That makes sense..."
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