While Professor Oak and the other research professors were all clicking into the video—
at the same time—
in the Pokémon world, in the region farthest from Kanto—
the Galar region.
Wyndon.
The headquarters of the Galar Pokémon League was located here. Towering into the sky, it overlooked the land below. It was the tallest building in Galar, and also Wyndon's landmark structure.
On the top floor was a vast open space. There were no walls around it at all—only enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, with nothing obstructing the view.
Standing by the window, one could overlook the entirety of Wyndon.
At this moment, a middle-aged man stood before the glass.
—Rose.
The Chairman of the Galar Pokémon League.
He was also the founder of Macro Cosmos, the largest corporate group in Galar—a true capital giant. From clothing, food, housing, and transportation to technology, nearly every aspect of life was monopolized by this group.
"Chairman, Professor Magnolia and the others have already begun researching that red energy," said an assistant in business attire as she walked in.
Rose nodded.
"Have they found anything yet? I believe that this red energy contains enormous power. If it can be controlled, it might even replace traditional energy sources."
As Macro Cosmos expanded and continued exploiting the resources of the entire Galar region, they had discovered something troubling—
Galar's mineral energy reserves were the lowest in the world.
Macro Cosmos was a heavy industry conglomerate, and its demand for energy was immense.
According to their calculations, if energy consumption continued at its current rate, then within less than a hundred years, all underground mineral energy in Galar would be exhausted.
That was something he absolutely did not want to see.
Once the energy was gone, Macro Cosmos would likely go bankrupt.
And the daily lives of the people of Galar would also suffer enormous problems.
Energy depletion had given him a constant headache. He had racked his brains, trying to find a solution.
And then—
this suddenly appearing red light had made his eyes light up.
According to the law of energy conservation, if it could cause a Pokémon's body to grow enormous in an instant, then it had to contain terrifying energy.
If they could uncover its secrets and make use of it—
then they would never have to fear energy depletion again.
Why was Galar's underground mineral reserve so small?
It was barely one-twentieth of other regions.
Macro Cosmos had developed for less than ten years.
And after only seven or eight years of energy extraction, they were already nearing the bottom.
"If only I could capture a Legendary Pokémon…"
Rose sighed inwardly.
The energy of Legendary Pokémon was endless. There would be no need to worry about energy at all.
"I just hope the research into this red light produces results soon."
Rose had not placed all his hopes on Professor Magnolia. Macro Cosmos was also secretly trying to decode the mystery of the red light.
"Hm? The video updated?"
Rose noticed the update.
[Ranking the Top Ten Strongest Divine Beasts — TOP 3: World-Destroying Red Light, Ultimate Power]
His pupils shrank.
Red light?
World-destroying?
His expression instantly turned grave.
Was it the same red light that had recently appeared?
Was something major going to happen in Galar in the future too?
He quickly clicked into the video.
Meanwhile—
across the countless anime dimensions, countless others also discovered that the video had updated.
[Ranking the Top Ten Strongest Divine Beasts — TOP 3: World-Destroying Red Light, Ultimate Power]
The ranking series had been updated.
The eyes of countless viewers lit up. Their mouths were still cursing that cliffhanger-loving damned author, swearing they would never watch again—
but their hands honestly clicked right in.
Not watch?
Come on, that was just talk.
There was no way they wouldn't watch!
If they went a day without watching Rin Aokawa's ranking videos, they felt uncomfortable all over. Not only could they witness shocking divine beast battles, they could also see what other worlds looked like—and even improve their own strength.
Good fortune like that couldn't be found even with a lantern.
They wished Rin Aokawa would release a hundred updates a day.
They were also incredibly curious which divine beast TOP 3 would feature—
to actually rank above Mewtwo and Mew.
To serve as an even greater finale than the Hoopa video in [Special Episode Part 2].
World-Destroying Red Light. Ultimate Power.
The title alone was explosive.
One after another, people from the countless dimensions clicked in.
The dimensional platform's videos once again brought them into that immersive state, turning them into ghost-like observers outside the scene.
[Ranking the Top Ten Strongest Divine Beasts — TOP 3: World-Destroying Red Light, Ultimate Power]
[Producer]
[——Rin Aokawa]
In the pitch-black world, the familiar opening title appeared as usual.
As the subtitles vanished—
the dark world slowly opened its curtain.
The show—
began.
The TOP 3 ranking officially started.
At the dawn of heaven and earth, Groudon and Kyogre created the land.
One divine beast after another appeared as well.
The world stabilized.
Mountains, rivers, lakes, the sun, moon, and stars all came into being.
Time leaped forward in units of tens of thousands of years.
Soon, the world nurtured life, and Pokémon appeared.
Then the scene shifted.
Boom boom boom boom—!
A deafening roar sounded from the video.
On the screen, the world was wailing. The land was full of scars. Forests collapsed, mountains split apart, and great rivers were severed.
Brilliant and dazzling energies streaked through the sky.
Radiant spheres of light exploded across the earth. Countless boulders were blasted into the air, scraping trenches into the ground like stray shells.
On the land, Pokémon were fighting one another.
Each of these Pokémon was unimaginably huge—
far larger than the mountains beside them.
These mountain-sized Pokémon were slaughtering one another.
No one knew why they were fighting.
No one even knew who their enemies truly were.
A Kadabra's opponent was clearly a Gengar, yet midway through the battle, that Gengar suddenly ran off to fight a Charizard instead.
The camera rose rapidly, sweeping across the entire world.
And it became clear—
everywhere in the world, battle was erupting.
Mountain-sized Pokémon fought across every land. Brilliant energy spheres and multicolored moves flew everywhere.
Mushroom clouds rose one after another, covering the world.
Everyone knew what era this was depicting.
This was the ancient era.
The era when Pokémon were all enormous beyond belief.
In certain archaeological studies, they had discovered some ancient Pokémon sealed away.
After those seals were undone, those ancient Pokémon had once again appeared before humanity.
Only then had they realized that in the ancient era, Pokémon had all been terrifyingly huge.
Even those outside the Pokémon world were not unfamiliar with the ancient age.
After all, previous ranking videos had already touched upon it.
But earlier videos had only shown it in passing, just a brief flash.
This time, it was far more direct.
Watching these ancient Pokémon on the screen, all Trainers wore grave expressions.
Even Champions were the same.
What level of existence were these ancient Pokémon?
Their terrifying destructive power made everyone's hearts tremble.
[When the world was first judged complete, the laws stabilized and all things flourished. Every Pokémon was born in its final form, with bodies as large as mountains. Upon reaching adulthood, they were at minimum Demigod-level existences.]
[Some especially powerful species even possessed combat power comparable to divine beasts—though they only matched them in strength, not in divine authority.]
Rin Aokawa's narration echoed through the world.
Hiss!
Everyone sucked in a sharp breath.
So upon reaching adulthood, they were already Demigod-level.
And some powerful species even possessed divine beast-level combat power.
Now they finally understood why the ancient Pokémon in the video gave them such an overwhelmingly dangerous feeling.
Good grief—
in the ancient era, wouldn't that mean divine beast-level power was everywhere, and Demigods were worth less than dogs?
Just imagining that scene made their scalps tingle.
Professor Oak watched as an enormous Snorlax used Body Slam, flattening an entire mountain into a pancake.
His brow twitched.
In the Galar region, red light had appeared, and Pokémon bathed in that red light would instantly grow enormous.
The form Snorlax took after being illuminated by that red light—
wasn't it exactly the same as this ancient Snorlax?
Only slightly smaller in size.
Could it be…
after being illuminated by that red light, Pokémon could temporarily return to their ancient forms?
[The Pokémon of this era also did not have the wide variety of moves seen today. Each type possessed its own exclusive attribute move.]
On the screen, an Electivire seventy to eighty meters tall radiated dazzling lightning. Nearly a hundred kilometers of land transformed into Electric Terrain, and then a pillar of lightning dozens of meters thick crashed down from the heavens onto a Steelix.
All the Pokémon research professors were immediately shaken.
That move—
wasn't it exactly the move used by the enlarged Electivire in the footage Professor Magnolia had shown them earlier?
If so—
then the red light really could cause Pokémon to return to their ancient forms.
The time limit—
five minutes.
But there was still one deep question in their hearts.
Why had ancient Pokémon lost their gigantic forms in the modern age?
Why were they no longer born in their final evolutions?
Regarding the ancient era—
whether in the ranking video for Groudon and Kyogre, or in Mew's appearance, there had been scenes from that age.
Those videos had also mentioned that the reason modern Pokémon had their current sizes and needed to evolve—
was due to a great change in heaven and earth back then.
What they were puzzled by was—
what kind of great change had it been?
They had a feeling that this mystery was about to be revealed.
The video continued.
[When the world was first born, it was filled with chaos and destruction. Although those violent forces gradually calmed as the laws were perfected and were absorbed by the Reverse World—]
[some of them were never fully absorbed, and instead drifted through heaven and earth.]
[Thus, all Pokémon born in that era were tainted by those forces at birth, causing their temperaments to become violent, bloodthirsty, and warlike.]
[No matter the species, they would fight as soon as they met.]
[Eventually, this developed into warfare between species.]
[Every day, different races waged war.]
[The fighting never ceased, the smoke of war never faded. The world was degenerating—regressing toward the time before laws had even been born.]
On the screen, the once lush and thriving forests had, after countless years of battle, been utterly destroyed, leaving only scorched black earth behind.
Mountains, rivers, and lakes dried up.
The land had suffered grave damage. Terrifying ravines scarred the earth, making for a shocking sight.
The world no longer looked as vibrant and green as it had at the beginning of the video.
Instead, it now gave off a sense of deathly stillness.
Because countless Pokémon had died in the great wars, the entire world was filled with death aura and resentment.
And everyone noticed—
battle was no longer limited to ordinary Pokémon.
They even saw first-tier divine beasts fighting.
The most eye-catching of them all were Kyogre and Groudon.
They had awakened from slumber—
and resumed their war.
This made the already overwhelmed world even worse.
[In order to prevent the world from returning to its primordial state, and so that life could continue to multiply—]
[the world began adjusting itself.]
[The rules of the world changed.]
[Heaven and earth underwent a great transformation.]
[All Pokémon lost their mountain-sized bodies, and regressed to their earliest forms, requiring them to evolve from the very beginning.]
The entire world lit up brilliantly as it underwent upheaval.
In view—
a Dragonite was fighting a Tyranitar.
But then both Pokémon suddenly shuddered—
and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Immediately afterward, it seemed as though something was extracted from their bodies by heaven and earth. A faint red gleam flashed past.
Their bodies deflated like balloons.
Their enormous forms vanished, shrinking down to the size of present-day Dragonite and Tyranitar.
And it wasn't over.
A white light appeared on their bodies.
—The light of evolution.
But here, it was not evolution.
It was the light of devolution.
The white light on Dragonite flashed once, and it turned into Dragonair.
Then Dragonair flashed again, becoming its earliest form—
Dratini.
On the other side, Tyranitar did the same, devolving all the way back into Larvitar.
In short—
all Pokémon throughout the entire world, at this moment, lost their gigantic bodies and all regressed into their earliest forms.
Everyone watched in shock.
So that was how it was.
So that was why Pokémon in the modern world had to begin from their earliest forms and evolve upward.
So that was why they no longer possessed the immense bodies of the ancient age.
Then an even more shocking scene appeared.
[The laws of heaven and earth are impartial. Anything that threatens the world will have its power weakened.]
In the video, the figures of Kyogre and Groudon appeared.
Their power was rapidly draining away.
It was being stripped from them by the laws of heaven and earth.
That stripped power condensed into two orbs.
One crimson red.
One deep blue.
The orbs shattered space and vanished, disappearing to who knew where.
After losing part of their power—
Groudon and Kyogre reverted from their Primal forms back to their normal states.
The viewers suddenly understood.
No wonder.
No wonder Groudon and Kyogre could transform forms—
their power had once been stripped away.
And in the earlier ranking videos, the reason they had been able to return to their primal states—
must have been because they had reclaimed the orbs that carried their power.
[After the great transformation of heaven and earth…]
[all Pokémon lost the strength and bodies they had once taken pride in.]
[Only a small number of Pokémon, for special reasons—such as being sealed away or captured within special items—were able to preserve their giant forms.]
[The world returned to peace and began to recover.]
[All things revived. From then on, all Pokémon no longer possessed exclusive attribute moves, gigantic bodies, or their original power. They had to begin from their earliest forms and improve step by step before evolving into their final forms.]
"The mysterious veil of the ancient era has finally been lifted," Professor Oak said with emotion.
So Pokémon actually had such a magnificent and turbulent evolutionary history.
So this—
was the origin of Pokémon evolution!
Then Professor Oak froze slightly.
No, wait.
Wasn't this supposed to be TOP 3?
Wasn't this supposed to be "World-Destroying Red Light, Ultimate Power"?
What did all this have to do with the ancient era?
Just as doubt rose in his heart—
the scene in the video abruptly changed.
Flowers bloomed in abundance, greenery stretched in every direction, and now and then airplanes flew across the sky.
They had arrived in a modern city.
The only question was whether this was the past—
or the future.
"This is… the Galar region???"
Then—
the camera moved above a massive city.
The city's architecture was filled with a cyberpunk-meets-steam-industrial style.
"Motostoke?"
Many Trainers recognized it at once.
This city was one of the major cities of Galar—Motostoke.
That unique blend of cyberpunk and steam was Motostoke's signature characteristic.
Looking down through the screen, they could see buildings that did not exist in the present.
So—
this had to be the future.
But why would the ranking video show a scene from Motostoke?
Just as many people were wondering—
a crimson pillar of light shot up from Motostoke, piercing straight into the heavens.
The moment they saw that red light, everyone's eyes sharpened.
They recalled the title of the ranking video—
World-Destroying Red Light. Ultimate Power!!
The divine beast ranked at TOP 3—
was about to appear!
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