Zorua wasn’t the least bit afraid of Machop’s attack.
It fully intended to deliver the final killing blow to the teetering Banette first, before turning its full attention to brawl with Machop.
But at that exact moment, it suddenly received a telepathic command from Lorze.
With absolute trust in its master, it instantly switched its target to Machop, completely ignoring the “Will-O-Wisp” Banette had just condensed!
In the next split second, Zorua leaped from its spot, a spiraling vortex of silver wind erupting in front of it as it charged straight into Machop.
The latter had struck first, violently swinging down an arm fully charged with explosive energy.
But the punch hit absolutely nothing, causing Machop to stumble hard and nearly faceplant into the dirt.
By the time Machop barely managed to stabilize its footing, Zorua had already crashed into it with the violently spinning silver vortex, instantly blasting it into the air.
“What the fuck!
Why are Fighting-type moves completely immune too?!
Don’t tell me its typing is— Impossible!
How the hell could such a broken typing even exist?!”
An utterly unbelievable thought exploded in the man’s mind, but in the next moment, an even more shocking scene unfolded before his eyes.
The “Will-O-Wisp” that Banette had gathered vanished completely.
Furthermore, as if violently suppressed by some mysterious, terrifying energy, its entire body was frozen stiff in place, trembling uncontrollably.
The one who had reduced Banette to this pathetic state wasn’t another Pokémon using a move like “Disable.” It was a devastatingly handsome young man wearing an incredibly bright, sunny smile.
Right now, he was holding up a hand radiating a sinister, pitch-black death energy, telekinetically imprisoning Banette in mid-air.
“H-How is this possible?!
An E-Esper?!
No!
That’s not psychic power!
What the hell are you?!
A man or a ghost?!”
“Hehehe~ Whether I’m a man or a ghost purely depends on how you define it!”
What Lorze was using was the Soul Bind spell, a fundamental necromancy technique!
It was a crowd-control spell specifically designed to interfere with and paralyze the movements of undead creatures!
This magic was completely useless against humans and had zero effect on other types of Pokémon.
It only worked on Ghost-type Pokémon, and the effects were phenomenally potent.
It was likely due to the natural logic of ghosts countering ghosts.
Taking advantage of Banette being locked down, Zorua delivered the final killing blow.
Immediately after, it effortlessly dispatched the Machop, which lacked any effective moves to even scratch it.
At this point, the man across the field had legs trembling like jelly as he desperately begged for mercy:
“M-Master!
S-Sir!
I have no grudge against you!
If you just let me go, I’ll give up all this loot!
I’ll even give you everything I brought with me!”
“True, there’s no bad blood between us.
But you’ve seen my secrets, and that makes things a bit fucking complicated.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“M-Master!
I know a massive secret about Mt.
Pyre!
There’s a heaven-defying fortune hidden here.
It’s just that my strength is too trash to dare claim it.
But Master, you can effortlessly subjugate ghosts, so you definitely won’t have a problem!
I’ll tell you absolutely everything.
Will you spare my life?”
“Let’s hear it~”
“Right in that direction, about two kilometers away in the middle of a valley, there’s an ancient altar.
I only managed to explore that area because I’ve been camping on Mt.
Pyre this whole time, plotting to steal the ‘Miracle Seed.’
Banette and I saw from a distance that some supreme treasure seemed to be gestating on that ancient altar.
There is a massive probability that it’s a ‘Spell Tag’.”
“A ‘Spell Tag’?!
If there’s such a god-tier item lying around, why the hell didn’t you snatch it immediately?!”
“I wanted to so badly I saw it in my dreams!
But the perimeter of the altar is already completely surrounded by terrifyingly strong Pokémon glaring at each other.
It looks like they all gathered specifically for the soon-to-be-born ‘Spell Tag.’
If they hadn’t been so hyper-focused on guarding against each other and unwilling to break their standoff, there’s no fucking way I would have made it out alive.
Master, I’ve told you every single thing I know.
You can let me go now, right?”
“You spin a pretty damn good story, but why the fuck should I trust you?!”
“Master, I can personally lead you there!
If you find out I’m lying, you can execute me on the spot!
Oh, right!
When I was escaping that area, I also managed to swipe another priceless treasure.
You’ll understand the moment you see it.”
As he spoke, the man shoved his hand into his backpack and shockingly yanked out a high-tech compound crossbow.
He raised it and prepared to fire!
But in the very next microsecond, a dark shadow that had stealthily slithered to his feet violently erupted.
It lunged up, completely ensnaring him and swallowing him whole in the blink of an eye.
When the shadow spat him back out, he collapsed onto the ground, absolutely devoid of all signs of life!
Lorze casually walked over, stripped the spatial backpack off his corpse, and dumped all its contents out with a loud clatter!
The first thing to catch his eye was that very ‘Miracle Seed,’ radiating a gentle, emerald-green glow.
Even though it was merely a Beginner-tier Held Item, it was still a treasure worth over a million. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Lorze carefully pocketed it, intending to head back to Lilycove City later and swap it for a Ghost-type item of the exact same tier.
However, the rest of the loot was severely lacking.
The guy was just a broke “Elite-tier” Trainer who had to feed two Pokémon on the regular; he clearly wasn’t swimming in cash.
The miscellaneous junk and loose cash on his corpse added up to barely twenty grand.
Shaking his head in absolute disgust, Lorze pocketed it anyway.
After that, he didn’t bother draining the surrounding Ghost-type Pokémon dry.
He spared the floor full of weak Pumpkaboo and Phantump, making a beeline straight for Banette and Trevenant.
After all, squeezing those pathetic weaklings wouldn’t yield much ghost energy.
It would only waste his own stamina and magic power.
There was no point in driving them to extinction.
Shortly after, he used the Soul Extraction Art to drain the ghost energy directly from Trevenant and Banette.
He condensed them into two spheres of pitch-black energy that were several sizes larger than the one he pulled from the Pumpkaboo earlier.
Since the Trevenant had no grudge against him, he showed some mercy and left a sliver of its foundation intact.
Still, it would take absolutely no less than one or two years of complete dormant recovery for it to bounce back.
But the Banette, who actively aided that scumbag, was drained so viciously that its very soul became unstable.
If it wanted to recover its previous strength, it would have to cultivate from scratch on Mt.
Pyre for at least a fucking decade.
Conscious of Zorua’s current low level, Lorze didn’t feed it both at once.
Instead, he channeled just one of the energy spheres into its body first.
As expected, the little fox didn’t absorb it as effortlessly as the Pumpkaboo’s energy earlier.
It bared its fangs and grimaced, clearly straining with all its might to digest this massive influx of ghost energy.
It took roughly two agonizing minutes before Zorua gradually relaxed, its physical energy fluctuations spiking noticeably to the naked eye.
Lorze let it catch its breath for a moment before shoving the second pitch-black energy sphere into its body.
But perhaps because it now had the experience, or because its foundation had already grown significantly denser, it took barely over a minute to fully digest the second surge of energy.
Although the process wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, it didn’t look overly strained during the entire ordeal.
Having absorbed these two massive doses of pure ghost essence, Zorua’s aura naturally skyrocketed.
Under Lorze’s spiritual observation, the necromantic energy it radiated was infinitely more solid and profound than when they first arrived.
If it had to cultivate on its own, this single upgrade would easily equal several agonizing months of grueling grinding.
Afterward, Lorze gathered the Poké Balls he looted off the dead man.
Sweeping his gaze across the area, he ultimately only bothered to capture the unconscious Giant Pumpkaboo.
The sheer colossal size of this bastard was incredibly rare.
Even if he ultimately chose not to tame it himself, bumping into an obsessed collector of rare Pokémon could easily fetch him a highly lucrative pile of resources.
With the cleanup finished, Lorze signaled Zorua to follow him as he headed in the exact direction the dead man had pointed out.
Even though he didn’t fully trust the dead man’s words, he was planning to stick around this area for a while anyway, so making a quick trip wouldn’t hurt.
But as he traversed the ghost fog, he noticed that the local Ghost-type Pokémon were practically extinct here.
And the closer he got to the designated coordinates, the more the necromantic magic coursing through his veins throbbed, heavily implying that there really was some god-tier loot drawing him in.