Within a few breaths, the enemy forces had vanished completely. Judging by their tactics, this didn't seem like a genuine siege, but more like a harassment raid.
Mewtwo hovered midair, intending to dig deep into the ground to drag those despicable creatures out. But when his psychic powers penetrated the earth, he couldn't sense any trace of the Pokémon.
Mewtwo frowned, descended in front of Caleb, and said gravely: >..I can't track them. It's as if they vanished into thin air..<
"Don't worry. I'll handle it," Caleb said softly.
He opened his panel and sifted through a flood of notifications about destroyed buildings until he found one that read:
[Your territory is under attack by player 'Ye Tong'.]
His eyes locked onto the name Ye Tong... Vowing revenge, he pulled up the map and quickly searched for this player's territory.
What he found surprised him. Ye Tong's territory was more than eighty regions away from the Glazed Volcano region!
The public reveal of player territory coordinates had only just happened moments ago. Covering that distance in such a short time was practically impossible under normal circumstances.
Caleb thought for a moment. He didn't recall encountering any player named Ye Tong in previous Instances...
"Could this Ye Tong be connected to Ye Fan?" Caleb felt it was highly likely.
With that in mind, he opened his friends list and messaged Hatsumi to ask about Ye Tong.
Hatsumi had been in Infinite World for a long time and had built her own intelligence network. So as soon as she saw the question, she immediately understood what was going on.
{Hatsumi: You don't know who Ye Tong is?}
{Caleb: Should I know him?}
Hatsumi responded with a string of ellipses, expressing exasperation, before giving a proper explanation:
{Hatsumi: Ye Tong is supposedly Ye Fan's cousin. He used to rank 10th on the player leaderboard, but ever since you shot up, he dropped to 11th.}
At this, Hatsumi couldn't help but feel a little speechless. Normally, once players made it onto the leaderboard, they'd naturally look up info on the top-ranked players out of curiosity or strategy.
But not Caleb. It seemed that aside from those he'd interacted with directly, he knew nothing about the rest.
If Ye Tong ever found out, he'd probably explode on the spot...
Caleb: "…"
He was a bit speechless.
{Caleb: Why do these people act like villains from web novels? Can't we all just play our own games and coexist peacefully?}
{Hatsumi: Haha, you might not realize how big the gap is between rank 10 and 11. The 10th-ranked player gets 1000 points as a quarterly reward. The 11th place only gets 500 per month.}
{Caleb: That's 1000 per month, 10 000 in ten months, 90 000 in ninety months, 900 000 in nine hundred months! That's enough for a residence ticket!}
Caleb finally got it. Now he could see why the guy would hate him so much.
{Hatsumi: I have a friend who got some intel from Ye Fan's side.}
She sent over a skill entry:
[Shadow of the Earth: City Lord Skill. Grants access to special soldiers in the barracks. Ground-type Pokémon in these units automatically enter stealth mode after burrowing underground, becoming undetectable by scouting abilities.]
"Nii-san?" Lily's voice came from beside him.
"It's nothing," Caleb said, pulling himself out of his thoughts.
He pulled up his panel, spent some resource points to calm the panicked NPC residents, and began repairing the damaged buildings.
He couldn't go after Ye Tong right now since the Glazed Volcano zone still had enemy scouts lurking around that needed dealing with. But that didn't mean Caleb would let him off the hook.
Things were starting to get interesting. The war about to unfold might very well become the turning point of this Instance.
After a moment's thought, Caleb activated Rewind and saved a checkpoint just in case something unexpected happened next.
Once that was done, he turned his attention to Giratina and Arceus. Aside from Mewtwo, these two would be his ultimate trump cards for what was coming.
But it wasn't time to deploy them yet.
He assigned Dragonite and Mimikyu to lead troops from the barracks to eliminate the remaining scouts. Only after they'd left did he turn to Lily.
Remembering it wasn't even 7 a.m. yet, he asked, "Have you had breakfast?"
Lily looked at the ruins before her. She'd lost her appetite. She glanced at Caleb with concern, her eyes seeming to ask if he was sure he didn't need any help...
Caleb understood her look. He pulled a small folding stool and a sandwich prepared by Gardevoir from his backpack and smiled, "Then help me finish this."
Lily let out a soft laugh. Without another word, she took the sandwich and took a bite. Watching Caleb pull out a chair and sit down beside her, she asked, "When will you go back to that world? Everyone misses you."
Caleb wasn't entirely sure himself. Time flow between Instances wasn't in sync, meaning he could end up in the past or the future. But after so many runs, he'd eventually hit the right timeline... Time was relative. So what felt like a long gap to him might only be a day or two for Lily back home.
He hummed, saying, "It should be soon. How's life over there? Are you settling in okay?"
"It's pretty good. Much better than before," Lily replied.
Before she managed to jump through time with Celebi's help, she had spent every day constantly striving to grow stronger and uncover the truth. Life had been hectic. Now, she finally had time to slow down and rest.
Speaking of the past, Caleb glanced at Lily and hesitated before asking, "Have you… gone to see your younger counterpart from this timeline?"
Lily silently shook her head. Just as Caleb was about to say something else, he saw her looking at him with a pleading expression.
"Nii-san…" she muttered softly, "Can you please not go looking for this timeline's version of me…"
"Why not?" Caleb asked, a little stunned.
She explained, "Because… you never came to find me during this time. If she found out you're still alive in this world… I'm afraid everything I've experienced might disappear."
Changing the past would alter the future. And that might mean even the current version of her would vanish.
Caleb quickly understood. It reminded him of a movie he'd once seen; The Butterfly Effect.
"I understand. I won't go," Caleb said, taking a deep breath and making a promise...