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Even though Blue Crystal Marine Park was filled with obvious traces of human design, for the Pokémon living there, it was not all that different from the wild.
So in a certain sense, the park's ecosystem was still natural and fiercely untamed.
Because of their instincts, powerful Pokémon across their vast territory claimed and defended their own domains.
Under the park's management, and to reduce the risk they posed to visitors, these resident rulers were much weaker than the true territorial bosses found in the wild.
Naturally, the enormous lake where Kael now found himself had an owner as well.
This was where his lack of experience as a wild Pokémon showed.
He had no idea that a powerful outsider like himself drifting into another Pokémon's territory was an extremely direct and provocative act.
A brutal fight was unavoidable.
Though to be honest, even if Kael had known, he probably would not have cared much.
From everything he had observed over the last few days, the Pokémon in the marine park were generally not that strong.
With his own abnormal level of combat power, he had assumed he would have no real equal here.
"Splash, splash!"
The water churned violently, as though some powerful force were twisting and stirring it from below.
Kael felt a gaze full of fury lock onto his back, sharp and openly hostile.
A faint sense of danger crawled across his spine.
Instinctively, his body, which had been floating lazily in the cold water, tensed all at once. He slapped the lake's surface lightly with his two slender arms, and his small blue body sprang upward from the water in one smooth burst.
The movement was sharp and agile, rushed yet perfectly fluid, without a trace of hesitation.
"Splash..."
Crystal droplets caught the sunlight as they scattered into the air.
Kael spread his arms and leapt diagonally upward, while turning his head to look behind him, searching for the thing that had just attacked.
The first thing that entered his vision was a gaping mouth packed with pale, vicious teeth. Under the bright sunlight, Kael's sharp eyes could even see past those tightly packed fangs into the deep black of its throat.
A dark stripe ran from the top of its round head all the way down to its tail.
Its crown-like dorsal fin trembled rapidly, and its crimson fish eyes burned with violence and bloodlust.
Basculin.
A Pokémon infamous for its savage temperament and territorial aggression, known throughout the Pokémon world for the terrifying bite force of its iron-jawed mouth.
It was said that in lakes where Basculin lived, only creatures with exceptional survival abilities, such as Clauncher or Crawdaunt, could manage to endure.
It was the master of this lake.
And now Kael, having suddenly entered its territory, had clearly been marked as something that had to be defeated.
Or rather.
Prey.
"CLACK!"
The sound of teeth snapping shut rang through the air, sharp enough to make one's skin crawl.
Realizing its ambush had failed, Basculin bit down hard in frustration.
At the same time, driven by the momentum of its charge, its body over three feet long shot up out of the lake like a launching rocket.
And Kael, at that exact moment, was just beginning to fall back toward the water.
One above.
One below.
The two of them lined up perfectly on the same path.
"Shhk!"
A vicious glint flashed in Basculin's blood-red eyes. White light suddenly flared along its thick, muscular tail as dense, resilient muscle fibers tightened and released with explosive force.
Ignoring the fact that its own body was still carrying upward momentum, Basculin swung its tail brutally at Kael.
WHOOOSH.
The shriek of air tearing around its dark green scales made it obvious how much force the strike carried.
Kael, caught facing the attack head-on, had no time to twist his body and evade properly.
As the broad, scale-covered tail came crashing toward him, a sharp light flashed in his blue eyes.
There was no panic.
He simply raised his own broad, marshmallow-like tail, curled close in front of his small fragile body, and used it as a shield.
BOOM.
A heavy impact burst through the air.
In the next instant, the two tails slammed into each other.
The force of the clash whipped the air around them into a burst of wind.
Ripples spread in tight rings across the lake below.
Kael felt an enormous force surge from the point of impact, powerful enough to break bone and tear muscle apart.
A flicker of surprise passed through his eyes.
Then his small body rolled backward with the momentum, using the movement to shed as much of the incoming force as possible.
Only someone with Kael's combat experience could have reacted like that in such a sudden exchange, reducing the damage as much as he did.
"Splsh... splsh..."
The moment of impact was brief.
Driven back by the violent rebound, Kael's small blue body spun through the air and dropped into the water behind him.
At the same time, Basculin, after delivering its full-force strike, also began to fall back toward the lake under the pull of gravity.
"Glub... glub..."
Water rushed past Kael's ears as the cold, dense lake wrapped around him and gradually slowed his body's backward slide.
Under the flow of the water, his skin blurred and faded into transparency once more.
Feeling the dull ache in his tail, Kael's expression grew serious.
It was a good thing he had used that spin to deflect most of the force from Basculin's strike.
Otherwise, if that hit had landed squarely on his body, he would not have come away with just a minor injury.
"Now this is interesting..."
Kael stared at the Basculin not far ahead, its eyes still fixed on him with fierce hostility, and felt battle spirit rising in his chest.
It was not that he was some kind of fight addict.
But it had simply been too long since he had met an opponent like this.
An opponent who could truly match him.
Before this, whether it was Skarmory or Talonflame, they had both been far stronger than he was.
Those fights had been one-sided from beginning to end, with Kael crushed so thoroughly that there had been almost no room to push back.
Even someone like him, who genuinely enjoyed combat, could never really lose himself in battles like that.
But now, after this brief exchange with Basculin, he already had a rough sense of its strength.
This was exactly the kind of opponent he had been hoping for.
An even match.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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For early access to advanced chapters on P-atreon:
P-atreon/iamxeno
(Just remove the - hyphen to access normally)
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