Chapter 631: Overlord of the Rocky Mountains, the Ancient King
By the time Charizard finally regained consciousness, the Rampardos and Kommo-o forces had already returned.
However, the Archeops flock had beat their wings to depart entirely too early. By the time the tracking groups breached the quadrant, not even a lingering silhouette of the adversary could be tracked across the airspace.
Ultimately, this sudden raid had lasted less than a quarter of an hour from start to finish. The baseline mobility of the Rampardos and Kommo-o lines was inherently slow; racing back from such a massive distance after catching the signal, it was mathematically impossible to arrive in time to alter the outcome.
Consequently, a suffocating, raging fire burned within the hearts of both tribes. They had an ocean of pent-up fury with absolutely no outlet to channel it—leaving them with no choice but to systematically liquidate the remaining Archeops that hadn't officially drawn their final breath yet.
On this side of the field, Charizard gazed across the thoroughly devastated, ravaged heartland of the Dragon Clan, his mind completely swimming with a chaotic cocktail of complex emotions. He had failed the absolute trust reposed in him by his older brother, failing to safeguard their sanctuary.
But the precise reality that made it most agonizing for him to breathe was the crushing psychological blow he had sustained. His personal level was entirely too weak. Commanding this magnitude of strength, he stood absolutely zero chance of translating his grand ambitions into reality.
"Roar..."
His younger brother dragged himself into a sitting posture from the dirt. His physical frame still bore a dense network of razor gashes left behind by the Alpha Archeops. The deep lacerations had already scabbed over with thick, crimson blood clots, and the throbbing pain certainly wouldn't dissolve anytime soon.
Yet brother-kun displayed absolute indifference toward his physical trauma. He sat sprawled on the soil, staring blankly across the post-apocalyptic landscape for a long, silent moment.
The mother Charizard settled her frame beside him, her eyes saturated with deep worry as she watched her mate. She knew he had sustained a profound psychological fracture, yet in her estimation, such existential fretting was entirely redundant.
In this world, sustaining sudden territorial raids was a baseline aspect of daily existence, wasn't it? Similarly, following an ambush, experiencing the demographic loss of a few partners was a normal parameter of survival.
However, the mother Charizard hadn't considered that brother-kun understood these harsh variables perfectly well. He was a seasoned veteran who had ploughed his way through blood and fire; he wouldn't sink into absolute psychological isolation merely because a few companions had perished.
The driver behind his current frustration wasn't just his failure to preserve their sanctuary—it was that his pride had been completely and utterly crushed by the reality of his own weakness. Beyond that fracture, a tangible, suffocating weight of absolute responsibility was pressing down on his chest, leaving him gasping for air.
Had it not been for the fact that his three children wore the Dragon Fangs around their necks today, they might have lost one or two of them to the talons. That was a mathematical reality he absolutely wouldn't have been able to process.
Has Big Brother... always been carrying such a monumental weight of responsibility on his shoulders all this time? This question crystallized deep within Charizard's heart.
His mind was immensely cluttered right now. Yet deep within that static chaos, a raw, primal craving for absolute power was aggressively flaring.
If he could unlock that stark black-and-blue dragon form commanded by his older brother, or if he could manifest that qualitative transformation wielded by the volcano Overlord... would the outcome of today's clash have written a different script? Would he have been able to cleanly shoulder a greater portion of the burden for his older brother?
The departing Kazuya remained entirely oblivious to the tragedy that had blanketed the Dragon Clan. He and Floette had breached the perimeter of the Rocky Mountains, plouging their way steadily into the interior peaks. Along their trajectory, he had casually smashed aside dozens of reckless, lower-tier scavengers who didn't know the meaning of discretion.
"Waiting until my strength reached this baseline before launching this expedition was indeed the correct operational choice," Kazuya murmured.
Commanding his current parameters at Lv. 75, a single Ice Punch was more than enough to cleanly one-shot an upper Gym Leader-level Garchomp without any issue. It was precisely this absolute level superiority that allowed him to smoothly traverse the airspaces all the way to the central nexus of the Rocky Mountain range.
Otherwise, relying on his historical parameters, merely breaching the outer defensive perimeter of these rocky peaks would have stretched his capabilities to the brink.
"Flo-ette." Floette let out a thoroughly bored yawn.
This entire flight had been remarkably devoid of actual danger from her perspective. Every single time a menacing colossus lunged out of the peaks to launch an ambush, Kazuya would consistently unleash a singular, overwhelming move to instantly vaporize the threat, cleanly dissolving the peril before it could even spark.
By this point, Floette had entirely discarded her fear. Whatever adversary chose to manifest, she could simply dump the tactical resolution onto Kazuya.
"Come to think of it, I haven't spotted a single one of those unique specimens described by the Altaria flock. Don't tell me I'm mathematically forced to actively raid their core nesting sites just to unearth one," Kazuya rumbled with a hint of a headache.
His primary objective today was to personally locate those Mega-evolved dragons, logging which specific clans were definitively capable of anchoring a Mega-evolved individual. Once those coordinates were logged, he could return later to study their habitats, unlocking what kind of entity Dragon-type natural energy truly was.
Yet, after hovering across the Rocky Mountain airspaces for over an hour, while he had encountered an immense diversity of Pokémon lineages, a Mega-evolved individual was nowhere to be found. It looked as though even after returning to the Ancient Era, the absolute difficulty barrier surrounding "Primal Reversion" was countless times more demanding than Kazuya had anticipated.
Otherwise, the number of Mega-evolved individuals across the continent wouldn't be this sparse. He had existed in this world for eleven years, yet the number of Mega Pokémon he had even heard rumors of didn't exceed ten, and the only specimen he had personally laid eyes on was his dragon dad. One could well imagine how grueling this evolutionary path truly was.
"Flo-ette!" Right then, Floette tapped Kazuya's skull, her claw pointing straight toward the skyward sectors above.
Kazuya lifted his eyes, and his pupils abruptly widened. Hidden within the rippling cloud deck above, the silhouette of a Pokémon was faintly materializing.
In terms of raw height, it wasn't particularly gargantuan—standing at around twelve or thirteen meters, rendering it physically smaller than Kazuya himself—though if one factored in its full body length, it likely measured over twenty meters.
But physical proportions weren't the focus here. The absolute focus was the species of this Pokémon. It was one of the premier targets of his expedition—a Mega Salamence.
Commanding a dual Dragon/Flying attribute combination, Mega Salamence was a flawlessly iconic draconian specimen, categorized explicitly as the "Dragon Pokémon." Furthermore, their lineage commanded a fiercely striking title: The Blood-Soaked Crescent.
"Tsk, tsk... they truly do walk this earth," Kazuya grinned, his lips curling into an appreciative arc. The gratification born from a successful harvest was invariably delightful.
Logically, choosing to covertly shadow this specimen might yield an abundance of unexpected tactical rewards. Yet, he didn't translate that impulse into action. He couldn't accurately verify the absolute combat proficiency of this Mega Salamence.
Given its size parameters, it was undeniably a bona fide Alpha leader. A pseudo-legendary Alpha that had managed to plough its way to Mega Evolution within this cutthroat Rocky Mountain range couldn't possibly possess a baseline level below Lv. 80. Furthermore, Mega Salamence's biological speed parameters were legendary. Kazuya couldn't guarantee that even after maxing out his Extreme Speed, his velocity would flawlessly outpace a Mega Salamence.
If the opponent's level sat at an overwhelming threshold, the moment his tracking was detected and he was logged as a hostile target, he might not necessarily possess the capability to secure a clean escape. Throwing his life away due to reckless curiosity would be entirely too foolish.
To put it simply, Kazuya was faced with a basic calculation of risk versus reward. Could the potential benefits extracted from tracking this target mathematically outweigh the catastrophic risks associated with failure?
It was a very basic equation. Had he been backed into a corner by an imminent existential crisis, frantically desperate to multiply his strength with zero alternative avenues of progression available, he might have chosen to gamble and shadow the target. But the catch was that none of those desperate parameters applied to his current reality.
Therefore, the resolution was remarkably straightforward. Kazuya flawlessly suppressed the restless promptings of his inner curiosity. For a living entity who had survived across two hundred years and whose soul was anchored to human logic, this magnitude of desire wasn't nearly enough to compromise his intellect.
His journey in this current life had only spanned eleven years, yet he had already ploughed his way to Lv. 75. Even stripped of Mega Evolution, his future trajectory would inevitably see him standing at the absolute apex of the world. Furthermore, give it a few more years, and Kazuya was entirely confident he would officially breach the Champion-level echelon. When that milestone arrived, he could comfortably march through these rocky peaks to investigate the secrets of Dragon-type natural energy with absolute impunity.
There was zero need for frantic haste. The rudimentary objective of this trek had already been achieved.
Along his flight trajectory earlier, he had bypassed the sovereign territory of the Salamence clan. It was merely because the sheer volume of Salamence garrisoning that peak was entirely too dense that he had gracefully refrained from making a reckless approach on the spot. Kazuya permanently logged those coordinates in his memory; once his personal power reached the proper threshold or the perfect tactical window manifested, he could journey back to thoroughly study their home.
"Flo-ette?"
"Let's circle around a bit more," Kazuya rumbled, shaking his head.
Breaching the inner sanctum of the Rocky Mountain range wasn't an easy task, and securing an opportunity to explore its deep central nexus was a rare privilege. Turning back to head home just like this felt like a mathematically poor utilization of his momentum.
Floette harbored zero objections to his plan, continuing to ride atop Kazuya's head as he winged his way toward the southwest.
According to the rudimentary geographic charts they had synthesized, the northernmost boundary of the Rocky Mountain range highly likely bordered the exact same frozen ocean that flanked the northern edge of the snowfields. The south was bounded by the swamp, and the east was bordered by the snowfields—leaving exclusively the western vector as an entirely uncharted, mysterious sector. Even Goodra lacked any data regarding the parameters of that western territory.
Therefore, if they intended to expand their geographic exploration, that western vector was the logical course to chart.
Right as he was processing these calculations...
"Hmm?!"
Kazuya's eyes widened abruptly. He snapped his torso upright, violently beating his wings to catapult his frame straight toward the upper skyward sectors.
Directly beneath his previous coordinates, a massive, craggy brown "peak" had suddenly jolted into motion.
"It" threw back its massive head, its brilliant, sharp eyes locking onto the fire dragon hovering in the heavens, a deep wave of genuine interest flaring within its focus.
"Tyrantrum..." Kazuya hovered at a high altitude, staring down at the colossal dinosaur as he muttered the name.
It was an Overlord Tyrantrum standing a full eighty meters tall! This staggering physical height had initially tricked Kazuya into mislogging its silhouette as an ordinary craggy peak. Had he not caught the pulsing Aura and shifting emotions radiating from this "mountain," he might have casually touched down onto its hide to catch a brief rest.
"Flo-ette..." Floette was so thoroughly shell-shocked by the spectacle that she was entirely incapable of vocalizing her thoughts. This titanic dinosaur stood physically taller and more imposing than even the volcano Overlord!
"It looks as though this entity is the undisputed Overlord of the Rocky Mountain range," Kazuya rumbled, letting out a soft sigh of genuine relief. He hadn't anticipated colliding with the sovereign of the rocky peaks in a random sector like this.
His relief was anchored to a singular biological reality: this Rocky Mountain Overlord was entirely landlocked and incapable of flight. This mathematically guaranteed that even if Kazuya couldn't defeat the titan, the opponent possessed zero capacity to prevent him from executing a clean escape.
In fact, he even commanded the absolute emotional leeway to hover comfortably at a safe altitude to meticulously survey the Tyrantrum.
An ancient Tyrantrum of this era was highly likely a pure, single Dragon-type species. Their biological classification was the Despot Pokémon, and during the modern League Era, they held the magnificent title of the Ancient King, with their descriptions explicitly stating: "In an era one hundred million years ago, it boasted an absolute, invincible power, moving and operating exactly like a King."
For the sovereign Overlord of the Rocky Mountains to belong to this specific lineage was something Kazuya honestly hadn't anticipated. After all, comparing purely based on standard Pokédex metrics, Tyrantrum's competitive viability in the wild shouldn't have ranked near the apex tier—especially when the Rocky Mountains held a collection of absolute monsters like Salamence, Magnezone, Garchomp, and Hydreigon. Seeing Tyrantrum firmly stamping its heel on top of their heads was undeniably an unexpected reality.
However, a Pokédex blueprint is merely a blueprint; it can only ever serve as a baseline reference. Back during his Unova Championship finals in a past life, he similarly hadn't believed his buddy would succumb to Mair's Scrafty. The base stat math gap hadn't been overwhelming, and the adversary was merely a Fighting/Dark-type specimen with a remarkably ordinary movepool. Even while executing a one-versus-three bottleneck, Kazuya hadn't factored in the probability of defeat—yet what had the reality written?
Therefore, after a brief moment of initial surprise, Kazuya accepted the reality with absolute, smooth logic.
"Rua-oh!!"
The Overlord Tyrantrum unleashed a cataclysmic bellow aimed straight at Kazuya in the high sky. He was issuing an open challenge to battle. Encountering an unfamiliar, powerful face like Kazuya for the very first time, the Tyrantrum projected an immense wave of martial interest. He perceived that Kazuya was remarkably strong, and he desired to lock horns with him to verify who commanded the superior power.
Should Kazuya prove to be the absolute master, he would comfortably surrender the sovereign throne of the Rocky Mountains without a single shred of hesitation.
"I'll definitely lock horns with you in the future. But right now, my parameters can't mathematically beat you. Farewell," Kazuya rumbled, casually cupping his claws in a mock gesture of martial respect.
Then, under the thoroughly dumbfounded, blank stare of the Tyrantrum, he beat his wings and sailed cleanly away.
What a joke. He had gracefully refrained from chasing even a single Mega Salamence Alpha; why on earth would he choose to engage a cataclysmic Overlord whose parameters were highly likely pressing right against the Master-level threshold? He stood absolutely zero chance of winning.
Below them, watching the silhouette of the fire dragon effortlessly glide away into the distance, the Tyrantrum's massive face turned entirely dark.
This fire dragon...
How does he lack even a single shred of martial bloodlust?
This behavior didn't align with the unbridled spirit of the Rocky Mountains at all. He had to be a rogue, wild dragon from some outside territory.
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