Chapter 646: Relentless Torrential Rain
Now that the volcanic mountain range had officially fallen under the jurisdiction of the Dragon Clan, Kazuya wasted no time permanently deploying the Arcanine clan over there.
For the Fire/Rock-type Arcanine flock, there was logically no habitat more perfectly suited for their biology than an active volcano. In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, the frenzied Noble Arcanine had naturally governed the molten heights of Firespit Island.
Making this logistical arrangement was also Kazuya's way of expressing profound gratitude for the immense tactical support the Arcanine clan had historically extended to the Dragon Clan.
Simultaneously, the absolute premier objective Kazuya formally assigned to his younger brother and the Charizard clan was to subjugate and systematically integrate the resident Turtonator flock into the Dragon Clan.
Evaluated strictly from a raw martial perspective, executing this operation wouldn't present a shred of difficulty. However, Kazuya's underlying intent was to actively cultivate his brother's political acumen and his capacity to secure the genuine loyalty of draconian species. He specifically desired his brother to employ a more diplomatic, benevolent approach to recruiting talent, rather than relying exclusively on brute-force suppression.
As for liquidating the remaining, hyper-aggressive troublemakers across the volcanic peaks...
That operational burden would naturally fall upon the aging, rusting veterans currently resting back at the grassland heartland. First, this would serve as an intensive rehabilitation regimen, actively preparing their biological engines for the impending campaign into the tropical rainforest. Second, it would systematically drill reality into the heads of the native volcanic clans: the absolute supreme Overlord of this mountain range was the Dragon Clan, not the Charizard clan. They needed to flawlessly understand exactly who held the ultimate authority.
The Grassland Heartland.
Kazuya leaned his massive frame comfortably against a towering boulder. Beside him, Florges gently prodded his side with a Vine Whip, her expression broadcasting a distinct trace of resentment.
"Flor?"
He poured out oceans of sweat and blood to reach this point precisely so he could shoulder these exact burdens. Were you genuinely intending to raise him in a greenhouse like a fragile flower?
Kazuya let out a long, helpless sigh.
There was an old proverb: An eldest brother is like a father, and an eldest sister is like a mother.
Currently, Florges—occupying the role of "mother"—was projecting a textbook case of suffocating overindulgence, seemingly intent on physically manifesting the tragic tale of a doting mother raising a useless child.
As their sovereign territory exponentially expanded, Kazuya was beginning to mathematically feel his logistical control over the empire stretching dangerously thin.
He could securely delegate the overarching management of the grassland to Florges. But the volcanic mountain range was the ancestral home turf of the Charizard clan. Kazuya harbored a profound hope to systematically mold his younger brother into the absolute commanding authority of that sector.
His explicit mandate required his brother to transform the volcano into a secondary grassland within a singular chronological year, brutally educating the native Pokémon on the absolute laws governing a Dragon Clan Safe Zone.
A year.
This operational window wasn't mathematically stringent. After all, the Charizard clan fundamentally reigned as the undisputed Overlords of the volcanic mountain range, and his brother now commanded Champion-level combat parameters himself. Aside from the newly relocated Arcanine clan, there wasn't a single lineage stationed across the peaks possessing the martial capital to contest their authority.
Completing this objective within a year was, in Kazuya's estimation, an operation locked firmly on the "Easy" difficulty setting.
Following this, Kazuya intended to leverage the volcanic mountain range as a forward operating base to launch the Dragon Clan's ultimate campaign against the tropical rainforest situated further south. That jungle was an absolute, flawless strategic utopia—boasting a staggeringly diverse array of flora and fauna, profoundly complex biomes, sprawling geographic proportions, and conditions perfectly optimized for the survival of almost any Pokémon species.
However...
"Flor." Florges fundamentally rejected his calculus.
She steadfastly maintained that the difficulty curve of this specific assignment was entirely too steep for his younger brother to shoulder alone. She deeply desired Kazuya to, at the absolute minimum, deploy a vastly larger vanguard of seasoned veterans to directly assist him.
But... Kazuya had already deployed a massive detachment of elite troops.
Excluding the inherently terrifying baseline of the Charizard clan, he had mobilized the Kommo-o, Haxorus, and Scrafty tribes—three martial lineages exceptionally proficient at navigating and executing combat within forested, complex terrain.
The Kommo-o tribe alone commanded a demographic exceeding a hundred warriors, led by an Alpha patriarch boasting an immense Lv. 75 baseline; they were an absolute juggernaut on the battlefield. Factoring in the mid-to-high-tier capabilities of the Haxorus and Scrafty clans...
If they mathematically failed to secure total control over a mere volcanic mountain range with this lineup, then the laws of physics were broken.
"You are drastically underestimating his operational capability," Kazuya rumbled gently, gently brushing Florges' Vine Whip aside.
If his brother genuinely failed to execute an operation this fundamentally straightforward, it mathematically proved he completely lacked the intrinsic talent required for supreme leadership. If that timeline manifested, Kazuya naturally wouldn't thrust similar burdens upon his shoulders in the future.
But this variable had to be actively tested to secure concrete data. If he didn't even allow his brother to deploy... what right did they have to preemptively declare him incapable?
Florges was genuinely unsuited for calculating macro-level logistical deployments. Her optimal biological function was to spend her days completely carefree, nurturing her flower beds and coddling the hatchlings.
"Flor!"
Smack! Smack!
After lashing Kazuya twice with her Vine Whip, Florges spun around and stormed off in a huff.
Leaving a profoundly speechless Kazuya sitting there, staring blankly up at the sky.
Suddenly, Kazuya's heavy brow locked into a severe frown.
His golden irises gradually narrowed into sharp, vertical diamond slits. He squinted intensely, locking his absolute focus onto the rapidly shifting cloud formations swirling through the skyward sectors.
A moment later, he raised a claw, scratched his heavy skull, and turned his frame to amble toward the flower fields.
Upon arriving at the fields, he found Florges sullenly tending to her beloved blossoms.
Hearing the heavy, rhythmic thud of his footsteps approaching from behind, her expression instantly brightened. She assumed Kazuya had conceded and was returning to announce he would deploy the additional reinforcements she demanded.
However, she immediately masked her joy, adopting a deliberate posture of continued displeasure, hoping to leverage this emotional performance to extract an even greater volume of tactical security for his younger brother.
Unfortunately... attempting to execute a psychological charade before an Aura Guardian was functionally identical to covering one's ears while stealing a bell.
Before Kazuya had even breached her immediate perimeter, his Aura had flawlessly mapped her emotional wavelength and cleanly reverse-engineered her entire thought process.
Tragically, Kazuya hadn't approached to renegotiate his brother's deployment. That operational blueprint was absolute and non-negotiable.
He had merely come over to deliver a brief weather advisory:
"An absolute, cataclysmic storm system is rapidly approaching. I mathematically calculate it is going to drown a substantial percentage of your flower beds. You had best begin preparations..."
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Before Kazuya could even conclude his sentence, he found himself being violently chased out of the fields by an enraged Florges wielding her Vine Whips like a flail.
He was genuinely, purely attempting to offer a helpful warning. It truly was a case of biting the hand that fed.
"Hmph."
Feeling a profound chill in his heart, Kazuya trudged back toward his personal nesting crater.
Along the path, he casually flicked his heavy tail, lightly tapping the backside of an Axew waddling nearby:
"An absolute storm is imminent. Hurry and command the rest of the collective to immediately execute Dig and seek shelter underground."
"Axew~" The little Axew obediently scampered off to relay the emergency broadcast. A textbook good child.
Arriving at his crater, the disheartened Kazuya tilted his head back, meticulously analyzing the skyward dome for a few prolonged seconds before nodding in absolute certainty.
A cataclysmic storm was undeniably about to make landfall.
Having lived as an Empoleon—the undisputed Emperor of the Seas—who had physically navigated the open oceans for several decades across his fourth lifetime, Kazuya was practically a seasoned marine navigator and an expert meteorologist. Merely observing the macro-trajectory of the cloud banks and the shifting velocity of the atmospheric winds allowed him to accurately map out major meteorological anomalies.
Factoring in the impending collapse of the weather conditions, the operational campaign targeting the Rocky Mountain range had to be temporarily suspended.
This specific meteorological profile was aggressively hostile toward all four of the Dragon Clan's current aerial vanguards. Their baseline combat output would suffer varying degrees of severe degradation while operating within a torrential downpour.
But Kazuya harbored zero anxiety. You couldn't eat hot tofu if you were too impatient. They would simply utilize the rainfall to execute a two-day rest cycle.
Yet, that "two-day rest cycle" seamlessly morphed into an entire week.
"Why mathematically hasn't this damn rain stopped?!"
Kazuya shot to his feet, staring up at the sky in absolute bewilderment. "If this trajectory persists, an astronomical demographic of Pokémon are going to biologically expire."
Starting exactly seven days prior, the skyward dome had been permanently locked into a suffocating, bleak expanse of oppressive gray.
Seven consecutive days of relentless, apocalyptic rainfall. It felt as though the heavens were determined to continuously pour water until the entire physical world was drowned.
Compounding the crisis, the oceanic waves swelling along the eastern coastline were visibly, violently multiplying in height with every passing day.
If someone attempted to argue this phenomenon had absolutely zero correlation to those specific Legendary anomalies slithering through the deep ocean, Kazuya wouldn't believe a single syllable.
If this meteorological gridlock persisted... a terrifying volume of terrestrial Pokémon would inevitably starve to death due to their inability to execute hunting operations. An equally massive demographic would likely freeze to death as the ambient thermal temperatures continued to plunge.
The Dragon Clan was structurally secure. They commanded massive demographic numbers; huddled tightly together, the sheer volume of ambient body heat mathematically negated the plunging temperatures. The juvenile dragons could simply execute Dig to ride out the storm beneath the soil, and their agricultural pastures guaranteed absolute food security, allowing them to remain entirely self-sufficient.
But regarding the wild clans garrisoned across the desert and the rocky peaks... the casualty projections were too grim to synthesize.
"Lugia?"
Kazuya raised a massive claw, pinching his chin in deep thought.
When calculating the origin of a cataclysmic, world-altering storm, the absolute premier suspect was invariably Lugia. Lugia was the undisputed sovereign of the ocean currents and seasonal monsoons, widely revered across Pokémon folklore as the God of the Sea.
Throughout human history, practically every recorded manifestation of Lugia was accompanied by apocalyptic storms. This correlation birthed the famous systemic rumor: "If Lugia simply flaps its wings, it will trigger a forty-day storm."
Naturally, Kyogre and Manaphy couldn't be entirely excluded from the calculation. Both entities mathematically possessed the biological capability to orchestrate this exact meteorological catastrophe.
However... when the anomaly was heavily localized within the skyward atmosphere, the logical deduction leaned heavily toward Lugia.
"Whether it is Lugia or not, a simple test will verify the data."
Kazuya sneered slightly.
A blinding, intensely warm, golden fireball rapidly condensed within his jaws, and he violently blasted it straight into the churning storm clouds above.
The Sunny Day fireball seamlessly merged into the cloud deck.
It vanished instantly without a trace.
The atmospheric conditions didn't alter by a single degree.
"Hmm. My initial calculation was flawed. It's actually that oversized blimp, Kyogre."
Kazuya's brow locked into a severe frown, a sharp wave of genuine apprehension gripping his core.
Sunny Day had generated absolutely zero systemic effect.
This flawlessly proved the anomaly wasn't orchestrated by Lugia. Otherwise, even if the God of the Sea was deeply engaged, the systemic mechanics of a Champion-level Sunny Day would logically force the weather to clear for at least ten or so minutes.
But the atmosphere hadn't fluctuated at all.
Which left only one mathematical possibility.
The absolute, priority-locking ability commanded exclusively by Primal Kyogre—Primordial Sea.
Kazuya should have executed this test much earlier. But he had initially calculated it was merely an extraordinarily severe natural monsoon or typhoon, never factoring in the possibility of a Legendary anomaly until the chronological duration became mathematically impossible to ignore.
"But... even now that I've verified the data, what tactical utility does it provide?"
Kazuya let out a heavy sigh, launching his massive frame into the rain-soaked sky. He turned his golden irises toward the churning eastern ocean.
An entity like Kyogre was virtually a phantom. It could easily be slithering along the absolute darkest trenches of any random oceanic sector. Without the advanced tracking technology of the League Era, locating it was functionally impossible.
The absolute optimal tactical solution Kazuya could synthesize was to activate the systemic power of the Sea Crown, commanding the entirety of the oceanic Pokémon network to execute a massive, synchronized search grid.
But that immediately introduced a secondary bottleneck.
Ignoring the fact that mapping the ocean would consume several days... what was his operational plan if he actually located it?
If it was merely a standard, base-form Kyogre...
Kazuya wouldn't hesitate for a single second. He would expend twenty-four hours to officially reclaim his systemic Overlord tag, and then, stacking the absolute multipliers of Mega Evolution alongside the Splash Plate, Kazuya possessed total, absolute confidence he could physically beat Kyogre into unconsciousness.
He had already spent two entirely separate lifetimes violently pummeling that overgrown fat fish; adding a third lifetime to the tally made zero difference to him. It wasn't as if he was going to slaughter it.
But if it genuinely was just a standard Kyogre... then launching an offensive was completely redundant. A base-form Kyogre didn't command the Primordial Sea ability; it couldn't permanently lock the global climate.
The entity anchoring this specific ability was Primal Kyogre.
And Primal Kyogre... even factoring in his immense combat experience from previous lives, was an entity Kazuya mathematically lacked the raw martial output to defeat at his current stage of progression.
Even if he mobilized both Dragon Dad and his younger brother to assist in a coordinated raid, it wouldn't alter the fundamental outcome. Unlike Kazuya, they didn't possess the biological capability to render Water-type assaults completely null and void.
The combat parameters commanded by Primal Kyogre were undeniably superior to a standard Rayquaza or Kyurem.
Sitting merely at Lv. 84, Kazuya mathematically possessed virtually zero probability of securing a victory.
"I can only pray that Groudon has similarly awakened from its slumber," Kazuya muttered, his snout twitching.
He cast another grim glance at the apocalyptic sky.
Given the cataclysmic magnitude of the anomalies Kyogre was continuously generating over this prolonged window... that ancient, terrestrial rival of his should have logically been jolted awake by the sheer noise long ago, right?
Perhaps over the next forty-eight hours, the two titans would ignite an apocalyptic war to violently contest the monopoly over global natural energy.
Naturally, Kazuya hadn't anchored his hopes of salvation onto Groudon, but rather onto Rayquaza.
Following the historically established script... the absolute second those two Hoenn idiots began throwing hands, Rayquaza would inevitably, immediately plunge from the stratosphere to violently enforce a ceasefire.
As long as Rayquaza mobilized, the global climate would be forcibly reset to its original, stable parameters.
"I wonder what the survival status of the Dragonite clan looks like right now."
Kazuya stared out over the raging eastern ocean, a heavy wave of genuine concern gripping his heart.
The Dragonite clan, permanently garrisoned upon that isolated oceanic island, was undoubtedly bearing the absolute brunt of these apocalyptic winds and torrential waves.
He couldn't synthesize the logic.
He had explicitly provided the Dragonite clan with his precise geographic coordinates. He had expressly ordered them to launch a migration and seek shelter under his vanguard the absolute second their environment became unlivable.
Yet... why hadn't a single Dragonite breached the horizon yet?
Did they possess an arrogant confidence they could independently weather this cataclysm... or had...
Had a fatal anomaly struck the Dragonite clan?
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