Following the council elder's request, Cain returned the legendary Pokémon Moltres to Mt. Silver.
As for drawing its blood, that had been nothing more than a flash of inspiration and acting according to the situation.
Watching Moltres flee as if running for its life, Cain smiled again.
Then, with a thought, he opened a spatial rift beside him and, copying Kael, inserted his right hand into it.
Of course, it was wrapped in psychic power. He had no intention of paying out of his own pocket for a pair of hands, like Kael had done.
When he inserted it, there was one hand. When he pulled it out, there were two.
Only one was still his, and the other was a severed hand belonging to someone else.
It was precisely Kael's left hand, the one he had cut off himself. At that moment, it was wrapped in a thin layer of psychic power, so it had not been shredded by the infinite chaos of space, and the blood had also been completely sealed inside, so it did not appear bloody.
Kael's left hand!
On it were the Unown tattoos that Cain valued so much. Especially the Unown exclamation mark, which was the one that interested him the most.
He did not know whether, when Kael cut off his left hand, he had thought about the Unown tattooed on his wrist.
And if he had thought about them, and still decided to do it, why did he do so?
Cain knew that in Mt. Silver, Kael had discovered the Unown on his body. Just as Cain had strongly desired to obtain Kael's, Kael had surely also wanted to take possession of Cain's Unown.
Only afterward, once Arceus had returned him to his original nature, Cain no longer knew whether Kael had subconsciously forgotten about them or had deliberately chosen not to act.
Moreover, those Unown, once separated from Kael's real body, still obediently remained attached to his severed wrist. That truly surprised Cain.
In fact, he had only wanted to test it; he had not truly expected those Unown to still be there.
But in the end, it had turned into quite a considerable gain.
As soon as he withdrew the psychic power covering the left hand, the letter-shaped tattoos on the skin suddenly began to twist.
In the blink of an eye, they transformed back into the various Unown, floating in front of Cain.
Looking at those enormous eyes one by one, Cain could not help but feel a slight chill.
To this day, he still did not fully understand the true purpose of these Pokémon called Unown. He only knew that they had existed long before the legendary Dialga, Palkia, and even Giratina, and that at one point they had even acted as teachers to Dialga and Palkia in certain aspects.
He did not even know whether they had been born before Arceus or after, or whether they had perhaps existed since before the birth of the universe itself.
However, the actual combat power of the Unown was very poor.
Of course, that was only when speaking of direct combat. Because if their special abilities were included, then it was truly unclear whether there existed in this world any Pokémon or human capable of truly capturing them, especially if the twenty-eight forms of Unown were completely assembled.
Among them, of course, the strongest and most important were the Unown question mark and the exclamation mark. Only when both were present and all Unown gathered together could their greatest power be unleashed.
Those Unown stared at Cain for a long time.
There was no emotion in their eyes, as if they were living machines.
They seemed to be thinking about something, and Cain also observed them in silence, without saying a single word.
From beginning to end, the Unown he carried had always been the ones who chose to attach themselves to him of their own will. It was not something Cain could decide through his own subjectivity.
If they wished to attach themselves to his body, they would do so even if Cain said nothing. And if they did not wish to, forcing them would be useless.
Suddenly, Cain's right hand trembled slightly, and the Unown that had originally been on his body emerged one after another. Led by the special Unown question mark, the two groups of Unown looked at each other in the air.
There was no joy at the reunion of companions.
Nor was there any hostility.
As if they lacked any emotion at all.
The Unown question mark and the exclamation mark slowly began to approach each other, rotating.
Then, the rest of the Unown also joined the movement, forming a circle from the letter "A" to the letter "Y".
But Cain discovered that one of them was missing.
Out of the twenty-six letters, there were only twenty-five. Including the exclamation mark and the question mark, there were twenty-seven in total.
Just as he was thinking about this, those Unown began to shrink gradually, and with a flash, they reappeared once again on Cain's wrist.
Only this time, when he removed the bracelet, he discovered that the position of the Unown had changed.
It was no longer only the question mark and the exclamation mark: all of them had moved to the back of his hand and formed a circle, as if they were a clock.
Only, that "clock" was missing a part: the "Z" was not there!
And the question mark and the exclamation mark seemed to have become the hands of the clock, like the minute and hour hands. Only, since both were special Unown, it was impossible to tell which was which.
Cain had originally wanted to sit down and carefully study what kind of special abilities these Unown would now bring him, but after thinking about it, this was not an appropriate place to do so. Moreover, there were still many important figures inside the League headquarters at Mt. Silver, so he headed there.
Although he did not know why the council elder had not revealed his identity, nor shown any intention of acting against him, Cain still felt considerable pressure.
"I need to accelerate the pace again. Now that Mewtwo has already been born, the next period will be Giovanni's time of greatest power, so an open war with the League will be inevitable."
"My current identity is still safe for now, but that will not last long. If I cannot obtain real power, I'm afraid I won't be able to remain in the League for much longer...," Cain thought silently.
Then he disappeared in a flash.
(End of chapter)