Pokemon: Reborn as a Pokemon

Chapter 331 331: 331. Calamity

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Kael's reaction and decision-making in the heat of battle had been flawless.

In that impossibly short span of time, he had done everything his current body was physically capable of doing.

No matter who else had been in his place, with the same physical limits, they could not have done any better.

But unfortunately.

The gap between him and Castform was still far too great.

Even though his desperate, limit-breaking maneuver had allowed him to evade the deadliest core of Fire Blast and avoid the miserable fate of being burned to a blackened corpse on the spot.

The scorching heat lingering at the edges of the flames had still seared his skin.

Thud!

Amid flying dust, the dull sound of a body hitting the ground echoed through the clearing.

"Hah... hah..."

Pain-soaked breathing rang through the dead forest.

Kael's chest heaved violently as though he could barely draw air. The brutal agony spreading through every part of his body had already left his eyes unfocused.

Under the combined attacks of Talonflame and Castform, his physical condition had dropped to its lowest point since being born into this world.

His right leg was nearly severed. Scalding red blood poured continuously from the wound in his lower leg, and now and then, pale shards of broken bone could even be seen through it.

His abdomen looked whole from the outside, but internally it was already choked with dark clotted blood. The muscles were badly torn, so badly that he could not even manage the most basic act of standing up.

And across his chest, the searing flames had burned his originally glossy, water-rich skin into a patch of blackened ruin. Thin strands of white smoke rose from it little by little. If he had dodged even a moment later, the tender flesh underneath would likely have been roasted into dead, charred meat as well.

Truthfully, the move Kael had made earlier, sacrificing his right leg to evade the attack, had not really been necessary.

Because even after escaping death in that instant, he had still ended up crippled and unable to move, reduced to prey waiting to be slaughtered.

For Talonflame and Castform, both still essentially unharmed, ending the fight would take no more than one final blow.

But Kael, even knowing how this would end, had never chosen to give up and stop struggling.

This was the final dignity of a soul strengthened by the system.

The harsh, winding experiences of his many lives as a Pokémon had left him unable to accept surrendering his life without resistance.

Kael lay on the ground, breathing raggedly, his dazed eyes fixed on the narrow strip of blue sky visible beyond the dense canopy overhead.

A strange emotion drifted within them.

Because in a true sense.

This was the first time he had ever really experienced what it felt like to die in the flesh.

Back when he was Caterpie and Ampharos, every death he suffered had come at the hands of enemies countless times stronger than himself. There had been no drawn-out pain, no long awareness of the end. Only a blink, and he was already back in the cycle space.

And in his previous life as Machamp, his death had come through willingly sacrificing all of his energy, body, and mind alike, until he became the blade that split the heavens apart in his own hands.

That kind of chosen death had brought with it neither resentment nor real pain.

So because of all those circumstances, even after multiple reincarnations, Kael was only now truly sinking into the mire of death for the very first time.

"This feeling..."

"It really is awful..."

"Damn it."

As both his body and mind weakened together, it felt as though he were falling into a pitch-black abyss.

Falling.

Still falling.

Endlessly.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the clearing.

Seeing that Kael had completely lost the ability to fight, Talonflame exchanged a glance with Castform, and the two silently reached the same understanding.

Talonflame stepped forward a couple of paces. Its black-and-crimson wings lifted slightly, and invisible blades of wind began to gather along them.

As it looked at the Sobble before it, whose life force was growing weaker by the second, Talonflame's golden vertical pupils remained cold and detached.

But if one of its own kind, one that truly knew it, had been standing there to see that expression, they would have realized that hidden beneath the indifference was another emotion entirely.

As one of the ruling predators of Molten Season Forest's skies, Talonflame did not fear Pokémon tribes with the potential to challenge its strength.

It was not the sort of species that slaughtered the young of its enemies simply to remove possible threats from the future.

Talonflame scorned that kind of behavior.

The pride passed down through its bloodline across generations made its kind believe that under the weight of their absolute strength, no Pokémon in the forest could ever truly overthrow their dominance.

Talonflame loved battle.

Especially in battles against truly powerful opponents.

And the Sobble before it, based on what it had just shown, clearly possessed the potential to one day become a worthy rival.

Under normal circumstances, if they had met elsewhere in the forest, Talonflame would never have regarded such a Pokémon with hostility. For a creature with that kind of potential, it would have felt genuine interest.

Because that would mean that somewhere in the not-so-distant future, a fierce and evenly matched battle might be waiting for it.

But now.

In the wrong place.

At the wrong time.

Kael's appearance left it no choice but to make a decision steeped in killing intent.

Without wasting another thought, Talonflame leveled its wings toward Kael and prepared to release a wind blade powerful enough to end his life for good.

It was as though a pair of unseen hands called fate were plucking at invisible strings stretched through the lives of every creature in this world.

And more often than not, events did not unfold the way ordinary beings expected.

Something changed.

A sudden shift.

It began.

"Wumm... boom..."

A vast, distant resonance, like a whisper shared between earth and sky, spread quietly through the world.

A trembling.

A shudder.

Fine dust drifted upward.

Branches and bushes swayed gently.

The change was so subtle that it barely seemed more noticeable than a passing breeze.

And yet the faint aura of destruction hidden within it was more terrifying than anything else in the world.

Shiver.

Tremble.

Talonflame's golden pupils contracted violently.

The pure instinct of a wild creature screamed within it, telling it that some great calamity was about to descend.

It reacted with a decisiveness unlike anything before.

Not a second could be wasted.

The razor-edged wind blades gathered on its wings dissolved into softer Flying-type energy and hurled its streamlined body sharply upward.

It's great wings beat once with all their strength, and with a desperate, ragged urgency, the black-and-scarlet figure shot away from the area at incredible speed.

Castform did the same.

It no longer spared a glance for the barely living Kael on the ground.

At the edge of an oncoming disaster, every heartbeat of escape time mattered more than anything.

Wrapped in blazing fire, it streaked toward the horizon as fast as it could.

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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter

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