With such a powerful Pokémon at his side, it was necessary to remain on maximum alert at all times; otherwise, he could lose his life at any moment.
That saying about "negotiating with a tiger" probably referred precisely to this.
But thinking about it carefully, didn't the other party have the same idea?
At that moment, Marcus's attention was split in two: half of it was focused on Cain's Gengar, a Pokémon that likewise kept him on extreme alert.
"Alright, now let's talk about what exactly needs to be done," Cain said as he looked at the silver barrier visible to the naked eye in front of him.
"First, summon all the Pokémon," Marcus said indifferently.
Hearing this, Cain did not hesitate. He threw the six Poké Balls in his hand at the same time, and six Pokémon from the Eevee family appeared before them.
"Yaa!"
As soon as they appeared, upon seeing their familiar companions, the six Eeveelutions happily gathered together, clearly showing that their relationship with one another was very good.
Surely Ragnar and his group had deliberately cultivated the bond between them; otherwise, even though they were all Eeveelutions, it would not be so easy to fuse energies of different attributes without a long period of prior training.
The six were, respectively: Flareon of the Fire type, Vaporeon of the Water type, Jolteon of the Electric type, Umbreon of the Dark type, Espeon of the Psychic type, and Leafeon of the Grass type.
After that, Cain looked at Marcus.
Now that all the Eeveelutions were gathered, it remained to be seen what object Marcus would take out to truly break the barrier jointly created by Dialga and Palkia, and to do so without those two top-tier legendary Pokémon noticing.
Seeing the six Eeveelutions, a smile appeared at the corner of Marcus's lips.
"I didn't expect the six Eeveelutions I had longed for so much to gather in a situation like this. Truly, searching everywhere without success and then finding them unintentionally in the end," Marcus said emotionally.
Immediately afterward, without wasting time, Marcus carefully took out from his storage space a box made of a special material.
Cain's attention was immediately focused on that box, but the first to react was not Cain... it was Darkrai, who was hiding in his shadow.
If Cain had not instantly detected Darkrai's abnormality and stopped him right away, Darkrai would probably have already exposed himself.
Although Darkrai revealing himself would not have had too great an impact on Cain at that moment, he always needed to make sure to keep some hidden cards, so as not to be completely at Marcus's mercy.
Moreover, for something to be able to make even Darkrai almost lose control... there could only be one reason.
Marcus opened the special box. Inside was a special scale the size of a palm, pitch black with a faint purple tint, and from it emanated an enormous amount of Ghost-type and Dragon-type energy.
Combining Darkrai's reaction with those two energies, there was only one answer in Cain's mind.
The Netherworld Dragon! Giratina!
That was a scale of Giratina!
The Gengar beside Cain was also drawn to that scale. He had previously absorbed Ghost-type energy from Giratina; although after refining and transforming it, that energy no longer had any relation to Giratina and had become entirely his own, that did not prevent him from instantly recognizing the origin of that scale.
"This is..." Cain could not help but speak.
A trace of pride appeared on Marcus's face. When he himself learned the true origin of that scale, he had been terrified, and for that very reason, his confidence in the bishop of the church's abilities increased even more.
After all, not just anyone could obtain a scale from a top-tier legendary Pokémon like Giratina.
Moreover, this scale was not an ordinary scale. Even a normal scale of Giratina would not be easy to obtain, and a single one of them clearly would not be enough to break the energy barrier jointly created by Dialga and Palkia.
But if it was a reverse scale, then the story was different!
As a Dragon-type Pokémon, Giratina also possessed a reverse scale, and the energy it contained was immeasurable.
When Cain's Kommo-o tore off one of its own reverse scales to give it to his Salamence, it almost lost an entire level of strength; if Cain had not intervened in time, it might never have been able to recover.
This showed how important a reverse scale was to Dragon-type Pokémon.
And right now, a reverse scale of Giratina was right in front of Cain and Marcus.
"This is the reverse scale of the Netherworld Dragon, Giratina, a being capable of bringing about the destruction of the world and standing on the same level as Dialga and Palkia! Do you know what this thing is worth?" Marcus roared with a crazed expression as he held the box in front of Cain.
His eyes were filled with desire for that reverse scale; precisely to suppress that desire, his expression had become so fierce.
Just as I thought!
Hearing Marcus, Cain's heart trembled and his suspicions were confirmed.
Earlier, Cain had already learned certain secrets about Giratina, Dialga, and Palkia thanks to Darkrai.
The energy that drove Giratina's initial growth came entirely from Dialga and Palkia. If Giratina could absorb the energy of those two gods, then its scale would naturally have special properties against those same energies, and breaking the barrier would not be a problem.
So in the end, what was truly crucial to breaking the barrier was not the six Eeveelutions.
Although those six Pokémon of different attributes were extremely difficult to gather and possessed considerable strength, compared to Giratina's reverse scale, all of that seemed to lose importance.
"This reverse scale and the six Eeveelutions are indispensable, but right now we still can't break the barrier, can we?" Marcus suddenly said, closing the box again and speaking without much explanation.
However, Cain seemed to understand what he meant and nodded slowly.
"That's right, now is still not the time. At critical moments, someone always shows up to interfere... don't you think so, Tony?"
Cain and Marcus looked at the same time toward a huge rock not far away.
