"Darkaaii!" Darkrai slowly emerged from Cain's shadow. Those black claws were none other than his own hands.
No matter how much Mightyena and Krookodile struggled, they couldn't move even an inch.
In an instant, Darkrai's body trembled slightly, and a ring of black light appeared behind him, enveloping both Pokémon, who immediately fell into a deep sleep.
Then Darkrai gently shook his hands. Restraining Pokémon of that level—and two at the same time—had been somewhat exhausting for him.
Marcus, who was behind Cain, watched Darkrai, who had dealt with his two Pokémon so effortlessly. Far from being frightened, a burning look appeared in his eyes.
As a trainer specialized in Dark-type Pokémon, no one understood better than him what Darkrai represented.
He was the god of Nightmares, Darkrai!
"This..." Marcus was about to say something when he saw Darkrai's cold expression, but someone beat him to it.
"¡¡¡AAAAAH!!!"
A heart-rending scream spread across the entire mountaintop. Tony, who had already disappeared via teleportation, reappeared in midair—this time without his usual composure.
Because beside him appeared... another Pokémon.
The god of space, Palkia!
Palkia emerged from space, holding Tony with a glacial expression.
It seemed that Tony had fallen victim to his own cleverness. He thought that after attacking the barrier and leaving, he could get away, not knowing that the first person Palkia would punish would be precisely the one who had attacked the barrier.
Amid screams of agony, Tony died on the spot.
Marcus stiffly looked upward and saw that Pokémon who had been his nightmare all this time. Now it floated above his head, looking at him and Cain with cold, indifferent eyes.
With the next breath, Dialga also appeared above the mountain, a little slower.
The moment they appeared, both of them sensed the presence they disliked the most: the aura of Giratina, the Pokémon born alongside them, yet rejected by both.
When they looked at the energy barrier they had created, their expressions became even more frigid.
Giratina's scale! And moreover, his most important Reverse Scale!
No wonder it had been able to break their carefully prepared barrier!
Cain also sensed the arrival of Dialga and Palkia, but he couldn't pay attention to them. He fixed his gaze on the junction between Giratina's Reverse Scale and the barrier—numerous cracks had already appeared.
At this point, the role of the Eeveelutions had already ended. It was enough to wait a little longer for the barrier to slowly dissolve and for what was inside to be revealed before Cain and Marcus.
But Tony had forcibly brought those two Pokémon here, and now they could no longer keep waiting.
Mega Gengar sent Greninja flying and immediately returned to Cain's shadow.
Dialga and Palkia were truly furious.
At first, they thought it was just a reckless Pokémon attacking their barrier. If not for the fact that the attack was truly powerful, they wouldn't have returned.
But when Palkia saw that the one who had attacked was the same person they had punished not long ago, his rage exploded.
Just as they expected, upon sensing Marcus's presence, their suspicions were confirmed.
Thus, these two legendary Pokémon decided to no longer forgive the human trainers who had repeatedly challenged them. First they eliminated Tony, and then they would go after Marcus.
However, what truly ignited their fury was not those humans, but the black scale attached to the barrier, emitting that all-too-familiar aura.
Upon sensing that presence, both Pokémon erupted with rage instantly.
Marcus, Tony, and even the energy of the Unown openly emanating from Cain were completely ignored.
In their eyes, only that scale existed.
That black Reverse Scale before them was as if Giratina himself were there, provocatively.
"¡¡¡ROAR!!!"
"¡¡¡ROAR!!!"
The roars of Dialga and Palkia spread across the entire continent. Without hesitation, both charged at full speed toward the scale.
Reacting too late out of fear, Marcus tried to dodge with the help of Greninja.
At the same time, with Palkia's roar, the continent's spatial lockdown intensified drastically. Members of the Sacred Church who were teleporting toward the mountain were violently expelled from space one after another.
The luckiest ones only suffered damage to their psychic abilities and some injuries. The unluckiest, who were performing long-distance teleportations, were expelled outside the continent... or directly crushed to death.
Sensing the violent energy fluctuations behind him, with every hair on his body standing on end, Cain showed no emotion at all. He only fixed his gaze on the Reverse Scale—or more precisely, on the cracks around it.
There was no longer any way to escape. From the moment he accepted the Unown's suggestion, he had lost all possibility of retreat.
Cain took large strides toward the barrier and clenched his right fist.
"Don't fail me now, little ones. I've always trusted you," Cain murmured toward his fist.
Then he drew his arm back, like a bow pulled to its absolute limit, loaded with explosive force.
"¡¡¡To hell with everything!!! ¡¡¡Aaah!!!" Cain's heart pounded violently; he could only release the tension that way in the face of the madness of energy behind him.
It was the first time in his life he had felt energy fluctuations of this level so close. The hair on the back of his neck was as rigid as steel.
BANG!
Cain's fist slammed squarely into the crack-covered barrier. Wrapped in the energy of the Unown, his fist turned completely milky white.
Crack!
Like glass shattering, that blow opened a hole in the barrier along the cracks formed by Giratina's Reverse Scale, and Cain, driven by inertia, fell headfirst into the barrier.
But at the very instant the barrier broke, Dialga's move Roar of Time and Palkia's move Spacial Rend had already reached his back.
At that critical moment, Darkrai—who had always been fused with Cain's shadow—immediately appeared. He grabbed Giratina's Reverse Scale embedded in the barrier and channeled its energy to create a protective shield behind Cain.
However, in the face of the furious attacks of two top-tier legendary Pokémon, that shield looked incredibly fragile.
¡¡¡BOOOOM!!!
