Chapter 61: Evil Spirit Pokémon

Due to the mysterious evil spirit incident, the entire Imperial Capital was gripped by panic and anxiety. Xia Yu was temporarily unable to head to the Dragon-type secret realm for special training, nor did he dare to go treasure hunting in the Imperial Capital. He had no choice but to stay at the Lin residence, which drove him slightly stir-crazy.

With no other options, he was forced to pour most of his energy into training his three Pokémon, while spending the remaining time writing his research paper on exclusive Z-Crystals.

Writing a paper was a rather troublesome task, and it had to be supported by factual evidence to validate his hypotheses. Among them, the exclusive Z-Moves gave Xia Yu a major headache because they required a Z-Power Ring. Since neither the anime nor the games ever mentioned how to upgrade one—with only the four island guardian deities helping Ash upgrade his Z-Ring into a Z-Power Ring—Xia Yu guessed that the core key to upgrading a Z-Ring should be related to energy.

Whether the facts were actually so remained to be seen once he could test it in a laboratory. If not, merely researching the Z-Power Ring would take a considerable amount of time.

***

Two days later, Xia Yu looked out the window. Outside, the torrential rain was still pouring relentlessly. After two days of clear weather, the Imperial Capital had returned to downpours, with thunder and lightning casting a depressing pall over people's moods.

Over the past two days, Xia Yu had received video calls from his parents, his older brother, and Fatty Wu. Clearly having heard about the Imperial Capital's evil spirit incident on the news, they all rushed to express their concern for him.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Capital had been in a state of growing unease over the last two days. Especially in the Peace District of the Imperial Capital—being the site of the incident—even pedestrians on the streets had dwindled significantly, making the area appear exceptionally desolate and dreary.

The Imperial Capital's police force had also deployed a massive amount of manpower and resources to investigate from multiple angles and pull surveillance footage, but ultimately, they came up empty-handed. They did not even know whether the mysterious Pokémon had a Trainer behind it.

The only useful piece of information was that the mysterious Pokémon possessed immense strength—at least at the quasi-Elite level; otherwise, it would not have been able to kill three people without making a sound.

Trainers regularly cleared out wild Pokémon in the Imperial Capital, to the point that even Elite-level wild Pokémon were rarely seen under normal circumstances. The appearance of such a formidable Pokémon this time was definitely an anomaly.

Since those three people were killed that day, no further evil spirit murder incidents had occurred in the Imperial Capital over the consecutive two days. The mysterious Pokémon seemed to have vanished into thin air, but everyone knew it was merely lying low, waiting for new prey.

This was precisely what made Ghost-type Pokémon so elusive and terrifying. As long as they truly wanted to hide and concealed their presence, they were extremely difficult to detect. Yet, it would inevitably appear to kill again, because certain Pokémon, once they had killed humans, became terrifyingly depraved; they would unconsciously begin to view humans as prey and hunt them relentlessly.

Xia Yu was actually quite curious about this mysterious Pokémon as well, but he also knew his own limits. With the current strength of his three Pokémon, he definitely lacked the qualifications and capability to pry into this mysterious entity.

To get involved, Xia Yu estimated that his Pokémon needed to reach at least Gym Leader-level strength, and even then, it would barely be enough to preserve their lives. That Pokémon had been able to slaughter all the bodyguards' Pokémon, placing its strength at least at the quasi-Elite level. Going there without Gym Leader-level strength would simply be feeding oneself to the enemy.

***

This realization ignited a sense of urgency within Xia Yu. He had to exhaust every effort to elevate his own strength. The feeling of being completely helpless and utterly unable to take control of one's own destiny was simply dreadful.

***

This state of affairs continued for two more days until the intensive training class issued a new notice. However, compared to the previous time, this session was made entirely closed-off, and four quasi-Elite Trainers were dispatched in person to pick up the students and guarantee their safety.

At the same time, until the Imperial Capital's evil spirit was found, no one was permitted to leave the Dragon-type secret realm. Naturally, participation in this training session was entirely voluntary.

Xia Yu naturally chose to participate. The dense Dragon-type energy within the Dragon-type secret realm was immensely beneficial to the growth of his three Pokémon, so he certainly had no intention of remaining at home.

As for safety concerns, Xia Yu had even less reason to worry. With an incident of this magnitude having occurred, Long Fan would undoubtedly oversee the Dragon-type secret realm around the clock. Coupled with the Tianwang-level and quasi-Elite-level masters residing within the secret realm, the safety level here was far higher than staying at home.

After confirming his participation in the closed-off training, Xia Yu informed Elder Lin and Grandmother Qin so the two elderly individuals would not worry.

He packed his belongings, and two hours later, the doorbell rang. Long Yanning appeared at the doorway, looking utterly exhausted with her hair soaked by the rain. Xia Yu was startled. Was this really that glamorous Teacher Long he knew?

Having not seen her for two days, Long Yanning appeared noticeably worn out, with extremely prominent dark circles under her eyes. She had barely closed her eyes over the past forty-eight hours. Even though the incident had no direct connection to her, the murder of a student weighed heavily on her conscience, filling her with self-blame. After all, that student had been killed just after leaving the secret realm and being handed over to the bodyguards; strictly speaking, her responsibility was minimal.

Nevertheless, Long Yanning had spent the past two days relentlessly searching for the culprit who murdered the student, only to come up completely empty-handed. In a sprawling city like the Imperial Capital, combined with the nature of a Ghost-type Pokémon, searching for it was undoubtedly akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

"Teacher Long," Xia Yu greeted.

"Let's go," Long Yanning said, gesturing toward the sedan parked in the rain and signaling Xia Yu to get in.

"Okay." Xia Yu nodded, followed Long Yanning into the back seat of the car, and the driver in the front silently started the engine and drove off.

The journey from the Lin residence to the Dragon-type secret realm took about an hour, or perhaps two hours considering traffic jams.

Once inside the car, the exhausted Long Yanning leaned her head against the window to rest. Two consecutive days of sleeplessness had drained her energy completely, and before long, her eyelids grew heavy as she drifted into a deep sleep.

Xia Yu did not disturb Long Yanning. Instead, he turned his gaze outside the window, though unfortunately, the torrential rain obstructed his vision, falling just as heavily as the rain two days ago, accompanied by flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder.

The car moved smoothly along the streets, heading toward the Dragon-type secret realm. After passing through the bustling downtown area, the crowds gradually thinned out, leaving only the trees on both sides of the road flashing past the car windows.

Long Yanning slept soundly along the way. Perhaps because the window frame was too hard to lean against, her head gradually drifted in her sleep and came to rest on Xia Yu's shoulder.

Xia Yu frowned as he looked at Long Yanning, strongly tempted to shake her awake directly—after all, propriety dictated that men and women should not touch—but seeing her haggard expression, Xia Yu ultimately held back.

Still, if you're going to sleep, why on earth are you drooling?

Just as Xia Yu was complaining inwardly, he suddenly felt a momentary sense of stagnation in the surrounding space and time, though it felt almost like an illusion of his own.

At that very moment, however, a blinding red light flashed. Utilizing the cover of the night, Xia Yu only saw the red light pierce through the driver-side window. The car was forced to a halt in an instant, and the crimson light pierced right through the driver's body, depriving him of even the time to emit a cry before he died instantly.

Fresh blood gushed forth, instantly splashing across both Xia Yu and Long Yanning. In that exact fraction of a second, Xia Yu felt his soul nearly leave his body. He violently forced the car door open, grabbed Long Yanning, dragged her out through the door, and leaped out with her, tumbling onto the ground as rain soaked their bodies.

Long Yanning was jolted awake by the violent commotion, but she reacted instantly. As the two of them looked up, two terrifying figures of Pokémon came into view before their eyes.

Clearly, Xia Yu and his companion had fallen victim to that evil spirit Pokémon—no, those two evil spirit Pokémon!

No one had anticipated that the entities hunting humans were two Pokémon rather than one. As for whether there were humans pulling the strings behind these two Pokémon, absolutely no one knew!