Pokémon: tagross (Steel/Psychic)
Level: 95
Potential: Gold
Ability: Light tal
Held Item: tal Coat
Gender: Genderless
Moves: Tackle, Steel Beam, Confusion, tal Claw, Bullet Punch, Flash Cannon, Magnet Rise, Psychic, Scary Face, Hamr Arm, teor Mash, Take Down, Agility, Hyper Beam
TMs: Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, Iron Defense, Reflect, Protect, Light Screen, Psycho Cut, Shadow Ball, Gyro Ball, Psyshock, Trailblaze, Bulldoze, Mud-Slap, Aerial Ace, Icy Wind, Rock Tomb, Brick Break, Thunder Punch, Rest, Teleport, Psychic Fangs, Hard Press, Giga Impact, Future Sight, Focus Punch, Earthquake, Heavy Slam, Body Slam, Ice Beam Rock Slide, Grass Knot, Ice Punch, Fire Punch, Recover
Egg Moves: None
Note: Enhanced by the Heart of Arceus—all stats boosted, potential increased.
Note: After absorbing the Blacklight Core, the Pokémon continuously absorbs sunlight to restore its stamina (limited to Steel- and Rock-types)
Note: After using the Steel Crystal, Steel-type moves’ power increased by 30%.
Note: Enhanced by the Blood of the Gods—potential transford.
Note: Gold potential—path to godhood unlocked, overall strength increased by 50%.
Note: Gold Potential; possesses a trace of divinity. Within a ten-kiloter radius, Pokémon with potential lower than Gold have their strength suppressed by 10% (Purple potential), 20% (Blue), 30% (Cyan), 50% (below Cyan).
Note: Used Bloodstone—HP increased, healing speed of injuries increased.
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The King Form of Kleavor was in no way inferior to a World-class treasure—in fact, it might even be better.
Since tagross' debut, the resources from the system and the Walker family had been poured into it continuously. How strong it truly was, even Julian himself wasn’t entirely sure—because until now, tagross had never encountered an opponent that pushed it to its limits.
tagross’s Gold potential originally allowed it to suppress opponents with lower potential, but Kleavor’s King Form granted it immunity to negative status effects, so the suppression effect didn’t activate.
At level 95, tagross was at the mid-stage Champion-level. Compared to Kleavor, which was close to the peak of Champion-level, there was indeed a noticeable gap in levels.
Among Champions, even a one-level difference often translated to a significant disparity in strength—let alone the four-level gap between tagross and Kleavor.
Level was tied to strength, but it didn’t tell the whole story.
"Go, tagross!"
Without any unnecessary words, Julian gave the command.
"ta~"
tagross: "Let test your strength."
In the blink of an eye, tagross teleported right in front of Kleavor. Its right claw rose and slamd down with a thunderous impact, compressing, gathering, and condensing the air around it.
Even before the teor Mash could land, the terrifying pressure it generated had already caused the ground beneath Kleavor to cave in.
"Kle!"
Kleavor raised the stone axe on its right arm. A sharp aura flowed along the blade of the axe, slicing through the pressure ford by teor Mash.
The next second, Slash collided with teor Mash.
Clang!
A sound like clashing steel reverberated throughout the Grandtree Arena. The shockwaves from the collision swept through the surroundings, shattering one giant tree after another.
When the shockwaves subsided, the first exchange between tagross and Kleavor ended in a draw.
Yet neither of them knew just how much strength the other had truly used.
A cold glint flashed in Kleavor's eyes. It pushed off the ground with explosive force, sending tagross flying backward while swiftly giving chase.
Its twin axes transford into streams of golden light, relentlessly slashing toward tagross.
Fury Cutter!
tagross's eyes glowed with blue light as psychic energy surged forth, weaving into threads that attempted to entangle Kleavor. However, before the threads could even get close, they were severed by Fury Cutter.
tagross's internal supercomputer analyzed the chain reactions in Kleavor's arms, body, ankles, and other parts to predict the trajectory of its axe strikes.
As if foreseeing the future, tagross dodged each strike with precision—even as Kleavor's Fury Cutter grew faster and faster, every slash only grazed past tagross's body.
One after another, axe marks tore through the ground below, each stretching several kiloters long.
At first glance, the destructive power might seem underwhelming—almost unworthy of Kleavor's level. After all, even an Elite-level Pokémon using Fury Cutter could leave deep gouges in the ground.
But Kleavor was a level 99, late-stage Champion Pokémon. How could its Fury Cutter be so... modest?
If you really thought that, then death was almost guaranteed.
The limited range of Fury Cutter wasn't due to weak power—it was because the power was concentrated in the initial segnt of the strike.
If you looked closely, you'd notice that the marks left by these Fury Cutter slashes grew shallower and wider the further they extended.
At the very beginning, the mark was only as wide as a pinky finger.
As for the depth—if you asured it with specialized equipnt, you'd find it reached nearly a kiloter down.
The power of Fury Cutter was concentrated at the start and diminished from there.
To put it bluntly, a single Fury Cutter strike was more than enough to instantly defeat an early-stage Champion Pokémon.
Having swung over a hundred tis, the entire ground had turned into a spiderweb of cracks, fissures spreading everywhere.
Yet not a single strike had managed to hit tagross. Even so, there was no sign of Kleavor stopping.
"Its stamina is really terrifying," Julian muttered with a serious expression.
Fury Cutter was a move that relied on high-speed successive strikes, which heavily drained a Pokémon's stamina and endurance.
It was like sprinting 200 ters versus jogging 1,000 ters—the sprint left you far more exhausted.
Right now, Kleavor was essentially sprinting at 200-ter pace for a full kiloter. Yet, despite this extre exertion, its condition showed no signs of deteriorating.
"Kle!"
Kleavor brought its axe down again, but tagross remained expressionless. It had already dodged over a hundred such attacks.
The mont the axe was raised, it had already calculated where it would land.
Its body shifted slightly to the left—the axe would just graze past it.
"Kle—"
Reality did match tagross’s prediction—but midway through the swing, Kleavor’s axe suddenly twisted.
The downward slash suddenly veered to the left halfway through.
Such a mid-attack adjustnt required not just impeccable timing but also imnse physical control.
If your body wasn't strong enough, forcing a change in motion like this would not only fail but also easily injure you.
BOOM!
tagross was sent flying like a teor, crashing through one giant tree after another. In an instant, a path had been carved out by tagross's trajectory.
"Forcibly changing moves like that—isn’t it afraid of throwing its back out? Its body must be incredibly sturdy," Julian remarked with amazent.
He didn't seem worried at all about tagross being hit.
"This guy's got brains too. Over a hundred Fury Cutters, then suddenly changing mid-swing."
Normally, if you had the ability to alter your attack mid-swing, you'd likely do so after a dozen or so misses.
But Kleavor waited until after over a hundred missed strikes before suddenly switching things up.
Was it intentionally lulling tagross into a false sense of security? Or was it just stubbornly insisting on hitting tagross with a conventional Fury Cutter, only resorting to a change when it absolutely couldn't land a hit?
If it was the forr, then this opponent was even more troubleso.
If it was the latter, and this guy was just plain stubborn... well, that made things a bit easier to deal with.
*****
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