"Hera~"
ga Heracross stood up again, glaring at tagross with an unconvinced look.
Heracross: "Co on, again. I just slipped earlier."
Even after ga Evolution, it still couldn’t beat tagross. This left ga Heracross feeling extrely frustrated. That hunk of tal in front of him—he was determined to beat it into scrap.
tagross: "All talk."
A minute and thirty seconds had already passed. Julian had said to finish the battle within three minutes, but tagross felt that it could wrap things up in just two.
“ta~”
tagross couldn’t drag this out any longer—it had to take Heracross down now.
As tagross’s eyes sharpened, a powerful pressure burst from its body.
At this mont, it felt like a completely different Pokémon from before.
“Heracross, gahorn!” Murphy shouted.
He had clearly noticed the change in tagross. At the sa ti, ga Heracross wasn’t in great shape—it was clearly running out of steam. If the battle didn’t end soon, dragging it out would only be bad for him.
Heracross’s horn was its strongest weapon, and after ga Evolution, its power was like it had been doubled.
ga Heracross lowered its head slightly, pointing its fearso horn directly at tagross: "Don't try to dodge if you have the guts."
This guy even knew how to taunt tagross.
With an explosive push from its legs, the ground bood as two craters ford beneath its feet, and its body turned into a streak of dark blue light.
The horn on its head pierced through the air, wrapped in milky white currents, creating a sharp, piercing screech that filled the entire space.
A dangerously sharp aura surged toward tagross.
Even Julian, who was standing outside the protective barrier, was affected by the pressure. It felt as if both he and tagross would be pierced straight through by that aura.
Being ntally affected by a Pokémon’s move could only an that the Pokémon had mastered that move to an incredible degree.
To put it in a more mystical way—it had reached perfection.
If it wasn’t for the ntal injury, ga Heracross's attack would never have been able to affect Julian like this.
Although Julian's mind was affected, tagross remained completely unaffected.
It didn’t dodge the attack. Instead, it raised its right arm, now surrounded by a rainbow-colored light, shining like a cot.
teor Mash—tagross’s most-used move.
If Heracross's attack could affect soone, then of course tagross could do it too.
Murphy’s breath caught in his throat. To him, it felt like the whole world had frozen—the surroundings disappeared, leaving only that cot-like streak of rainbow light descending from the sky.
BOOM!!
Accompanied by a thunderous boom, rubble flew through the air as a terrifying shockwave swept across the entire battlefield.
Murphy’s dazed expression was pulled back to reality by the deafening sound.
He froze for a mont, then as if realizing sothing, quickly looked toward the field.
Just in ti to see ga Heracross being blasted away—and during the arc of its flight, its body had already reverted from its ga Evolution form.
Bang!
Heracross crashed heavily into the protective barrier once again.
But this ti, after sliding to the ground, it didn’t get up again.
"ta~"
tagross stood steadily on the ground: "One minute, fifty-nine seconds."
"Heracross, get up!"
Murphy looked at his fallen Heracross in disbelief, his face full of unwillingness.
He could accept losing—but losing like this was a huge blow to his confidence.
They had agreed to end the battle in three minutes.
But looking at the tir on the edge of the field that had stopped at 1:59.
Murphy: 'You liar.'
He glared at Julian. That guy had completely fooled him—and now, he and Heracross had beco nothing more than background characters.
Julian: 'What’s with that look? Why does it seems like I played with your feelings or sothing?'
Murphy returned Heracross and left without saying a word.
From his earlier confidence and pride, to now looking utterly defeated—Murphy perfectly demonstrated what it ant to be crushed by the gap between dreams and reality.
While Murphy was battling Julian, the remaining four had already decided the order of their appearances.
Lucian, who was going second, originally wanted to ask Murphy for advice—but before he could even open his mouth, Murphy spoke first:
“I couldn’t even land a hit, you four losers should just forfeit now.”
The four of them instantly flared up in anger.
Lucian: “That’s because you’re the loser! You couldn’t win even after ga Evolving!”
“That tagross is way stronger than when it challenged the Rock-type Gym!”
Murphy didn’t get mad—after all, he was the one who called them losers first. But deep down, he still hoped one of the four could defeat Julian.
Not for any noble reason—he just didn’t want to see Julian acting all smug.
It had been half a year since tagross defeated Fred's peak Elite Pokémon.
In these past six months, even though tagross’s level had remained at the peak of pseudo-Elite tier, its strength had kept increasing. Julian had continued pouring an insane amount of resources into it.
And while Murphy’s Heracross had indeed reached the Elite peak after ga Evolving, it still fell short when compared to veteran trainers like Fred who had spent years at that level.
“Well? How about it, is my dear grandson strong?”
John said proudly, seeing how quickly Julian had wrapped up his battle—while the other four were still fighting, though they too were almost done.
“Yeah, yeah, we get it. Your grandson’s amazing. Now quit bragging.”
Duke shot John a sharp look.
Ever since Julian made his debut, John had been going around telling everyone his grandson had the makings of a Champion. At first, people just laughed it off—after all, becoming a Champion wasn’t sothing that happened easily.
But as Julian gradually began to make a na for himself…
That line—“My grandson has the makings of a Champion”—which was once treated like a joke, now didn’t sound so far-fetched anymore.
“Sure, a few juniors in your families are talented, but compared to my dear grandson, they’re still a little worse.”
With one sentence, John managed to offend all four of the pseudo-champions including Victor.
If John wasn’t a Champion, they’d probably have already ganged up on him and beaten him into the ground.
Victor replied calmly as usual: “It’s not like you trained him.”
The Walker family might have deep roots, but even with all their resources, it would’ve been impossible to produce a prodigy like Julian without so sort of incredible stroke of fortune.
“So what? I gave him his tagross.”
Julian’s tagross was split from John’s own tagross. Then he turned to the woman next to him: “Old Lady Hearth, your granddaughter is just a little older, otherwise there might have still been a chance.”
Old Lady Hearth was Ember’s grandmother.
“No need for your concern, plenty of people are chasing after my granddaughter, even Victor’s son has shown interest.”
John scoffed and turned to Victor: “Your son? That’s not good, a real man should find a younger woman.”
“And your granddaughter—she’s already 27 or 28 and still not married. If she waits any longer, she’ll be left on the shelf. Want to introduce her to soone? I promise he'd be better than Asher.”
“And it's not like you don't know what Victors like, he takes forever to say a single word.”
“His son’s probably the sa—mute as a rock.”
“You don’t want your granddaughter to marry a mute, right?”
Lady Hearth: “Victor, how about we team up?”
Victor: “I’m in.”
John: “Even if you team up, you still can’t beat . I’m a Champion.”
Lady Hearth and Victor: (╬ ಠ益ಠ)
*****
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