What did you expect?

On the pitch-black sea, the distant waves looked like giant beasts waiting to devour anyone, and a solitary flat boat was moving forward within them seemingly powerlessly...
Only "seemingly" powerless!
In fact, the two wooden oars on this small boat were spinning so fast that its speed was by no means slow.
"Old sir, you're spinning your oars like a motorboat; there's no ghostly atmosphere left at all..." Elm reminded him from the boat.
Hearing Elm's words, Ghastly turned its head—or rather, its entire body—revealing a face with only three hollow holes...
Seeing that Elm still showed no sign of fear, Ghastly spoke up: "Just mind your navigation properly!"
Clearly, it had already discovered that Elm was exceptionally bold.
Or rather...
From the moment the other party dared to ignore all kinds of bizarreness and keep the appointment at this time, it already meant that he had mentally prepared himself beforehand!
"Are you going 'there', and you still need me to point the way?" Elm asked somewhat tentatively.
Originally, Elm assumed this Ghastly must have been the Pokémon of a warrior who went on the expedition back then, but if that were the case, why would it still need him to lead the way?
"Where do you think... you are pointing to?" Ghastly sneered, not answering directly.
Elm gradually developed a mild headache, feeling as if he had been exposed to the wind for too long.
Fortunately, at this moment, that fire rekindled in Elm's spirit, which somewhat eased his brain, aching from the "wind".
Elm also understood by now that he was using his spirituality to activate what should be the "binding ribbon left by the millennial maiden", temporarily gaining the ability to perceive "ripples of time".
However, this ability was overdrawing Elm's body—or rather, his "energy". Fortunately, the [Undying Flame] was constantly restoring Elm's energy and weakening the negative effects!
From this perspective, wanting to find a second person besides Elm who could perceive this direction... was not impossible, after all, so many trainers possessed special abilities, but it certainly wouldn't be easy to find.
After a long while, under Elm's guidance, the small boat arrived at a certain expanse of the sea... They hadn't reached the storm zone yet, or could it be that the storm was fake to begin with?
Elm always felt that they were indeed getting further and further away from the port of Maiden's Peak, yet the storm area didn't seem to be getting any closer!
By this time, the lights of the port were almost invisible...
"It seems to be right here... No matter which direction we go, the 'wind' blows from here as its source." As Elm spoke, he immediately pulled the ribbon off his head.
What he had felt before was not true "wind", but rather... the precursor to the appearance of time ripples, which was still a bit too burdensome for Elm.
"It's about time, too," Ghastly said, looking at the pitch-black sea.
The last 24 hours until the "Millennium"!
Originally, Elm thought those warriors who failed to return had died in battle on some small island, but now it seemed... they had perished on the open sea?
At that very moment, Elm noticed a distortion in the surrounding spacetime...
Then, amidst a dizzying spin, Elm discovered that his location had completely changed.
This time... he had truly arrived on a small island, and there was a moon hanging in the sky—even though Elm hadn't been able to see the moon earlier due to the overcast sky over the sea!
"This is..." Amidst Elm's confusion, he suddenly discovered something even more astonishing.
The Ghastly by his side had also vanished...
No! Not vanished, but rather... turned into a human?
On the island, beside Elm stood a person wearing battle armor. Although the other person hadn't spoken yet, judging by his aura, Elm sensed that he was the "Ghastly" from just moments ago!
Elm looked at his armor a few more times...
It did indeed look somewhat similar to the ancient armor he had seen in the exhibitions in Saffron City.
Noticing Elm's gaze fixed on his armor, the man looked quite proud and said, "Heh, unlike those childish Pokémon battles you have nowadays, we are trainers who truly command Pokémon to attack each other!"
"You... are human?" Elm felt his mind struggling to keep up.
Could it really be true that "human souls can turn into Ghost-type Pokémon"?
As for the current situation before him, Elm already had a few guesses—perhaps the ripples of time had caused him to travel through time temporarily?
In this world, things like "time travel" were far more logical than "human souls turning into Ghost-type Pokémon"!
After all, the time sprite "Celebi" and the time dragon "Dialga" were both divine beasts related to the power of time, and there were many legends about them, not a few of which involved spacetime travel...
Yet Ghost-type Pokémon also hatched from "eggs"—it was just that the form in which the "egg" existed was different; this was a widely accepted axiom in the Pokémon world!
The "warrior suspected to be Ghastly" in front of him was just about to say something, but right then, a sound of footsteps approached...
Seeing this, the warrior immediately looked tense, pushed Elm into the nearby bushes, and warned him: "Hide well!"
Then he pretended as if everything were normal and looked toward the direction from which the footsteps were coming.
Elm had no idea what was happening, so he simply followed instructions and hid well, quietly peeking toward that side...
Walking over were two lackeys whose armor indicated they were of a much lower rank than the "Ghastly warrior".
"Lord Lin, the password." The two lackeys wore noticeably sluggish expressions.
"Swift as the wind," the Ghastly warrior said coldly.
Hearing this, the two lackeys walked away sluggishly, seemingly... patrolling.
After they walked far away, the Ghastly warrior, addressed as "Lord Lin," motioned for Elm to come out.
"What is going on here? Have we traveled back a thousand years?" Elm asked, puzzled.
"No, it's this place... that has been sealed for a thousand years," the Ghastly warrior said, signaling Elm to follow him.
"Sealed? What do you mean?"
"A thousand years ago..."
"Wait, let's set that aside for a moment... How on earth did you turn into a Ghastly?" Elm was still puzzled by this matter.
Lin: ...
After all, stories of coveting the power of divine beasts, searching for divine beasts, and even attempting to control divine beasts, only to bring disaster upon themselves in the end, were simply too numerous—one more family like yours didn't make much difference, and one less didn't matter either... Elm was far more interested in how a human could turn into a Ghastly!
"Do you know which clan we belong to?" Lin first glared angrily at this impolite fellow, but then realizing there were no other candidates around, he had no choice but to ask in rhetorical frustration.
"The Lin family?" Elm guessed—didn't the other party just call him "Lord Lin"?
After a moment of speechlessness, the other replied, "'Lin' is my given name! We are the Kato clan!"
Only then did understanding dawn on Elm—of course, they were all members of the same family; if his surname were Lin, wouldn't addressing him as "Lord Lin" make it impossible to distinguish him from others?
Seeing Elm's expression, the man assumed Elm knew of the "Kato clan," and thus asked with a trace of pride, "Do you... still remember the ultimate technique of the Kato clan?"
"The ultimate technique of the Kato clan?" Elm was startled upon hearing this, then wore a strange expression, twitching the corners of his mouth without speaking aloud.
Seeing Elm's expression, Lin was also puzzled: "Why, it's the [Technique of Spiritual Manifestation], of course! What did you think?"