Chapter Ninety-Three: Rescue

Although he had not dared to look closely at what was happening below, Amu had already heard Pippi speak of it: this was the annual rite that took place within Moonview Mountain every fifteenth day of the fifth month.

With the dancing of the Pippis, the Moon Eye would draw down the power of the moon.

Not only all the creatures that could evolve by means of the Moon Stone, but even any creature whose strength had reached the required level could seize this chance to evolve—and more than that, any creature that evolved beneath the Moon Eye would see its individual potential transform to nearly ten percent of perfection, approaching the theoretical limit.

When a creature has not yet reached its full growth, individual potential does not seem especially important.

But once a creature has reached its maximum growth at level one hundred, with its growth value nearing fifty percent and becoming difficult to raise further, then the importance of any improvement in individual potential becomes especially apparent.

There are also those who believe that individual potential is closely tied to a creature's innate quality, and that one with high innate quality is simply one that grows more smoothly and breaks through bottlenecks more easily.

Unlike growth value, individual potential does not change easily.

The Moon Eye of Moonview Mountain was one of the rare occasions capable of bringing about such a transformation.

If Amu could also see the mural traced in moonlight, he would surely guess that this place had something to do with the crescent moon goddess, Cresselia.

And if the mural were copied and flattened into a two-dimensional form, one would discover that the three main paths leading here corresponded precisely to the shape of a crescent's twin wings and tail feathers. Team Rocket had indeed split into three units and advanced along the routes, sweeping up every creature in their path. Only Aken's unit, having just finished a battle and been in the midst of regrouping, had been ambushed by Amu.

After that, Amu had again refused to take the ordinary road. Led by the Pippis, he had taken a shortcut through the left eye, a place where no path had existed, and arrived at the Moon Altar.

Now the remaining two routes had also converged here.

Although Aken's ambushed group was the smallest, Amu estimated that once news of the attack reached the others, some of them would surely head to that passage to intercept the unknown enemy and buy time for the rest.

At present, there were only a little over twenty Team Rocket members near the Moon Altar.

It was a pity that the Clefairy that evolved here each year would leave Moonview Mountain afterward; otherwise Team Rocket would never have so easily seized control of the situation.

...

Once the moonlight filled the Moon Altar, three or four of the dancing Pippis began to shine with white light.

Normally, this was only the beginning; every year, more than a dozen Pippis would evolve.

But Team Rocket had not come to watch them evolve.

They wanted, once the Moon Eye had been awakened, to take it away entire, and also to record the patterns on the surrounding cliff walls so they would have a reference for future experiments with the Moon Eye.

Just as Team Rocket was about to interrupt the Pippis' evolution, Amu came crashing down on Rhydon.

The moment he landed, he unleashed an Earthquake, and a surging wave of force swept outward in all directions.

Now far more practiced, Amu, in seamless accord with Duan and while still in a possessed state, controlled the impact to strike the very center of the most densely packed enemy formation.

Caught off guard, the nearby Team Rocket members and their creatures were thrown into a flurry of confusion.

Unfortunately, they were more spread out this time, and many around the edges were not affected.

At the same time, Amu severed the Animal Sense link with Duan and released the other creatures he had brought with him, including Misty's Starmie and Gyarados.

As long as the capsules were not locked, others could also use them, though only within a certain range of their owner, or they would stop working.

At that moment, Pippi also leaped down from Rhydon's back, while Gengar burst out from Amu's shadow.

Because of its earlier sleep, the potion's effects had not yet fully worn off in Gengar.

Meanwhile, when Pippi had been up above, it had used Belly Drum, then healed its injuries and taken another-typed stimulant potion.

The effect of Belly Drum was to turn all the silent expressions on the six pairs of gene loci corresponding to the physical-attack gene segment into fervent expression, meaning that even if it had previously been weakened sixfold, after Belly Drum it would behave as though strengthened sixfold.

That was equivalent to attack power four times its statistical value.

More importantly...

White light was also beginning to spread over Pippi's body.

Clearly it too was being driven toward evolution by the Moon Eye, and Amu even suspected it had long since been able to evolve, for reasons unknown, only delayed until this year.

There were more Team Rocket grunts on the scene, and they reacted quickly, immediately launching a counterattack.

However, from the opening of the left eye, wild creatures were also continuously charging down. Amu had already handed out all of the battle potions he carried among them.

"Bad! Stop him!" A Liang realized that Amu was aiming to break the cage holding Gengar and cried out in alarm.

Although the iron cage holding Gengar was sealed with a Purification Talisman, something that could not be removed by simple destruction, A Liang dared not gamble on it.

The Pippis present had to continue their ritual dance to keep the Moon Eye's radiance from being interrupted.

The other creatures trapped here were now important fighting strength.

Especially Gengar, which also needed to evolve.

Amu had once asked Pippi why Gengar was involved at all, since the Gengar line did not need the Moon Stone to evolve.

Pippi had smugly explained to him that Gengar was here to latch onto Pippi's coattails.

Wild Gengar found evolution extremely difficult, because without a trainer they could only rely on the power of Pippi to evolve, and under normal circumstances this was very hard to accomplish.

Indeed, because Gengar's shape is close to Pippi's, and because after evolving into Gengar it acquires weight, there had long been an urban legend that Gengar evolved by eating Pippi.

But in truth it was not a simple matter of "eating." Not only must Gengar and Pippi have an excellent relationship, Gengar must also draw sufficient power from Pippi's shadow, which is normally very difficult to achieve.

Unless...

Pippi was evolving.

That was why wild Gengar were so rare.

And when Pippi used the Moon Eye to evolve, Gengar could also ride the wave of effect. Thus within Moonview Mountain, besides Pippi and Cleffa, there were also many Gengar and Gastly living there.

Although the other Pippis and Gengar were far less ferocious than the two Amu had encountered before, if even a few more pairs evolved, Team Rocket simply would not be able to hold the line.

Rhydon's charge was blocked by a Rhyperior, but seeing that he was already not far from Gengar's cage, Amu simply used the momentum to spring into a somersault, braced one hand on the enemy Rhyperior's head, and hurled himself alone toward the cage.

The reason ghost-type creatures could be imprisoned was the Purification Talisman above it. In the game, this thing could reduce the appearance rate of all wild creatures, while in this world it was specifically used to ward off spirits and was exceptionally effective against ghost-type creatures.

The Purification Talisman on top of this cage now must have been written by a master of ghost-type training, so that no Gengar dared to touch the iron bars. However...

Possessing a trace of the power of the moon's path, equivalent to ghost-type power, Amu might not know how to write one, but he could at least tear it off.

Riiip...

Ignoring the Weezing behind him spewing poison at him, Amu gritted his teeth and ripped the Purification Talisman from the cage.

Two Houndoom were about to leap onto Amu, who had been poisoned and fallen to the ground, but at that moment...

"Gastly, Gastly—"

A swarm of Gengar ignored the iron cage and drifted outward, directly slamming into the creatures that had been pouncing on Amu and sending them flying aside.

"Brother Shen!"

"Mm!"

Shen Changqing walked along the road. Whenever he met someone he knew, they would greet each other or nod.

But no matter who it was, no one wore any extra expression on their face, as if they were indifferent to everything.

To this, Shen Changqing had long since grown used.

Because this was the Demon Suppression Bureau, an institution responsible for maintaining the stability of Great Qin, and its main duty was to slay demons, monsters, and other strange beings, though it also had a few other side duties.

It could be said that everyone in the Demon Suppression Bureau had blood on their hands.

When a person had seen too much life and death, they would become indifferent to many things.

When he first arrived in this world, Shen Changqing had been somewhat unaccustomed to it, but as time passed, he became used to it.

The Demon Suppression Bureau was large.

Those who could remain in it were all powerful experts, or people with the potential to become powerful experts.

Shen Changqing belonged to the latter.

Within the Demon Suppression Bureau, there were two professions in all: the Suppression Guardians and the Exorcists.

Anyone entering the Demon Suppression Bureau started as the lowest-ranking Exorcist and then advanced step by step, with the eventual hope of becoming a Suppression Guardian.

Shen Changqing's former self had been an apprentice Exorcist in the Demon Suppression Bureau, the lowest rank among Exorcists.

With his predecessor's memories, he was very familiar with the bureau's environment.

It did not take long before Shen Changqing stopped before a pavilion.

Unlike the other grim and murderous places in the Demon Suppression Bureau, this pavilion stood out like a crane among chickens, showing a different sort of quiet amid the bureau's blood-soaked atmosphere.

At this moment the main doors of the pavilion were open, and people occasionally came and went.

Shen Changqing hesitated only briefly before striding inside.

Once inside, the atmosphere changed abruptly.

A wave of ink fragrance mixed with a faint scent of blood washed over him, causing him to frown instinctively before quickly relaxing again.

The bloody scent carried by everyone in the Demon Suppression Bureau was almost impossible to wash away.