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Hearing this, Li Xiang stopped asking questions. Nearly three minutes had been wasted. The glow from the Ultimate Weapon above grew brighter and brighter. He had no time left.
'Do I still need to operate the control panel? How do I use these USB drives? There's no port!'
Li Xiang glanced at the chubby man. The big one was definitely dead, but this guy still had some use.
With heavy steps, he walked over to the shattered control panel.
Perhaps due to Suicune's crystal walls, some of the machinery had been flung elsewhere, and wires lay severed on the ground.
Li Xiang had no idea if any of this was still functional.
Luckily, the screen was still intact and glowing, though cluttered with red triangle warning icons.
The text on it was completely incomprehensible to him. It wasn't English or Chinese—just strange symbols that didn't match any language he knew.
'What now? I can't read this!'
Li Xiang stared wide-eyed, never expecting these people to use some unknown script.
'Whatever, we're dead anyway!'
He searched the control panel and found three slots that matched the shape of the USB drives.
Inserting them, the screen immediately displayed a new window filled with more unintelligible text.
Li Xiang had planned to brute-force his way through like he did with untranslated Japanese games back in the day, but there were no options to choose from—just lines of cryptic code, not even a single number.
He had never seen this language before and there was no way he could decipher it. Even with the USB drives, he couldn't use them.
His gaze returned to the chubby man. 'Should I make him do it?'
But the problem was, Li Xiang couldn't break the ice trapping him, and the control panel couldn't be moved. And Suicune…
'It has already passed out!'
Li Xiang's eyes widened. He hadn't expected Suicune to fail at such a critical moment.
Now, life and death truly rested in his hands alone.
The glow above grew brighter. Without Suicune's crystal walls to block it, the shockwave would directly hit the people at the entrance.
Time was running out. He could either drag his parents' bodies and flee, or find a way to stop this thing!
The first option had an abysmal survival rate. The second wasn't much better, but if the second succeeded, they'd be safe!
'What do I do?'
Instinctively, he reached into his pocket—and felt a small, round PokéBall.
'Huh? Right! I still have this!'
Li Xiang quickly pulled out the Breeder's Ball, enlarged it, and took a deep breath.
Truthfully, he still had no idea what Pokémon was inside, nor did he know if it would listen to him.
But—
'If it's a Rotom or a Porygon… If it can learn this unknown language on its own, or figure out the system and shut it down…'
If what was had said earlier wasn't a lie, these two Pokémon types were supposed to be experts with computers. Their whole selling point was their ability to navigate digital systems.
They could traverse cyberspace effortlessly, hack databases with ease; stopping a program in a short time shouldn't be impossible.
He didn't need to rewrite anything. Just find the shutdown command and execute it.
'If, if, a thousand ifs.'
He had already crossed worlds to get here. His luck couldn't be that bad. He had to take the gamble!
"...Please. If we survive this, I'll do anything for you."
Li Xiang pressed the Poké Ball against his forehead, whispering his plea before decisively pressing the release button.
Click!
A flash of light!
"Bzzt—bzzt—bzzt—!"
A high-pitched chirping filled the chamber as a streak of electricity zipped around the temple.
Li Xiang looked up and saw a Pokémon resembling an ionized particle—blue eyes and mouth crackling with electricity, its form wreathed in lightning.
'Rotom! It really was Rotom!'
"Please! Please! Stop it! Save us! Rotom! Rotom!"
Li Xiang shouted, but his ruined voice came out hoarse and weak.
Frustrated, he stomped his feet. "Hurry! There's no time! Please!"
Above him, Rotom tilted its head, glanced down, and let out another series of electronic chirps—before diving straight into the control panel's computer!
'It worked!'
Li Xiang touched the screen, watching as Rotom's grinning face appeared, pixelated and mischievous.
"Thank you! Thank you! Quick! Use this program to stop that machine!"
He spoke urgently, eyes locked on the bottom-right corner of the screen. If he wasn't mistaken, the steadily increasing characters there represented the Ultimate Weapon's charging progress.
But he had no idea what counted as 100%.
Rotom vanished again, leaving him clueless as to where it had gone.
A minute later—a progress bar suddenly popped up.
Li Xiang's heart leapt. 'Was this the shutdown sequence?'
But the characters in the corner were still changing. 'Or was it a timer?'
Above, the Ultimate Weapon shone brighter than ever.
Thankfully, the recharge wasn't as instantaneous as the first time—maybe because the machinery was damaged. That fat man had mentioned something about backup protocols activating.
Li Xiang didn't understand any of it.
He couldn't read the screen. All he could do was wait and leave it to fate, but those two men were no longer useful.
To avoid complications, they had to die now.
Li Xiang turned, grabbed a bent metal rod with a sharpened end, and walked toward the two frozen figures.
The chubby man saw him coming and panicked again.
"N-no, no! Spare me! I don't wanna die! I—I have rare Pokémon! We have a digging vehicle outside, full of money and rare Pokémon! Don't kill me!"
He screamed, begging for mercy.
"I have intel! Valuable intel! Don't kill me! Please!"
Li Xiang said nothing.
He yanked the metal shard from the big man's eye. The corpse slumped, skin gray, blood pooled beneath him, the ice now stained crimson.
With that much blood loss, he had to be dead.
But Li Xiang wasn't satisfied.
He drove the rod into the ruined eye socket, pushing until it hit the back of the skull—then twisted.
'Bastard, I'll scramble your fucking brains. Let's see you come back from that!'
Once done, he turned to the chubby man, ignoring his screams and struggles.
He had aimed for the eye, but the man managed to dodged. With a furious thrust, the rod pierced through his mouth and out the side of his neck.
"GUGGHH—!"
The man wailed, but Li Xiang felt no pity—only deeper hatred.
He picked up a bloodied shard from the ground and stabbed it into the man's eye, ensuring it reached the brain.
Blood sprayed across his face, and the light in the chubby man's eyes faded.
"Hah… hah…"
Li Xiang slumped to the ground, wiping blood from his face, his heart heavy.
Honestly, thanks to movies, games, and novels from his past life, he had a high tolerance for taking lives, especially if said lives belonged to deranged murderous scum like these Dawn Sect bastards.
Coupled with his personal hatred for these two, he hadn't hesitated.
Only now, with the stench of blood filling his nose, did it truly sink in—he had just killed two people.
But that was all.
His mind was still wired, refusing to dwell on it. That thread wouldn't snap yet.
After a brief rest, he confirmed no one else was waking up.
He ran to the temple entrance, shaking his parents' shoulders, pinching their philtrums—but they remained unconscious.
So, he dragged them outside, positioning them behind the wall, arranging their bodies to shield vital areas, even using others as cushions.
Having faced death, he no longer cared about strangers. Survival was all that mattered.
Once done, he returned to the control panel, sitting on the filthy floor, watching the progress bar inch closer to completion.
His breaths came in shaky gasps.
Victory or defeat—It all came down to this.
One second. Two. Three.
By his fifth exhale, the bar reached the end.
A string of green text flashed twice before vanishing. Above, the Ultimate Weapon dimmed.
It was over. Rotom had succeeded.
Li Xiang panted, heart pounding—but then, overwhelming relief washed over him, leaving him boneless.
Rotom reappeared on-screen, its face taking up the entire display, laughing its electronic laugh.
It was really over.
Li Xiang bowed his head, hands gripping his hair, murmuring, "Thank you… thank you…"
His voice cracked.
The weight of everything hit him at once. His shoulders trembled. He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose.
On-screen, Rotom's grin faltered. It looked awkwardly at Li Xiang, then around the room, as if unsure what to do.
I worked so hard to shut it down, and now you're crying? Men are this fragile?
It debated whether to come out and comfort him, but Li Xiang had already lifted his head, eyes slightly red, though no tears fell.
The near-breakdown had just been his body reacting to the adrenaline crash.
"I don't know how to thank you. Right now, any promise I make would be empty. Once we get out of here, whatever you want, I'll find a way to make it happen."
"Bzzt…"
Rotom blinked, confused by his sudden composure.
"Do you want to return to your PokéBall?" Li Xiang held it up.
Rotom shook its head, floating out of the computer—then phased straight into Li Xiang's clothes.
As an Electric/Ghost-type, it had no true physical form.
Li Xiang tried to touch it but grasped only air. 'Must have turned intangible.'
He let it be, turning his attention to the giant silver egg at the center of the stone pillars.
Around it lay a circle of frozen Shuckle.
The Cult's god—the being that had nearly ascended—rested inside.
Li Xiang glanced at Suicune. Still unconscious.
His curiosity about Volcarona grew.
From what he'd seen earlier, the area around the egg seemed safe. The two men had even reached inside to adjust something without issue.
'I'll take a look.'
Shakily, he stood and walked toward the egg.