The words Julian said in the game naturally reached the Master as well, who merely smiled upon hearing them.
"Julian has no idea what kind of magnificent power the Lord possesses."
The Master held a blind confidence in Hoopa. Although Hoopa's power had yet to be fully displayed, the mere tip of the iceberg it had revealed earlier was enough to convince her that Hoopa's strength absolutely surpassed that of Julian's Twin Dragons.
Even Rayquaza was probably no match for Hoopa.
"My lord, when will the Demon God lead us to conquer this world?"
One of the Master's subordinates asked.
It had been nearly half a month since Hoopa had awakened. And aside from the moment it first emerged, none of them had seen it again.
They had originally believed that with Hoopa, Organization Y would dominate the world.
Instead, after appearing, Hoopa had made no moves whatsoever.
"What are you so anxious about? The Lord has their own plans," the Master said coldly.
She looked at the subordinate with displeasure—this wretch actually dared to doubt the Demon God.
"I deserve death! I had no other intention!"
The man immediately dropped to his knees and hurriedly explained, trembling.
Looking at him, the Master knew he wasn't the only one who harbored such thoughts, so she explained, "Although we helped the Demon God break the seal, the majority of the seal was shattered by the Demon God."
"At most, we merely provided assistance."
"Breaking the seal required the Demon God to expend a great deal of power, so they need time to recover. Once the Demon God has recovered, they will naturally take action."
This wasn't a lie she had fabricated—Hoopa had told her so personally.
And it was indeed the truth.
---
Back at home, staring at Xerneas, who had once again shown up at his door, Julian asked in confusion, "What are you here for?"
"Hoopa has already broken its seal," Xerneas said.
"I know," Julian nodded.
"Then why haven't you taken action?"
Xerneas took a deep breath, doing its best to suppress the urge to curse at him. It had assumed that Julian was simply unaware that Hoopa had already escaped.
"Because it hasn't made any moves yet, so I'm waiting for it," Julian explained.
Hearing such a moronic, idiotic, and brainless remark, Xerneas's usually good temper finally vanished in that very moment.
"You *********!"
Watching Xerneas cuss him out, Julian was pletely dumbfounded. He was just about to snap back when he heard Xerneas continue.
"Do you know that right after breaking its seal, Hoopa is at its weakest? It needs time to replenish the energy it exhausted escaping the seal. That's why it hasn't made a move."
"What did 'you' think was happening?"
Faced with Xerneas's words, Julian wore an embarrassed expression.
He had assumed that after emerging, Hoopa no longer wanted to cause trouble and simply wanted to live peacefully as an ordinary, harmless First-class Legendary.
Turns out it was recovering the energy it had expended breaking the seal.
Seemed he'd been thinking about it far too simplistically.
Seeing how furious Xerneas looked, Julian decided to forgive it for cursing at him just now.
"Slowking, pour it a glass of water."
After cursing for so long, its throat was probably dry by now.
"I don't want any."
Xerneas was so thoroughly exasperated by Julian that it stubbornly shook its head like it was sulking, refusing to drink any water from Julian's house.
"Alright then, I'm leaving."
"Going where?"
Xerneas asked in confusion.
"To deal with Hoopa. Where else would I be going?"
With that, Julian walked out to the backyard and recalled all his Pokémon into their Poké Balls.
"Love, I'm heading out. I probably won't make it back in time for dinner, so don't wait for me."
Julian turned and spoke to Love, who was watching him with eyes full of worry.
Love desperately wanted to tell Julian to stay.
Although it didn't know how strong Hoopa was, it had a feeling that the opponent would be an extremely terrifying existence.
And its cub was about to face such danger once again.
Jake and John—those two old good-for-nothings—were so useless, so utterly disappointing. Whenever trouble arose, its cub was the one who had to step up.
And just as Julian was preparing to go find Hoopa, the latter had, at that very moment, finished recovering the energy it had expended breaking the seal.
"HAHAHA!"
A wild, domineering laughter erupted from Hoopa's mouth.
The very next instant, its body appeared high above East Africa.
Its Forbidden-class aura spread outward in every direction without restraint. And wherever that aura swept across—
Be it mountains, rivers, vegetation, Pokémon, humans, or all manner of structures—all of it vanished into nothingness beneath that aura.
East Africa spanned an area of roughly eighty million square kilometers, and in the span of a single minute, that aura had already swept across a range of twenty million square kilometers.
Within this radius, all living things and inanimate objects alike vanished pletely, as if they had never existed there in the first place.
Such an enormous and terrifying surge of energy was naturally detected by every nation.
Moreover, ever since the black mist had first appeared eight or nine months earlier, satellites from every country had remained fixed on East Africa without ever looking away.
So the moment Hoopa rose into the sky, the footage was immediately transmitted around the world.
And what followed was Hoopa releasing its aura, reducing an area of twenty million square kilometers to a lifeless wasteland.
Humans, Pokémon, and even Secret Realms—all of them vanished.
The number of casualties was simply unimaginable.
Thud!
A high-ranking official of a certain nation, upon seeing this scene, turned deathly pale. His body, which had shot upright out of sheer horror, now collapsed to the ground.
Yet no one around him stepped forward to help.
Because they, too, were like him—plunged into a deep, abysmal terror.
Just a simple release of its aura had already caused destruction on such a world-ending scale.
The sheer destructive power pletely overturned humanity's understanding of what a First-class Legendary was capable of.
After all, First-class Legendaries had destroyed human cities and even entire nations more than once throughout history, but none of them had ever displayed destructive power even remotely parable to Hoopa's.
Could it be that those previous First-class Legendary had been holding back when they attacked human civilizations?
Obviously, that possibility was extremely unlikely.
That left only one explanation: Hoopa's power far exceeded that of every First-class Legendary Pokémon known to humanity.
Over the past two years, researchers from various countries had translated information found on Ancient Stone Tablets discovered in a newly unearthed Ruin.
And from those translations, humanity had learned that Hoopa had once been sealed away through the bined efforts of four First-class Legendaries.
At that time, Pokémon scholars had speculated that Hoopa's strength might have reached the peak of the First-class Legendary tier.
But now, seeing the destruction caused by Hoopa, it was possible that the entity was not merely at the peak—perhaps it had already transcended beyond that peak entirely.
At present, humanity still had no knowledge of the Forbidden-class tier that existed above First-class Legendary, so they could only make rough estimates regarding Hoopa's true strength.
As Hoopa officially revealed itself to the world—and did so in such an overwhelmingly terrifying fashion—countries everywhere began to lose hope.
Faced with an enemy of such unimaginable power... could Julian really defeat it?
*****
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