Chapter 280: The Violet Squid

Never in a million years.

The Shinou Fleet's mini-sub had already located the undersea cavern where Lugia dwelled!

Baimu was so stunned by the sight before him that he couldn't speak.

Yanagihara, who had been acting extremely calm all along, also furrowed his brow, crossed his hands beneath his nose, and struck a thoughtful pose.

However.

When the mini-sub traveled forward a little longer, it soon hit the edge of the water area. Beyond that lay flat land, and shining its built-in light inward only revealed darkness — darkness as though the light itself had been swallowed.

Yet when the light swept across the ground, no trace of Lugia's movement was found either.

Did Lugia fly in?

That question wasn't only Porygon's — Baimu and Yanagihara had it too.

But without question the mini-sub had no land-cruising capability and couldn't leave the water to continue exploring on land, so Porygon circled twice, confirmed there really was no other path, and could only dive.

After diving.

Porygon searched the seabed for any other openings that might lead inside, but unfortunately found nothing.

It began heading back the way it came.

Seeing this, Yanagihara quickly paused and switched out to operate something, and a string of numbers and strange characters began flashing on the pitch-black screen.

Noticing Baimu's blank expression, he said, "These are the mini-sub's remote operation commands. From the description above, you can see it was in cruise mode at first, and switched to follow mode once it spotted Lugia."

"Follow mode?"

"Mm, used to chase designated aquatic Pokémon — of course that includes Lugia."

"So when the mini-sub found Lugia, the outside knew?"

"They knew. The mini-sub's video data has been streaming online to the outside the whole time. This black box doesn't only store video data — it also contains the parameters of every internal mechanical component."

Yanagihara seemed to understand what Baimu was curious about, and tapped the keyboard twice more. "But once it entered the undersea cavern, the data connection was forcibly cut off because the undersea signal was unstable… Clearly something in that cavern affected the signal's transmission."

"Affecting signal transmission…"

"Yes. Whenever you come into contact with powerful Pokémon, you'll run into similar situations. Their mere existence releases a kind of force field — at a distance it's fine, but up close it affects everything."

Huh?

Is that Pressure?

Hearing Yanagihara talk about this so-called force field, Baimu instinctively thought of 【Pressure】 — that ability belonging to many legendary Pokémon that also seemed utterly useless.

Of course the thought flashed and vanished; after all, it wasn't the point of the current discussion.

Yanagihara played the video again.

Combined with the data beside it, one could see: after being unable to enter the undersea cavern and continue tracking Lugia, Porygon reported the discovery to the ship on the surface and transmitted the recorded video over.

And the ship on the surface gave the mini-sub the order to surface.

So.

The mini-sub rose to the surface at top speed.

The moment it broke free of the seawater, the camera caught a group of Shinou Fleet crew members excitedly crowding around the mini-sub, faces unable to contain their delight.

"Just as Captain Izumi said!"

"There's really a Lugia… why would it appear here?"

"Who knows. You should figure out whether it's a Pokémon native to Hoenn before you say something like that."

"Hey! Less talking, more working!"

At someone's urging, the camera was switched off — clearly entering a powered-down maintenance phase.

But from those few lines it wasn't hard to tell that one important purpose of this mini-sub trial dive was to track down the Lugia dwelling on the seabed.

So what would the Shinou Fleet do next?

And after all these days, would the Shinou Fleet, who held certain video records, have already dived down and captured Lugia?

Baimu didn't doubt for a second that the Shinou Fleet had the technology to capture Lugia.

One had to remember that, in the anime setting, the black tech humanity possessed surpassed that of most legendary Pokémon. Even Giratina had once been captured and had ninety-nine percent of its power drained.

Seeing him frown, Yanagihara spoke up: "Don't worry. We've been monitoring their movements on our end, including that mini-sub trial. We just didn't know what they saw."

He tapped the keyboard and looked at the data on it. "If I remember right, they haven't gone back to this stretch of sea."

"Haven't gone back?"

Baimu was stunned. "Why?"

"That depends on the next video." Yanagihara pointed at the screen.

He clicked open the last video, which was playing what appeared to be the mini-sub's final dive.

And soon.

Baimu learned the reason the Shinou Fleet hadn't returned to that stretch of sea —

The undersea cavern was gone.

Yes.

As if everything they'd just seen had been a dream — right where it had been, deep in the same ocean trench, the original undersea cavern had vanished without a trace.

One might even say it had never appeared.

Clearly Porygon, piloting the mini-sub, was also the un-believing type. Somehow it got hold of a drill and tried to bore a Shi Dong open at the original coordinates.

But no matter how far it drilled in, there was only rock inside — the undersea cavern had completely vanished.

The bizarre situation plunged the mini-sub into a kind of contemplation.

Then.

It began exploring in other directions, and after leaving the trench it discovered some human traces it hadn't noticed before but that genuinely existed — countless seabed pipelines.

Following the pipelines forward, the mini-sub discovered a whole new world.

was an abandoned seabed energy extraction facility.

But just as it was preparing to dive into the facility to investigate, a large swarm of Sharpedo suddenly burst out from inside, ramming into the hull of his mini-submarine in groups, forcing it to surface rapidly.

And after surfacing, the sea surface was yet another new world.

What appeared before his eyes was a massive, island-like offshore platform; its rear half had sunk beneath the sea, leaving the forward section of the deck tilted up and floating on the water.

"This is…" All Baimu saw this and, although in reality it differed quite a bit from the game, he still thought of what it was.

*Xianmu Qiyuan*

"Sea New Zi Jin."

Yanagihara, thinking he didn't understand, answered his question: "A technological relic left behind by a once very powerful company in Hoenn. They went bankrupt and couldn't deal with it, so it was forced to be abandoned, and it's been sitting there ever since. By now it's basically a paradise for wild Pokémon, right? Kind of like the S. S. Cactus."

The S. S. Cactus was the shipwreck where Broadwater was located.

The shipwreck and Sea New Zi Jin exist together now? Because the sea area is bigger and vaster than in the game?

However.

The question is, why did the seafloor cavern disappear? Was it because it was opened up using the power of Aura?