Chapter 481: Thousand-Year Ghost

"No martial ethics!"

The furious complaint was drowned out by a dazzling flash.

Boom boom boom—

The explosion was deafening. Rolling flames, a milky-white shockwave capable of sending a person flying, and gunsmoke narrowly skimmed past All Baimu's head. He leaped down from the stairs leading from the fourth to the fifth floor, springing up like a triple jump and barely catching the edge of the second-floor floorboard.

Thud.

His feet landed, his body swayed slightly, and a tingling numbness welled up in his heart.

He stretched his arms like a big bird, and once his center of gravity steadied, he lightly exhaled a breath of stale air. "Safely taken down!"

Dragapult materialized out of thin air. Its nearly ethereal tail had somehow hooked around his belt at some point, as if afraid he'd fall from the second floor. Only when their eyes met did it quietly let go and slip away.

Two Dreepy that had burrowed out from somewhere unknown also returned to the launch holes.

"Thanks."

All Baimu said softly, turning his head to look at the spot he'd jumped from. He skipped past the two Drifblim that looked like deflated balloons, and his gaze shifted slightly before finding the Triple-headed Dragon wobbling its head by a pillar on the third floor. He hurriedly called out: "Yuqi!"

The flustered Husu Dragon immediately seemed to find its backbone. It lay flat on the ground, letting pure-white feathers drift up and fall, healing its injuries and restoring its lost stamina.

A moment later.

The Triple-headed Dragon returned to his side brimming with vigor.

The two of them looked at the two Drifblim on the half-stairs of the fourth floor, a hint of lingering shock still on their faces.

He felt the Ghost-type Pokémon in the Sky Pillar were all a bit crazy.

Seeing they couldn't win head-on, they used Self-Destruct — that was one thing. But they deliberately pressed close to their partners and forcibly triggered the Unnerve Ability at the exact same moment.

And according to the in-game logic, Self-Destruct would cause the user to faint, making it impossible to trigger Unnerve, which only activates when hit by a contact move. Yet these two somehow managed, by pressing close together and Self-Destructing in unison, to strike a delicate balance between the stamina lost from their own Self-Destruct and the stamina lost from their partner's Self-Destruct.

This forcibly satisfied several important prerequisites, causing the final Self-Destruct's power to super-double—

It was very much in the style of Ash's rule-breaking, wildly imaginative real-world battling.

It was just hard on All Baimu. He was forced to jump off the stairs, and along with it, Triple-headed Dragon's Protect was blasted to smithereens and it was sent flying.

Only Dragapult, whose Ghost typing could immunize it from most of Self-Destruct's energy blast, successfully escaped the main explosion range.

Damn it.

Absolutely ridiculous!

Although he couldn't help cursing inwardly, he figured that for these two Drifblim to achieve this, their high-level coordination alone would probably be enough to make outside Trainers despair.

If the "gatekeeper" on the fifth floor was this tough, what was he supposed to do going further up?

All Baimu suddenly felt a bit worried.

No wonder the Starfall People generation after generation had so few who could climb to the very top — the "gatekeepers" here were simply too over the top.

He walked back up. Fortunately, the two pairs of Ghost-type Pokémon on the third and fourth floors didn't show themselves again, and afterward he also safely passed by the Drifblim and arrived at the fifth floor.

The stairs leading to the sixth floor were not far away.

"What kind of weirdo will I run into this time?" He licked his lips.

These Ghost-type Pokémon mostly liked to guard the stairway entrances, causing most of the fierce battles to take place on the staircases. They didn't care, but All Baimu's personal danger greatly increased.

He really didn't want to experience that weightless feeling again.

Gang beat them.

All Baimu decided that this time, as soon as the opponent appeared, he would adopt a targeted gang-beat swift suppression tactic.

But even with a gang beat, he had to control the number of Pokémon out. The space between floors wasn't that wide; too many Pokémon crowding together would cause teammates to hit teammates... who made the anime friendly-fire enabled.

He hadn't expected that as he carefully made his way up, no matter how closely he observed, no Ghost-type Pokémon appeared to launch a sneak attack.

Just as he was puzzled.

Two Misdreavus suddenly popped up in the distance, giggling. Their will-o'-the-wisp-like hair moved without wind, looking quite cute, and then vanished again.

All Baimu took a step forward—

"Sha sang!"

Triple-headed Dragon suddenly bit down on his wrist, stopping him from advancing.

It turned out that at some unknown point, the floor in front of him had become a void — the entire sixth-floor floorboard had disappeared. Had the former not warned him in time, he would most likely have accidentally fallen down by now.

"What's the situation?"

All Baimu crouched down, touched the "ground," confirmed he couldn't feel anything and could reach through it, and knew this probably wasn't an illusion.

What to do?

Fly over?

But Miss Xijiana said he had to walk to the very top on foot, right? Did this kind of force majeure count as a test...

Wait.

He pondered briefly, tentatively tested other spots with his foot, and immediately discovered that floorboards that could be stepped on still existed elsewhere — they were just invisible.

This was simple. He could just slowly feel his way across.

All Baimu looked toward where the two Misdreavus had vanished, understanding they would definitely come cause trouble while he was probing. He turned his head and said something.

Heh.

Strike first and take them down directly!

Then he unhesitatingly pulled out a flashlight, letting the 150,000-lumen holy light descend once more, searching for the Misdreavus's tracks like a bandit, forcing them to have nowhere to escape.

Unexpectedly, this pair chose to split up.

In a short time, All Baimu only located one Misdreavus. "Dark Pulse!"

"Sha sang!"

Triple-headed Dragon's big head stayed still, while its two small heads fired beams made of countless black rings like laser cannons, swaying as they completely sealed off the opponent's movement paths on the spot.

"Ma~!" The Misdreavus dodged in panic, but still couldn't escape the fate of being hit.

Peng!

Amid the swirling smoke, the first Dream Eater was defeated, sprawled on the ground unconscious.

Immediately after, the ground suddenly flickered, and many square floor tiles of varying positions surfaced ahead.

"The invisibility of the floor is in their hands?" All Baimu was somewhat surprised, and stepped toward a spot with floorboards—

The instant he shifted his weight forward trying to step firmly, his whole body dropped downward.

"Holy crap!"

But fortunately, he only fell less than ten centimeters, and the Dragapult that had been prearranged to serve as a safety rope pulled him back up with its tail.

"As expected, these guys are ridiculously underhanded!"

All Baimu stamped his feet in relief on the spot — when they couldn't beat him head-on, they started playing tricks real and fake with him.

What's the use?

What's real can't be false, what's false can't be real.

He pulled a jar full of ordinary Pokéblocks from his pocket, then snapped his fingers, and two Dreepy immediately popped out of the air. "I'm counting on you two."

"Hiyah!" "Hiyah!"

The Dreepy siblings saluted with resolute faces, then kept pulling Pokéblocks from the jar, swimming back and forth like two fish to test whether the ground was real or fake, placing a Pokéblock as a marker wherever it was real.

While the two were acting, All Baimu continued searching for the remaining Dream Eater.

Helplessly, the other's concealment ability was remarkably excellent — no matter where he swept the flashlight, he couldn't catch sight of its figure.

"Do you sense anything?" He turned to ask Hydreigon.

The latter twitched its nose, regretfully indicating that the inside of the Sky Pillar was too enclosed, and the mixed smells prevented it from precisely identifying the other's exact location.

Unless it had 【Frisk】, that god-tier skill for scouting Ghost-type Pokémon.

Too bad Hydreigon didn't have it.

During the search, the highly efficient Dreepy siblings had already "paved" a path leading to the seventh floor. All Baimu looked at the two little ones who had returned seeking credit, and the thought of buying Dengshan poles that had originally been on his mind largely faded.

Dengshan poles were convenient, sure, but they easily cut short the interaction between him and his Pokémon.

Interaction was something that could quickly strengthen bonds.

He praised the two Dreepy, walked forward along the floorboards marked by Pokéblock after Pokéblock, and soon arrived before the stairway leading to the seventh floor — but didn't go any further.

"If you don't show up, I'm going through."

All Baimu spoke up. Hydreigon was slightly puzzled, and warily watched the surroundings.

—No response.

He sighed, and the foot he'd extended changed direction — it didn't step on the floorboard in front of him that had an Energy Cube placed on it, but moved to the empty space on the other side.

One step down.

It held firm.

Hydreigon's face was full of surprise. The concealed Dragapult and the two little Dreepy were equally bewildered. The latter two exchanged glances, recalling whether the last marker they'd placed was here.

At the same time, All Baimu didn't walk toward the stairs, but instead sidestepped along the floorboards, moving about three or four meters sideways — even stepping onto another floorboard — before confidently lifting his foot toward the empty space beside the stairway.

The moment he stepped forward, a fierce whooshing sound rang out from the air behind him!

Swoosh!

Hydreigon instinctively raised a shield. A pitch-black Shadow Ball slammed into the honeycomb light shield, not even managing to splash up a single ripple.

Dragapult dove into the hole it had opened beside it, suddenly appearing behind the concealed Dream Eater. Its hazy tail stabbed into the Dream Eater's skull, which was wildly dancing like ghostly fire, like a sharp spike.

"Maa~!"

It let out a scream and collapsed to the ground.

This also brought All Baimu, who had been stepping on "air," back onto the solid staircase.

"This illusion ability is incredible — how did they do it?" He blinked in great curiosity. These two Dream Eaters had not only hidden the floorboards, but later even hid the floorboards that the Dreepy had marked, creating a false image to lure him onto the fake stairs.

The actual stairs were located two to three meters over, parallel to them.

Fortunately, his memory was still decent — when judging the stairs, he'd felt the position wasn't quite right, and combined with the Pokéblocks being deliberately scattered to bait the Dream Eater into taking the hook, he hadn't fallen for it.

Illusion abilities really are formidable.

He hadn't even felt himself being put under hypnosis — the Dream Eaters' trick was almost on par with Zoroark's illusions.

Luckily he'd kept an eye out.

That's why he hadn't been tricked by these thousand-year-old ghosts.

All Baimu was well aware that the Ghost-type Pokémon in the Sky Pillar were probably counted in the thousands of years old, and the oldest batch had already existed when the People of the Meteors built the Sky Pillar.

Having gone through who knows how many years, it was only natural for them to possess certain special powers that Pokémon outside didn't have.

The accumulation of time was important.

Too bad he wasn't the all-loving type of trainer — otherwise, he really would have had the thought of catching these Pokémon.

For now, he could only secretly learn a bit of their techniques.

All Baimu strode toward the seventh floor full of fighting spirit, and prepared himself for a head-on clash with the seventh floor's Pokémon — even a full-on brawl.

However.

The seventh floor's guardian Pokémon was even stranger than the sixth floor's.

This time, he faced three Haunters that laughed "Jiejiejie," but these three fellows had no intention of fighting him and Hydreigon — instead, they started playing a card game similar to Hanafuda.

God knows where they'd learned it. All Baimu couldn't even understand it watching, and after muddle-headedly losing two or three rounds and being wildly mocked by them, he began considering flipping the table and fighting his way out.

Who said you had to win before you could keep going?

Miss Xijiana had never said he had to defeat every floor's guardian Pokémon.

He exchanged glances with Hydreigon, then used hand signals to alert the Dragapult hidden in the shadows.

"Jie?"

"Hehehehe!"

Seeming to read the malice in his and the Three-Headed Hydreigon's eyes, the Gengar exchanged a glance and clapped their hands without a sound.

*Clap clap. *

In an instant, over twenty Gengar appeared all around them, and under All Baimu's astonished expression, they watched them with predatory intent.

"Sha—"

"Hey, don't get worked up."

He hurriedly held back the Hydreigon—correction, the Three-Headed Hydreigon—that was about to shout "If it's too hard then don't bother," and whispered, "Don't panic, I still have a way."

The Gengar were more numerous than he'd imagined; if a free-for-all broke out, he'd most likely be the first to suffer, and to escape the damage's reach he could only jump down another floor.

Then there's no choice.

You forced my hand.

He quietly pulled out his phone; Porygon2 on the screen gave him an all-OK look, and he calmly continued gambling with the three Gengar.

And the three Gengar were astonished to discover that All Baimu, who had been completely clueless moments ago, had suddenly become a master card player—no matter how wildly they cheated, they couldn't beat him.

Something's off!

Very off!

The Gengar exchanged meaningful glances; this time it was their turn to be so angry they wanted to flip the table.

But just as All Baimu had steeled himself to fight the large group of Gengar to the death, those three fellows instead vanished into the air with the face cards, letting him pass freely to the eighth floor.

"Cleared it?"

All Baimu raised an eyebrow; after half a day without seeing the Gengar reappear, he slowly stepped onto the stairs leading to the eighth floor.

When he was halfway there.

He finally confirmed he had truly been allowed through.

"Pretty good sportsmanship, able to take a loss." All Baimu clicked his tongue; in any case he definitely couldn't afford to lose, otherwise he wouldn't have used his phone and Porygon2 to cheat.

Following in the footsteps of AlphaGo defeating Go masters in his previous life, the man-made Pokémon of the Pokémon world likewise used data streams and computation to easily defeat three thousand-year-old gambling ghosts.

Speaking of which, who gave them those face cards? Some Meteoric People?

Must be bored out of their minds.

All Baimu shook his head and brought the Three-Headed Hydreigon to the eighth floor.

Compared to the previous seven floors, the eighth floor was somewhat narrow, the floorboard occupied only a tiny patch, and the guarding Pokémon had yet to appear.

He waited a while, thinking this was probably a floor specifically meant for resting.

Although he didn't know how much it cost other Meteoric People to reach this floor, in any case he'd had it pretty easy, and the Three-Headed Hydreigon didn't seem too tired either.

At most its energy consumption was a bit more severe.

He had already fed it Rabunia Berries in time to replenish its type-energy.

"Only a few floors left, let's push through to the top in one go before dark." He glanced outside through a crack in the wall and found the facing world had already taken on a yellowish hue.

The sun was about to set.