Chapter 707: Evil Spirits Run Rampant

Could something have gone wrong?

Baimu was about to call Dragapult out to ask, when a sudden clamor rose from not far away.

"Mayor Mountain-berry!"

"Mayor, my lord, you're finally here!"

He looked over and clearly saw Mountain-berry, face stern, striding toward them with several people in tow. The other party didn't notice him and rushed headlong into the construction site.

From outside, Mountain-berry's shouts could still be faintly heard.

"Where are the people? They haven't been brought up yet!?"

"People don't dare go down, Pokémon don't dare go down—do those machines dare or not!? With so many engineering robots on hand, you can't deploy any of them!?"

"Don't give me that ghost nonsense—Ghost-type Pokémon are everywhere!"

"Four or five of the ten people here used to live in the underground city, and now after just a few months you don't even dare go home? Don't make me curse you out! Get to work!"

Baimu listened, his heart uneasy. This young man was quite irritable—who had provoked him?

Only the few residents gathered around him seemed a little gleeful at his expense.

"Hahaha! Little Brito got scolded again!"

"I told you that guy has no real judgment—he can't handle a job like this!"

"Oh, come off it. The Mayor's eye for people isn't better than yours? When he organized people to go study in Silph Co. City, why didn't you go!"

Brito…

One of the troublemaking kids from Cyan Iridium Street.

Baimu remembered him, and was well aware that not everyone wanted to become a Pokémon Trainer.

In the past, people had no choice. If you didn't compete for a spot on the Quicksand Team, you could only mine in the lightless underground, stripped of everything, or burn yourself out in a sweatshop factory with virtually no safety measures.

Now that there was a choice, naturally people would try to do other things they wanted.

Brito was very interested in construction engineering. He was like a born-and-bred concrete-pourer, and when Pyrite Town was first being rebuilt, he volunteered himself to Mountain-berry for an engineer position.

Unfortunately, his knowledge of the construction industry was limited to the few books at home. As long as Mountain-berry had his head on straight, there was no way he'd take him on.

But Mountain-berry admired this bold young applicant, so he bundled him off with some others to Silph Co. City to study the relevant subjects at a professional school there, and to start accumulating experience from the ground up as an ordinary concrete-pourer.

By now he should have pretty much finished his studies—

In ordinary construction, at least.

The entrance to the Distortion World was clearly outside the scope of any normal person's construction-engineering knowledge.

Baimu parked his car at the side of the street and strode quickly into the construction site. The person guarding the gate was unmistakably wearing a Rainbow Team uniform. When he stepped forward to block him and saw his face, he hastily greeted him:

"Boss Baimu!"

"Boss, you're here!"

He nodded to the two of them, quickly found Mountain-berry standing in front of a massive elevator with his brows tightly furrowed, and said, "How's the situation with the people who went down? What's the cause? Underground waste gas?"

"Baimu!"

Mountain-berry's brow eased slightly when he saw him, but he shook his head and said, "Not sure. I've already sent engineering robots in to rescue them."

Hopefully they're all right.

Baimu recalled how confidently he'd asserted that Lost Souls wouldn't affect the living, and couldn't help but say, "Sorry—"

"No need to apologize. I know you trust your own Pokémon, which is why you'd pass along what it believed to me. Besides, this isn't your responsibility to begin with."

Mountain-berry stopped him and said quietly, "If we're really going to start assigning blame, my responsibility is greater than yours. I'm the one who carried it out—taking a single statement at face value without confirming it with more qualified people is my dereliction of duty. Besides, the immediate priority is confirming the workers' condition."

Perhaps half a year ago, Mountain-berry had still been just a young man with dreams and pursuits, yet still limited to talk.

But now.

He had already become a qualified leader—not a greedy parasite who only let subordinates take the fall or hid every mistake behind a single "sorry."

Hearing this, Baimu said nothing more, walked to one side, and released Dragapult.

"Rururu!"

Without waiting for his question, it turned its head to look at the elevator leading down to the underground city. A puzzled expression surfaced on its face, completely ignoring the surrounding workers and noisy machines.

It seemed to be confirming something.

Baimu didn't disturb Dragapult. He still chose to trust his own Pokémon—Lost Souls wouldn't harm the living, but what about things other than Lost Souls? The reason the Distortion World entrance was blocked was still a mystery.

It might well be caused by whatever was blocking the Distortion World entrance!

He silently pulled out a Poké Ball and prepared for battle—if he needed to fight.

At the same time.

The elevator let out a humming start-up sound, and someone shouted, "They're coming up! The people are coming up!"

"Rururu!"

Dragapult came to life, twisted its head to bark at Baimu, and its illusory, slender tail suddenly swept past his waist.

Bang! Bang!

A shiny Gengar with bizarre makeup still on its face and a Galarian Sunflora burst out. The former looked around in confusion, then immediately saw Dragapult charging toward the elevator while twisting its head back to shout at it:

"Rururu! Barururu!"

"Genga!"

Gengar hurriedly chased after it.

Galarian Sunflora floated up in annoyance, drifting lazily toward the spot. After a moment of flight, it seemed to realize it was too slow.

It simply retracted its smoky tentacles, turned into a stone, and rolled forward.

"Doryuuba—"

Baimu, who had no idea what was going on, suddenly stopped. If he hadn't misheard, Dragapult was telling him to stay put and not approach, and its tone was quite stern.

He looked toward the elevator. Several oddly shaped engineering robots holding a few helmeted workers slowly emerged above ground.

Do these workers have problems?

He immediately shouted to Shannian: "Shannian! Keep people away!"

"What?"

Shannian's ears were packed with the rumbling of machines and didn't catch it, and the medical staff he called rushed forward dutifully—only for a bizarrely shaped Gengar to block them.

"Geh! Geh ga!"

Its voice was shrill; the medical staff clearly couldn't understand it, so they smiled and tried to push it aside—only for the nearly-doll nurses they brought to join in blocking them.

"Tap, tap po na~"

The nearly-dolls were flustered.

On the other side.

Other workers trying to rush forward were all flung away by a tail swipe from Dragonite, crashing to the ground with stars in their eyes.

"Oh shit! Whose Pokémon!?"

"What the hell is going on?"

"Luso!"

It loudly ordered the others not to come closer.

Shannian wasn't stupid; seeing Dragonite's alertness, he shouted loudly: "Everyone, stay back! Retreat!"

As he slowly stepped backward, he glanced at Baimu nearby, whose face bore the same look of confusion.

The next moment.

A strange laugh rang out.

"Hehe."

"Hehehehe."

"Hehehehehe—"

The laughter came from the several "unconscious" workers on the elevator; they emitted piercing, nail-on-glass laughs—shrill and chilling.

Everyone stared in shock at this scene.

Then.

Those workers, as if boneless, wriggled free of the robot claws and slumped to the ground, some prone, some supine.

But suddenly they pushed themselves up on all fours, their faces filled with malicious, cruel glints, charging toward humans in a way that made hair stand on end!

As they ran, they laughed—prompting many to panic and flee backward.

But before those workers got far, a phantom tail lashed them to the ground, and then rolling forward came raw stones, from which multiple Kong Dongs gushed thick white mist, engulfing them.

Gengar flew in, its bright red tongue lashing out, cackling as it licked each of their faces.

"Ee!"

"Eeyaa!"

Those strange workers screamed nonstop, but the mist from Solrock immobilized them, forcing them to endure the attacks helplessly.

Dragonite didn't just stand by—it summoned a gray mist beside it, and when it thrust its tail into the mist, the workers' screams grew even higher-pitched.

"Luso!"

"Geh!"

At Dragonite's command, Gengar plunged its claws into the workers' brains; everyone watched in horror as it worked—until several deep purple flames flew out, scattering wildly like fleeing creatures.

Dragonite swiftly hooked one flame with its tail, Gengar's tongue snatched another in a flash, and Solrock, though small, was the most effective—trapping two flames entirely in its mist.

The remaining two flames seemed ready to break through the three Ghost Pokémon's blockade and fly toward the nearest humans—but everyone had already retreated far under Shannian's orders.

Instead, the one closest was Baimu—who had been farthest at first but had edged slightly closer out of concern for his own Pokémon.

They tried to make a final dash—but the moment they fixed their target on him, an invisible Jin Guang struck horizontally, terrifying them into twisting around and fleeing toward the dungeon—

"Luso!"

Dragonite's form suddenly blocked them, swatting each one down with a single claw, netting them all.

Then, amid Solrock's extremely reluctant expression, it swallowed all six ghost flames into its body using smoke-like tentacles.

Dragonite quietly exhaled a breath of relief.

It turned to its trainer, flicking its tail and calling: "Luso!"

"Over?"

Baimu confirmed it, saying to Shannian who had stepped close: "Looks like it's over."

Shannian's expression was extremely solemn: "Just now… what the hell was that?"

"I don't know. I'll ask Dragonite later."

He shook his head, scanning the others on the site, who were all uneasy and shaken—clearly terrified by the eerie, horror-movie-like scene.

For a moment, no one dared approach.

Only after Baimu and Shannian moved forward without incident did the medical team rush over, followed by the other workers.

The rescued workers were confirmed by the medical team to be alive but unconscious, then carried away on stretchers; the remaining medics said they were still alive, merely comatose, with further checks needed to determine their exact condition.

The workers previously knocked down by the tail wanted to thank Dragonite—but the moment they opened their mouths, the thing was gone.

Clearly, after the main event ended, Dragonite had relapsed again—

Selective social phobia.

Baimu was worried about Solrock, but aside from its expression turning even more sour, it seemed fine.

Gengar had been praised so much it was turned into Pinocchio—its nose, which hadn't existed before, suddenly grew out long and thick.

"So what exactly happened?"

Shannian stared at the elevator, his face darkening and lightening unpredictably.

He had originally planned to first dig a path down underground and then figure out how to recruit a Spirit Medium, but now it looked like he had to recruit the Spirit Medium first.

Otherwise, how would the workers dare to start work? They'd be scared to death!

All Baimu called Pang Yan Guai to a corner and used the Porygon II to inquire about the details. After a while, he found Shan Ren with a relaxed yet odd expression.

"Pang Yan Guai says this matter… strictly speaking, should be counted as a Pokémon haunting."

"Pokémon? Are you sure?"

"Mm, it says this is a kind of Pokémon made up of countless evil souls. Before being sealed, they would invade human bodies to do evil deeds, and when encountering a strong enemy, they would coalesce into a single whole, becoming an evil entity. I think you know what I'm talking about."

"Pang Yan Guai!"

Shan Ren suddenly realized. "A Pokémon legendarily formed by the gathering of one hundred and eight evil souls, committing many evils and being sealed away by people — but isn't this just an elusive legend?"

All Baimu replied helplessly: "Of course legends can be partly true and partly false, and it's even normal for the contents to be partly true and partly false."

He suddenly recalled that Xiao Zhi had been invaded by similar entities more than once. During the Advanced Generation era, it was an evil king's evil spirit, remembered as being called Darkrai.

That guy manipulated Xiao Zhi's Pokémon to battle Kamishiro, and ended up being crushed by Kamishiro.

During the Journeys era, similar to this time, it was a Pang Yan Guai that was being sent to a graveyard. Xiao Zhi was unfortunately invaded by evil souls on the Ghost Train, and nearly tore the Ghost Train apart.

He hadn't expected Iron Town to have one too…

He just didn't know whether it came from the Spirit World, or was native to Iron Town.

"Wait! Pang Yan Guai has one hundred and eight souls! Pang Yan Guai only caught six, doesn't that mean there are still one hundred and two down there!?"

Shan Ren lowered his voice; he didn't dare speak too loudly for fear of causing panic among the people around.

All Baimu then said: "I asked Pang Yan Guai, and it says the other souls of Pang Yan Guai probably don't dare come up, or rather, they were only awakened by the noise of the construction site and attacked the people who went in. These guys are both cunning and evil.

"They know very well they can't beat humans, so they basically won't take the initiative to attack. Of course, this kind of thing has to be guarded against; it's best to figure out a way to deal with it as soon as possible."

Shan Ren picked up on his underlying meaning and shook his head: "No, you can't go down. Right now, you're the only one here who can use Pang Yan Guai to understand the situation below."

"What are you thinking? I'm not planning to risk my own hide — let's call for reinforcements!"

He took out his phone, which displayed a chat interface. The avatar of the person on the other side was a Dusknoir wearing a red flower.

Shan Ren saw the nickname at the very top and exclaimed: "Furong!?"

"That's right! I think she should be the most professional Spirit Medium in the world… well, possibly one of them. In any case, I believe she can definitely solve this problem."

All Baimu said with a smile.

Shan Ren looked at him with a complicated expression, suddenly punched him, and said angrily: "You've had this connection and didn't say so earlier! I was racking my brain trying to figure it out myself! I don't know how many people I asked about Spirit Mediums!"

"Well, you told me to leave it all to you to handle."

All Baimu grinned, his gaze turning to the elevator. "In any case, she'll probably be free tomorrow. I'll have Hu Pa go pick her up. Before then, let's seal this place off — I'll go borrow a few Ghost-type Pokémon from N to lock this place down."

Shan Ren glanced at the workers around him whose expressions held a hint of fear, and sighed: "It can only be done this way for now."