Chapter 641: Luo Mu: Life Gave Me a Heavy Punch

Long after the exhibition match ended, even though both Trainers had left, the Battle Tower still echoed with the enthusiastic applause and cheers of the audience.

From initial skepticism toward Luo Mu, to his repeated surpassing of expectations, to his dramatic comeback victory against Genji, one of the Elite Four, and his victory speech—

It could be said that after tonight, the name of Luo Mu would resonate throughout the Hoenn region’s Trainer community.

Only a very few knew that Luo Mu hadn’t even sent out his main Pokémon in this battle.

Backstage.

Under Dr. Lendo’s arrangement, Luo Mu and Genji had a private, friendly exchange.

To Luo Mu’s surprise, Genji, who appeared stern and imposing, was in fact cold on the outside but warm inside—generous, approachable, and humorous.

Even when Dr. Lendo asked his assistant Yuzi to prepare drinks, Genji specifically requested his hot milk be sweetened with sugar.

His outward appearance gave no hint of this preference.

After a long conversation, Genji left behind his contact information and expressed his hope to one day battle Luo Mu’s Dragonite, mentioning his ship was still docked at a port near Larus City, revealing his intent to depart.

Thinking of the inevitable pile of tasks awaiting him tomorrow, Luo Mu naturally made no effort to stop Genji from leaving.

Dr. Lendo and Yuzi personally saw him off.

Not long after Genji left, Ash and his group, led by Xiao Chao, arrived en masse at the backstage.

The praise, flattery, and admiration Luo Mu received during this time are not worth mentioning.

After all, defeating a slightly stronger Elite Four member was, if not routine for him, certainly not something to get overly excited about.

As for the dinner invitation extended by Ash’s movie-group, Luo Mu politely declined.

He cited exhaustion from using Firebird and Victini as his excuse.

After Ash’s group departed in a crowd, Luo Mu returned with Dr. Lendo and Yuzi directly to the accommodation they had arranged for him.

After dropping Luo Mu off, Dr. Lendo and Yuzi apologized, explaining that some equipment in Larus City had suffered strange malfunctions and they needed to investigate the cause.

With that excuse, they hurriedly left again.

Standing by the hotel room window, Luo Mu gazed at the quiet night sky, where the aurora had vanished without warning.

He sighed: “Is this the last calm before the storm?”

“Huh?”

The Mime Jr. perched on the windowsill beside Luo Mu tilted its head, emitting a confused cry.

“Nothing. Everyone get some rest and recharge your energy.”

Shaking his head at Mime Jr., Luo Mu turned to his other Pokémon—Raichu and the others—and instructed them.

Though he planned to slack off, he wasn’t going to do absolutely nothing.

As long as it didn’t interfere with the dumpling ending, handling what he could manage was no problem.

The next day.

Luo Mu received an invitation and returned once again to Dr. Lendo’s laboratory.

Before arriving, he saw Xiao Chao, Dr. Lendo’s son, introducing his “friends” to Ash’s group and several others in the nearby ecological garden.

“What do you think of this proposal?”

Dr. Lendo’s voice pulled Luo Mu’s attention back to the present.

Staring at the meteorite preserved in the growth tank, Luo Mu did not immediately answer Dr. Lendo’s question.

One could only say that Dr. Lendo was truly a genius.

He had noticed Victini’s uniqueness and understood it more deeply than most.

As one of the founders and administrators of Larus City, while investigating the mysterious malfunctions in the city’s systems, he had impulsively retrieved the data recorded by the Battle Tower during yesterday’s exhibition match.

From this data, he had directly realized that Victini’s enhancement of Firebird was not merely a simple “help” move.

After a night of thought, he turned to Luo Mu for help.

According to Dr. Lendo, the meteorite carrying the Cosmic Pokémon Deoxys had become inactive—its core crystal unable to regenerate due to insufficient energy.

After four years of research, they concluded that the solution was to convert the energy saved by Larus City’s operations into a special laser to activate the core crystal’s vitality and trigger self-regeneration.

But unfortunately, even with their strict conservation, the energy generated by current methods like wind power fell far short of what was needed to awaken it.

After all, what it lacked was not continuous energy supply, but a high-frequency burst of energy to activate and awaken it.

Yet last night’s performance by Luo Mu’s Victini had ignited new hope.

According to Dr. Lendo’s theory, he would design and build a device within the week to absorb the heat emitted by Firebird after being enhanced by Victini and convert it into usable energy.

Clearly, Dr. Lendo did not know Victini’s enhancement was a universal, infinite energy boost—he assumed it only worked on Fire-type Pokémon like Firebird.

Luo Mu now understood why Dr. Lendo’s team had failed so many times, yet the movie group succeeded on their first try.

The energy they normally siphoned off couldn’t power the device to maximum load to trigger the laser—only when Larus City was paralyzed and most residents evacuated could they harness the entire city’s energy to do it.

But understanding this didn’t mean Luo Mu felt obligated to agree to Dr. Lendo’s proposal.

—The main reason being: by the time you build your energy-conversion device in a week, the whole thing will already be over.

Just as Luo Mu was considering how to politely decline, a sharp alarm suddenly blared through the lab.

“What’s happening?!”

Dr. Lendo froze for a moment, then shouted to those around him.

But the researchers working normally had no idea what was wrong.

At that moment, a screen flashed, and a live video call forcibly intruded onto the central hanging display.

Officer Junsa, holding a high rank and radiating greater maturity, appeared on the screen.

Seeing her face, Luo Mu involuntarily quickened his breathing.

He knew the movie’s plot was about to unfold.

“Emergency situation, Dr. Lendo!”

On the screen, Junsa spoke with a serious tone.

“The air defense system has detected two Rayquazas flying straight toward Larus City!”

Luo Mu: “?”

“Why Rayquazas?”

Yuzi stared wide-eyed, murmuring.

Dr. Lendo also froze for a second, as if recalling something—he remembered the faint red afterimage captured by the surveillance system last night while investigating the equipment malfunctions.

Could that have been another Deoxys?

Or, as Luo Mu had warned earlier—

Had their repeated attempts to awaken it drawn the vengeful Rayquaza here?

Many theories flashed through his mind, but Dr. Lendo did not panic—he ordered Yuzi to use his authority to access the city’s public surveillance system.

Soon, Yuzi spotted the Deoxys flying erratically within the city.

Seeing this, Dr. Lendo immediately issued a command using his sole authority as Larus City’s remaining administrator.

“There is a Deoxys inside the city. It entered at an unknown time. Rayquaza’s target is likely it.”

“If they fight, it could lead to catastrophe. Evacuate everyone in the city immediately!”

“Understood!”

Junsa nodded slightly and simultaneously activated the emergency evacuation system.

Just as she was about to head to the scene to direct and evacuate residents, Luo Mu suddenly spoke up.

“Wait—you said there are two Rayquazas?”

Junsa paused, seemingly confused by the question, a look of puzzlement crossing her face.

Though the situation was dire, she remembered Luo Mu’s status as Dr. Lendo’s guest and realized his help might be needed during the evacuation, so she patiently answered:

“Yes, two. Is there a problem?”

Luo Mu said nothing, but Dr. Lendo and Yuzi couldn’t hold back.

“No no no! You said there are two Rayquazas?!”

The two, assuming Junsa had misspoken in the emergency, were stunned.

Where in the world did a second Rayquaza come from?!

One of them has a completely different color—it’s likely a shiny Pokémon!

Just as Junsa uttered the words that made Luo Mu’s expression freeze, she began pulling up and transmitting photos.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom echoed across Larus City.

Even where Luo Mu and Dr. Lendo stood, they faintly felt vibrations in the buildings and ground.

On the screen, Junsa froze, as if confirming something, then cried out in shock: “No! The two Rayquazas encountered each other before reaching Larus City—they fought!”

Everyone: “????”

Meanwhile.

The residents and tourists of Larus City were being swiftly and orderly evacuated under the guidance of Block Robots.

Some looked up at the sky, gazing toward the source of the blast, seeing only distant explosions and clouds scattered by the shockwave.

This sight made everyone hurry their evacuation—even the trio of Meowth, two people, and one cat among them.

Before them, a bridge spanning the sea, constructed instantly from countless Block Robots, materialized and activated the city’s automated walkways.

Just as Meowth was about to be the first to step onto the bridge, a figure suddenly flew out.

It was a humanoid Pokémon with an orange-red body, spiral-shaped arms, and a circular deep-blue crystal on its chest.

“Meow! What is that?!”

Meowth screamed in human speech, terrified. The two humans beside it were completely unfazed, only watching the creature with grim expressions, a primal unease prickling their skin.

Jessie and James instinctively stepped back; the crowd around them also hesitated, too startled to step onto the bridge.

At this moment, Deoxys had no spare attention for these mere sources of interfering biological signals in its eyes.

It lifted its face—devoid of nose or mouth, bearing only two eyes and a gash—and gazed at the sky ahead; its usually expressionless visage now revealed a distinctly human-like gravity.

Not only the Rayquaza that had four years ago prevented it from taking its companions away, violently erased its body, left it severely wounded, and forced it to spend four years regenerating.

But another Rayquaza, whose aura was even stronger!

The sky held too few magnetic field interferences to disrupt its vision, so it could clearly discern the other’s form.

The good news was, the two Rayquaza were not holding hands, smiling amiably, and flying together toward Laurus City.

They were fighting each other.

The bad news was, even as they fought, both colossal dragons were steadily advancing toward this location—fighting while flying.

‘.’

Not understanding that it had generated an emotional fluctuation called “speechlessness,” Deoxys instantly made its judgment.

Before it found its companions, it could not allow either of them to enter this city!

Thinking this, amid the startled cries of the crowd retreating behind it, Deoxys shifted its form, its entire body becoming smoother.

This was its innate ability—Deoxys’s defense form.

In defense form, Deoxys unhesitatingly closed its arms, and surging psychic energy coalesced into an invisible force field.

Centered on Deoxys, a massive barrier enveloped the entire Laurus City, even halting the operation of the wind power arrays erected in open areas.

This meant Laurus City was now completely isolated.

From this moment on, unless the barrier was breached, Laurus City would be utterly sealed—no one could enter or leave.

Plainly put, even though Deoxys’s psychic power was vast as an ocean, achieving this still drained considerable energy.

At present, most of its psychic power was tied up maintaining the barrier.

But this should at least slow down those two Rayquaza.

Having completed this, Deoxys turned its gaze downward, calmly observing the many “interfering signal sources” still lingering at the harbor.

Now, it needed to eliminate these “interfering signal sources” hindering its search for companions—then it only had to find them before the Rayquaza broke through the barrier.

With most of its psychic power unavailable, Deoxys planned to use its clone ability to capture these people and gather them in one place.

—But it had not yet acted on this plan.

Above, the two fighting Rayquaza had already drawn near, winding through the sky.

The green one was slammed hard against the barrier by a black one’s tail, then unleashed an unrelenting “Destructive Beam.”

Amid violent thundering, the entire barrier rippled.

—Then, something unexpected happened.

With a sharp crack, the barrier Deoxys had placed all its hope in shattered completely.

(End of Chapter)