Draconia, Western Region.
John stood on Lugia's back as it soared rapidly forward at high altitude.
This wasn't the first time he'd experienced Lugia's speed, but John still had to say, after all, it was a legendary Pokemon. It flew incredibly fast.
The Pokedex in the games said that if Dragonite flew at full strength, it would only take sixteen hours to circle the earth. At Lugia's speed, it probably wouldn't even take four hours.
It took John less than an hour to arrive at the location. At this speed, if he resolved the matter quickly enough, he could still go home to rest tonight.
Arriving at the destination, at the foot of a snow-capped mountain, on the edge of a lush green meadow.
From a distance, John saw a huge blue portal. Apparently this sanctuary had been discovered by herders while grazing sheep nearby.
"Champion John!"
At the entrance to the portal, Trainer Association staff had already set up camp. Seeing the iconic dark Lugia approaching, everyone quickly lined up to greet him.
John slid off Lugia's back and recalled it.
"Thank you for your hard work. Is there anything unusual about this sanctuary?"
A leading Trainer Association member came up to answer. "Champion, the interior of the realm is very stable. This is the information we've gathered during this period."
With that, he handed over a tablet.
John took the tablet and looked it over carefully. The information inside wasn't much different from what he'd gotten from Lillian Grant.
"I'll head in first." John returned the tablet and stepped toward the secret realm portal.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, John walked into the portal.
The scenery immediately changed, and darkness fell, as if he'd walked into a small dark room.
However, this didn't affect John much. After practicing Ghost's Eye for several years, he already had night vision abilities.
John soon found himself in a dark forest.
Snap!
He snapped his fingers lightly.
"Gardevoir, Psychic."
Gardevoir immediately emerged from invisibility, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and Psychic instantly burst forth, rushing outward like a tide to begin investigating.
John also stepped forward and walked ahead.
Walking around a bush, bright white light fell into John's eyes like silk.
Soaring high in the distance, a full moon hung cold and lonely.
"This sanctuary is eternal night," John remembered from the information he'd seen on the tablet.
He looked up at the full moon again.
A perfect full moon.
Soon, Gardevoir completed her Psychic scan of the Beauty Under the Moon realm and sent the scan results as a mental three-dimensional map into John's mind.
Suddenly, a huge forest appeared in John's mind, with all kinds of Pokemon hiding throughout.
This was the benefit of having powerful Psychic-type Pokemon. When it came to searching and surveillance, no Pokemon could compare with them.
However, John didn't find the divine Gardevoir anywhere in the huge forest.
"There are two possibilities. Either that Gardevoir's psychic power is much stronger than my Gardevoir's, or it has left the sanctuary," John thought.
After all, if that Gardevoir really had a divine seat, it wouldn't seem too difficult for it to leave the realm unnoticed.
However, John soon discovered that there was a large Gardevoir colony in this forest, a tribe with more than a thousand individuals, including many Ralts and Kirlia.
"Let's go have a look," John decided.
"Gardevoir~" Gardevoir suddenly spoke up.
Gardevoir used her psychic power to focus on a region of the three-dimensional map in John's mind.
"Your psychic power can't penetrate there?" John raised an eyebrow. Gardevoir told him that when the psychic power from her exploration reached that area, it was like falling into a whirlpool, twisted and torn by a powerful force before disappearing.
It seemed like that place was quite extraordinary. It was possible that special Gardevoir was there too.
"Then let's check there first. If we can't find that divine Gardevoir, then we'll visit the Gardevoir tribe," John ordered.
"Garde~" Gardevoir immediately gestured.
The next second, John and Gardevoir teleported near that special region.
This was a strange desert completely incompatible with the surrounding forest, as if an irregular blade had been used to slice one area into two pieces. There wasn't a single creature among them, and even moonlight fell into it only to be cut into countless fragments.
John casually took out an Oran Berry and threw it forward to test.
The Oran Berry flew past without any resistance, landed on the ground... and disappeared!
"Use your psychic power to explore again," John commanded Gardevoir. At the same time, he concentrated his aura power and gave it to her.
But the process was completely different from what John had just seen. The Oran Berry quickly began to turn yellow, then burst with juice, shriveled, decayed, turned to dust, and disappeared!
"The power of time?" John couldn't help but raise his eyebrows. He saw clearly that the Oran Berry's disappearance wasn't due to landing, but while it was still flying through the air, it changed from a ripe fruit to a green fruit, shrank smaller and smaller, and finally became a seed before disappearing completely!
One Oran Berry reversed back to seed form, another Oran Berry accelerated through maturity and decay.
"Chaotic time," John thought.
Gardevoir gathered herself again and Psychic began to search.
Soon, just as Gardevoir described, they encountered a vortex, but in front of them wasn't one huge vortex, but countless small vortexes with gaps between them that weren't small at all.
In John's eyes, the tidal spread of Psychic was like a great wave crashing forward, but it seemed like a complicated tree diagram appeared. These complex branches were the safe routes for Psychic to spread through.
This was the backward and forward movement of time.
At the deepest point, the vortex and turbulence were gone, replaced by a small grassland, and in the middle of the grassland was a crystal stone emitting powerful energy.
John raised his eyebrows. There was no doubt that this crystal stone had to be something valuable.
John thought for a while, then took out another Oran Berry and threw it with the same force and arc, but this time with the same result, the Oran Berry disappeared the moment it hit the ground.
Just as John was about to take Gardevoir through the whirlpool area, a cold voice came from the right.
"Human, don't go any further!"