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Kael dragged Snover by one thick leg, the snow Pokémon completely unconscious.
He tossed it onto the ground beside the limp Tangela, stacking the two Grass-types together like bags of grain.
His crimson crystal eyes narrowed in thought.
Back when he had first stepped off the bus, he'd already sensed it—
That faint, rotten stench was buried in the damp forest air.
With his sharpened perception, he couldn't miss it.
The smell of Nightmare Pokémon.
They carried a unique, disgusting aura—
a twisted mix of madness and decay that no ordinary wild Pokémon possessed.
Kael hated them.
Creatures stripped of reason, driven only by cruelty and slaughter…
Monsters.
The moment he picked up that scent, he made his decision:
He would personally walk into this forest—
and clean out every Nightmare Pokémon hiding inside.
Following the faint rot threaded through the fresh woodland air, he pushed deeper and deeper into Birchwood Grove.
He hadn't expected the first thing he'd run into would be Grass Gym ambushers instead.
The thorn traps they had buried?
He'd seen them from far away.
To them, the life energy in those seeds was quiet, hidden.
To Kael's eyes, enhanced by his strange vision, it was like shining spotlights in the dark.
He'd been tracking the Nightmare scent at the time.
So of course, he made one assumption:
The trap belonged to the Nightmare Pokémon.
He'd planned to walk into it on purpose, lure the enemy out, and kill them in one go.
Instead, he'd dragged out two unlucky Grass-types who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kael sighed and smirked bitterly.
At least he'd realized mid-fight that they weren't the real enemy and had held back.
If he hadn't controlled his strength…
There wouldn't be two fainted Pokémon in front of him right now.
There would be two corpses.
Tangela and Snover were Pokémon from Ignis City's Grass-type Gym.
They were here for experience, not war.
Even their ambush, while aggressive, had never been aimed at killing him—
only defeating him.
Kael understood that.
So he had no intention of taking their lives.
Instead, he dragged both of them into a dense patch of bushes and dropped them there, hidden but safe.
A few hours of unconsciousness and they'd probably wake up on their own.
Incidentally, their loss would also keep them out of further danger.
With that minor detour resolved, Kael turned back to his original task.
That foul stench of Nightmare…
was getting closer.
He stood quietly beneath the oppressive canopy, letting his breathing slow, eyes half-lidded.
Then—
Soft blue light seeped from his body.
Aura.
Like a gentle river, it spread outward in all directions, filling the air around him.
In moments, Kael stood at the center of an invisible Aura field, a dome of perception.
With it, even the smallest disturbance in the forest would be relayed back to him in detail.
But the cost was high.
The sharper the feedback, the more his mind burned.
Even Kael couldn't maintain this level of Aura awareness all the time.
This was a tool for critical moments.
And Nightmare Pokémon definitely qualified.
The faint blue Aura pulsed through the air, nearly colorless, like diluted moonlight.
Kael began to move.
From a distance, his pace looked calm and unhurried, but each stride was long, precise, and deceptively fast.
It created a strange visual contradiction, like watching slow motion, that somehow bridged the distance in an instant.
Suddenly—
His nose twitched.
"…Hm?"
Something changed.
His brow furrowed.
Amid the scent of damp soil and greenery, a new smell surfaced.
One he knew all too well.
Blood.
Kael's eyes flashed.
He shifted forward and then his speed exploded.
Air boomed around him.
Branches and leaves thrashed wildly in his wake as he tore through the underbrush.
But even with his acceleration—
He was late.
Very late.
The sight waiting for him was chaos.
Branches were shattered and scattered on the ground.
The soil churned, as if something had plowed through it, flipping earth and roots alike.
Blood.
Thick, vivid crimson-soaked patches of dirt like blossoms of red roses blooming across the forest floor.
Gray-black feathers, slick with blood, drifted down through the air, settling in the mud, on leaves, across carcasses.
It was a quiet slaughterhouse in the heart of the woods.
A field of butchery.
The remains belonged to a small flight squad, Tranquill and a Staravia.
For mid-sized bird Pokémon,
This kind of terrain, a dark, cluttered forest, was usually ideal.
Branches for cover.
Airspace to dive and weave.
Perfect for hit-and-run combat.
With the combat skills they'd forged through relentless training back at the Flying-type Gym, this pair should've been one of the most dangerous scouting teams in the Summer Camp.
They should've had a good shot at scoring high.
Instead—
They hadn't even made it past the first afternoon.
Squish.
Kael's black foot pressed into the blood-soaked ground, the wet soil deforming around it.
He expanded his Aura field, carefully reading every detail of the surroundings as he moved toward the corpses at the center.
He crouched down.
The bodies were already cooling.
The blood that had once been hot with life now felt dead against the air.
Wounds jagged, savage, too many to count covered their bodies.
Large patches of feathers had been ripped out by brute force.
Kael's eyes hardened.
Based on the marks, based on the spread of blood, based on the feather scatter pattern—
He knew.
They hadn't just been killed.
They'd been tortured.
The attacker had more than enough strength to finish them quickly.
But hadn't.
Instead, they'd chosen to prolong it to play with them.
To peel away their feathers while they still screamed.
To tear them apart inch by inch.
To kill them slowly.
To savor it.
"Trash."
The word left Kael's lips in a low, icy growl.
He'd taken many lives by now but in all his kills, there was one line he never crossed—
He never toyed with his enemies.
He never mutilated, never mocked.
He crushed them quickly. Efficiently.
Clean.
But this?
This was different.
This was deliberate cruelty.
This was enjoyment.
It crossed his line.
He stamped down the fire in his chest, forcing his rage to cool into something sharp and focused.
Bending closer, he examined the wounds again, this time focusing not on the physical damage—
But on the faint energy traces left behind.
Claw marks.
Impact patterns.
Residual aura.
From this—
He could begin to piece together exactly what kind of Nightmare Pokémon he was dealing with.
And once he knew that…
Hunting it down would just be a matter of time.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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