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Snover's pale-green eyes shrank tight.
Its heart pounded violently.
Kael's terrifying display, like a war god descending from the sky, completely shattered the confidence it had just moments ago.
The trap they painstakingly prepared?
Destroyed effortlessly.
The triple-layered powder attack Tangela had stored up?
Blown away with one breath.
This opponent… was not something they could fight.
Run.
We have to run.
Snover's instincts screamed.
But the ice-type attack it was charging was only half-finished.
Stopping now would cause severe backlash.
It had no choice but to speed up the final release and pray Kael hadn't spotted its location.
Unfortunately—
Snover suddenly felt a cold, suffocating pressure lock onto it.
A crimson gaze.
Heavy.
Predatory.
Murderous.
Its whole body froze.
It was like falling into a bottomless glacier.
"—AAAHH!!"
Snover roared, forcing its ice-type energy to surge.
Violent overflowing power rattled through its veins.
Every conduit of energy stung with overexertion.
But finally—
At the breaking point a brilliant white orb of ice condensed before its chest.
"Ice Beam!"
ZZZZZ—!
The beam erupted downward, glowing with crystalline brilliance.
Cold mist and glittering snowflakes swirled through the forest as the temperature plummeted.
Branches frosted over instantly.
Kael… didn't even flinch.
He simply blinked once.
Then slowly raised his left hand, palm open.
The Ice Beam struck—
Kael casually swatted it aside.
Like flicking away a fly.
SHH-BANG!
The beam bent at a perfect right angle, smashing into a cluster of trees.
Thick trunks froze solid in an instant, turning into massive pillars of clear ice.
On Kael's hand, a small patch of frost formed…
Then melted instantly from the natural heat of his body.
He lowered his hand.
Unimpressed.
---
"RUN!!!"
Tangela screamed at Snover from the treetops.
Then leapt downward, vines spreading wide like dark-blue whips.
In the harsh training of the Grass-Type Dojo, they had learned one thing:
When facing an overwhelmingly stronger opponent one fights.
One runs.
Never both.
Their emergency plan, simple but functional:
Tangela stalls.
Snover escapes.
Tangela was the weaker attacker but the stronger disrupter a natural choice to delay the monster below.
Snover, with higher special attack and better mobility in forests, would flee and regroup.
They never thought they'd actually need this plan.
Not against another trainee.
Not in a controlled summer camp exercise.
Yet fate laughed in their faces.
The first enemy they encountered…
Was Kael.
A being that should have been filed under "special exceptions," not "standard opponents."
Traps? Useless.
Powders? Worthless.
A fully charged Ice Beam, their trump card, was swatted aside like dust.
Tangela didn't need Snover to explain anything.
Judgment honed by harsh training made the decision for it.
It roared and dove, spreading vines like a collapsing net.
Snover, panting hard from the Ice Beam's cost, shot it one last glance.
Its eyes flickered with regret.
Then it turned and bolted deeper into the forest.
The trees, vines, and undergrowth welcomed it like allies.
Grass-types were born for terrain like this.
With a single flex of energy, it slipped past trunks and branches like a floating leaf.
---
Below, Tangela's vines whipped through the air.
"PUP-PUP-PUP!"
Explosive cracks echoed as its tendrils sliced wind.
Kael sighed softly.
He reached up.
Extended one finger.
Just one.
A faint blue ripple of Aura shimmered from his fingertip.
WHUM—
The world seemed to stop.
Tangela froze mid-fall.
Its body suspended for a split second caught between motion and stillness.
Then—
THUD.
Its vines dropped limp, and the entire body collapsed to the ground in a tangled heap.
Its eyes rolled white.
Unconscious.
Kael didn't look twice.
His crimson gaze shifted to where Snover had run.
Only a faint flicker of movement remained in the trees.
He picked up a small stone that had been kicked loose earlier by the storm he created.
Tossed it lightly in his palm.
Perfect weight.
He nodded.
Drew back his arm muscles tightening like braided steel ropes.
FWOO-BANG!
The stone vanished from his hand with a sonic crack.
It shot through the forest like a sniper round air ripping apart behind it.
And struck Snover's back of the head with surgical precision.
But under Kael's precise control, the moment it touched—
CRUNCH.
It shattered into harmless stone dust.
Snover heard the faint air-slice—
Then pain exploded behind its eyes.
Darkness swallowed its vision.
It collapsed mid-stride, rolling violently across leaves and mud, finally stopping after tumbling several meters along the forest floor.
Out cold.
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