That sensation was like an enormous invisible mountain, falling from the sky above and crashing directly onto their shoulders. Kairos felt his breath seize up, every bone in his body creaking under the unbearable weight in that instant.
His body, which had felt relatively at ease just moments before, now felt as though it was bearing a thousand-pound burden, making even lifting a single finger feel impossibly difficult.
This was no ordinary pressure, nor was it that suffocating aura the whirlpool had been emanating earlier.
This was a purer, more domineering force.
It arrived so suddenly, so directly, without any warning whatsoever and without any cushioning.
In that instant, all the black mist throughout the core of the Ghost World ceased its movement.
The fog that had been churning wildly just moments ago now trembled violently, as though it had encountered its natural predator, and then desperately retreated in every direction, as if trying to flee from the reach of this force.
Will's face drained of color in an instant. His knees buckled, and he nearly collapsed to the ground right then and there. He bit down hard and used every ounce of strength in his body to barely keep himself upright.
This feeling...
This was simply not a force any human being could endure.
Even a Pokemon as powerful as his, a Champion's Pokemon, could not possibly release this kind of despairing pressure. He had never witnessed anything like it before.
Marshadow's expression also turned grim. The gray barrier surrounding its body let out a violent droning sound in that moment, its light flickering erratically, as though it might shatter at any second.
Those large eyes of its, which had still carried a trace of composure earlier, now held nothing but profound shock.
This force...
There was absolutely no way the sealed one could have released this!
Although the sealed one was powerful in its own right, its power was cold and sinister, carrying a corroding quality.
But this force now bearing down on them was something else entirely.
It carried an ancient, weathered, supremely lofty kind of majesty.
And most critically of all, there was a terrifying, overwhelming sense of sheer might behind it!
Stronger than before, by a wide margin!
Kairos struggled to lift his head, trying to see what was happening.
But his field of vision was nothing but darkness.
The pressure was simply too immense, so great that even his sight had gone blurry.
Worst of all, this oppressive force showed no intention of letting them off. It kept intensifying, like an invisible giant hand slowly closing its grip, trying to crush them completely.
The sensation of being locked onto was unmistakably clear, as though something in the darkness had opened a pair of eyes and was now coldly watching the three of them, these reckless intruders who had no idea what they were walking into.
If this kept up, they would be crushed alive by this pressure before they could even figure out what that whirlpool actually was.
Right at that critical moment, Marshadow suddenly let out a low cry.
Its body, ordinarily green, erupted with a surge of red flame.
The flame did not look particularly fierce, nor did it radiate scorching heat, but it carried an intensely sacred and pure quality. The moment that red flame appeared, like snow meeting a raging fire, the terrifying oppressive weight bearing down on them began dissolving at a visible rate.
Kairos felt the burden on his shoulders lighten immediately, the crushing gravity vanishing almost entirely in an instant.
As the red flame burned, the gray barrier around Marshadow stabilized once more and expanded outward by a ring, drawing both Kairos and Will back under its protection.
The violently churning black mist surrounding them receded rapidly in every direction under the illumination of that red light, like a tide pulling back, and the suffocating sense of oppression that had dominated the air miraculously disappeared.
Kairos straightened up and rolled his somewhat stiff neck, a wave of quiet amazement rising inside him.
This was the first time he had personally experienced oppressive pressure of this magnitude in the real world.
Back when he was developing games, he had often watched scenes featuring various Legendary Pokemon in CG cutscenes.
The pressure those CGs conveyed was certainly quite realistic, even more intense than the aura Gouging Fire had given off before, but compared to what he had just felt, it still seemed to fall well short.
It looked like if he ever wanted to upgrade the game module in the future, he would need to find a way to faithfully recreate this kind of sensation. The difficulty would be considerable, but if he could pull it off, the gameplay experience would jump up several levels without question.
Meanwhile, the red flame on Marshadow gradually died down, leaving only a faint halo still flowing across its body.
It looked back at Kairos and Will, its expression looking rather pained.
That last move had not lasted long, but the amount of power it had consumed was no small thing.
That was the power Ho-Oh had specifically left with it for self-preservation, and now the better part of it had been spent just to dispel a pressure effect.
This was like smashing open a walnut with a gold bar. Absolutely obscene extravagance.
It looked at Kairos, its gaze carrying a faint note of grievance.
One glance at that expression and Kairos knew exactly what it was thinking. He quickly waved a hand.
"Relax. Since we used your power, I'm definitely not going to pretend it didn't happen. Once this is all resolved, I'll take care of restoring Ho-Oh's faith energy."
Marshadow's expression softened slightly at those words.
It gave a small huff and said nothing more.
Now that the crisis had been temporarily resolved, there was still work to be done.
Kairos turned to look at the black whirlpool still glowing with its bloody light in the distance, a flicker of curiosity passing through his eyes.
"Well, we still can't see things very clearly from here. We're too far away and can only make out the general shape."
"Since you look like you're holding up alright, can we move a bit closer?"
Will froze completely at those words.
He stared at Kairos with a look of disbelief, as though he were looking at a lunatic.
This person was not from the Ghost World. By any reasonable measure, he should be desperate to stay as far away from a place this dangerous as possible.
That oppressive force had been absolutely terrifying. Even he himself, someone who had lived in the Ghost World his entire life, had barely managed to hold on, and now that they had finally recovered, this person actually wanted to press deeper inside?
What kind of mindset was this?
Will genuinely could not figure out what was going on inside this young man's head.
From the moment they first met until now, his behavior had been completely beyond anything Will's frame of reference could account for.
On the surface he looked like an ordinary Trainer, yet when faced with a place like this, said to be a forbidden zone in legend, he showed more interest than even the Frontier Brain himself. And that composed, unfazed manner made it genuinely hard to believe he had originally come here just as a tourist.
Will felt a wave of bewilderment wash over him.
Still, since Kairos had said as much, and Marshadow did not appear to have any objection either, he had no room to argue. He steeled himself and followed along.
Marshadow thought it over and decided that since the last move had already cleared away some of the destabilizing factors in the surrounding area, moving a bit closer should be manageable enough.
It glanced at the red light still lingering on its body. This power should hold for a little while longer, and sustaining the barrier to bring them inside for a look should be no problem.
"Fine, but don't forget what you said!"
It gave a nod, then turned and drifted toward the direction of the whirlpool.
As they pressed further in, the surrounding environment deteriorated rapidly.
If what surrounded them before could still be described as dense, impenetrable black mist, then what they were in now was nothing short of pure, absolute darkness.
There was no light here at all. Aside from the faint glow emanating from Marshadow's body, the area in every direction was pitch black. Even the thick, viscous fog was no longer perceptible, as though they had entered a void completely devoid of any matter.
This darkness gave a person no sense of footing whatsoever, like being abandoned by the entire world.
Marshadow, however, seemed to know the way. It led the two of them through the darkness for what felt like an indeterminate stretch of time, the oppressive sensation around them growing heavier and heavier, until at last they arrived at the very center of this darkness.
This place was not void. There were things here with real, physical presence.
Kairos narrowed his eyes and, by the light from Marshadow's body, finally made out the scene before him.
Even though he had long since braced himself, fully expecting this place to be anything but ordinary, when he actually saw what lay before him, he still could not help drawing a sharp breath.
It was an enormous array formation beyond all imagination.
The formation was carved into the ground, or what could still be called the ground, its lines intricate and densely layered, radiating a dark crimson light that looked as though it had been painted in fresh blood.
And at the very center of the formation stood a massive coffin.
The coffin was absurdly large, rising before them like a small mountain. It was jet black throughout, forged from some unknown metal, its surface blanketed in strange patterns and symbols.
Those symbols flickered from time to time with cold light and appeared to shift and crawl slowly, like living things.
Most unsettling of all was that this coffin was covered from end to end in densely packed chains and spikes.
Every chain was as thick as a human thigh, covered in rust and dark crimson marks that were impossible to determine were iron corrosion or dried blood. They coiled around the coffin like countless serpents, locked in a death grip.
And the spikes were even more imposing, each one as long as a full-grown person, driven deep into the interior of the coffin, as though intended to pin whatever was inside permanently to this space.
Simply looking at all of this, Kairos could feel a wave of ominous energy washing over him.
The sensation was not only fear, but a deep, instinctive revulsion.
What on earth was this thing?
Kairos furrowed his brow, his mind working rapidly.
He had seen plenty of coffins inside games, but nothing with specifications like this. Never once.
This was not a place built to contain a Pokemon. This looked more like a place built to contain a demon lord.
And the scale was far too large. What was inside this thing, could it actually be Giratina?
If it really was that one, then this seal looked far too brutal.
Whatever it was, it existed at the level of a mythical being. To be treated like this was frankly just disrespectful.
Will stood beside him, already completely stupefied.
His mouth hung open as he stared blankly at the enormous coffin before him, his mind a total blank.
He had heard rumors before about a terrifying existence being sealed within the core of the Ghost World, but rumors were ultimately just rumors, and nothing compared to witnessing it with his own eyes.
So this was the secret the Ghost World had been guarding all along?
This was the seal that had made countless people tremble at the very mention of it?
Just as the two of them were transfixed by the sight before them, the black mist that had only just settled in the surrounding area suddenly stirred again.
The soul-devouring fog began rushing madly toward the coffin as if answering some summons. It did not attack the coffin directly, but flowed like water, seeping through the gaps between the spikes and chains and burrowing into the interior of the coffin.
Before long, the coffin, which had been jet black to begin with, was completely enveloped by a thick layer of black mist.
Kairos watched this unfold, his brow creasing deeper.
Something was off here.
Up until this point, he had assumed this soul-devouring fog had been leaking out from whatever was inside the coffin, or perhaps was a side effect of the seal becoming unstable. But looking at the situation now, it seemed as though the fog was actively flowing into the coffin of its own accord.
Will had clearly also noticed something was wrong. He stared in bewilderment at the black mist disappearing into the coffin, entirely unable to make sense of it. Wasn't the soul-devouring fog a result of whatever was inside this coffin? Why was it flowing in reverse?
And right as the two of them stood there full of questions, the enormous coffin suddenly shuddered.
A heavy, muffled sound resonated from within, like an enormous heart beating once.
The sound was not loud, but it carried an extraordinarily terrifying penetrative quality, reverberating directly into Kairos and Will's eardrums and making them ring.
Marshadow, Will, and Kairos all froze in the same moment. In that instant, the terrifying pressure that had just disappeared came crashing back down onto them.
And this time, it was more ferocious and more savage than before, as though something had been provoked.
The red light surrounding Marshadow shattered instantly, like glass struck by a sledgehammer, exploding into countless red sparks that scattered through the air.
Without Ho-Oh's power as a shield, the oppressive force bore down on them without the slightest restraint.
Marshadow's expression changed drastically. It stared in terror at the coffin, letting out a sharp cry.
Even with Ho-Oh's protection, they had still been discovered!
Whatever was inside that coffin had clearly become aware of their presence!
Before any of the three of them could react, the enormous coffin began shaking violently.
The chains that had been locked so firmly around it let out a teeth-aching groan.
Then, a massive dark shadow burst through the gap of the coffin.
The shadow moved with extraordinary speed, like black lightning, tearing through the layers of mist in an instant and appearing directly before them.
Kairos stared hard, and his heart lurched.
The shape of the shadow was deeply unsettling. It had a body resembling a dragon, but its form was lined with sharp, jagged spines.
On either side of its head were structures that resembled wings, and its blood-red eyes were filled with an aura of savagery and slaughter.
In that moment, Kairos felt his entire body go rigid.
What the...
This thing looked exactly like Giratina.
So it really was him?!
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