The moment the Soul Dew touched the gem, the sound it made was almost gentle, a soft chime, and then it was gone. Absorbed completely. The pale blue glow that had crowned the Sea Crown flared white for an instant, then curdled into black.
"Boom."
Thunder rolled overhead as the sky darkened in seconds. Across Alto Mare, every canal began to shift, clear water clouding to black, a slow creeping wrongness spreading outward from the city center. Further out, the sea itself started to darken, the change visible even from the rooftops. People in the streets below were screaming now, and more than a few of them had clearly recognized the pattern from three-hundred-year-old stories passed down through their families.
Ash's Rinnegan tracked the process with cold clarity.
The Crown was sealed by the Soul Dew. Same source, same origin. Close enough proximity and they resonate, and the seal breaks.
It made sense now. Too much sense.
"Come forth," Archer said, voice rising with something close to euphoria as he raised the Crown overhead. "My army."
The blackened sea answered him.
Water peeled itself upward in writhing columns, condensing, hardening, taking shape in front of Archer one after another. Within seconds dozens of forms had solidified into something recognizable.
Aerodactyl. Kabutops. Dozens of each.
...
"Pikachu, get ready." Ash didn't look away from the gathering swarm as he reached for the belt at his waist, releasing every Poké Ball in sequence. Light flared and resolved into familiar shapes, Gardevoir, Pidgeot, Bayleef, Croconaw, Rhydon, Ninetales, falling into formation around Pikachu without needing to be told.
Archer laughed, delighted. "You think those will be enough to break my legion? I'll grind their bones into the riverbed."
He swept the Crown forward, and the assembled Aerodactyl and Kabutops surged as one.
It was the sheer number of them that struck Ash first. Hundreds. Each one carrying an elite-tier energy signature despite their summoned nature, individually not overwhelming, but as a collective wave, more than enough to bog down even his strongest partners through attrition alone.
"ROARRR!!!"
"Kreeee!"
The first wave hit. Ash's hands blurred through seals.
"Fire Style. Great Fire Annihilation."
He drew a breath that filled his chest to capacity and exhaled a column of flame nearly thirty-five meters across, sweeping it through the front ranks of the charging swarm. Everything it touched went up instantly, a Kabutops caught dead center reduced to ash mid-charge, an Aerodactyl above the blast radius forced into an emergency dive.
For a moment the line broke.
Then the blackened water surged back in, flowing into the scorched gaps and reforming the burned Kabutops as though nothing had happened.
"Kreeee!" It shrieked, fully restored, and kept coming.
"Damn it." Ash's jaw tightened. "Everyone, fall back to ranged tactics. Don't engage them directly, they're regenerating from the source." He didn't have time to find that source yet. "Slow them down, keep them off the civilians, that's the priority."
His team responded instantly, shifting formation, Pidgeot and Bayleef pulling wide to herd the swarm away from the fleeing crowds while Rhydon anchored the center line.
Ash flicked his eyes to Rinnegan.
The deeper structural reading confirmed it in an instant.
No souls. No real resurrection. They're puppets, animated water given shape and held together by the Crown's power. Infinite respawn, zero actual life force behind any of it.
That explained the endless regeneration. It also meant there was a single point of failure somewhere, if he could find it.
He turned his palm toward Archer.
"Banshō Ten'in."
The pull hit instantly, gravity warping toward Ash's palm, aimed squarely at the Crown in Archer's hand.
Archer's grip didn't budge. His arm tensed, fingers locking around the shaft, and the Crown held its position against a technique that had once dragged a Tailed Beast across open ground.
Ash's Rinnegan contracted sharply. He's resisting Banshō Ten'in.
"Feel that?" Archer's grin spread wider, something almost manic behind his eyes now. "I feel incredible. You cannot beat me like this."
He vanished.
"Whoosh."
"BOOM."
Ash's left foot hit the ground a half-second before impact, the kickback spinning him sideways through the air just as Archer's fist came down where he'd been standing, cratering the rooftop.
That speed. Ash's eyes had barely tracked the movement. That's close to Soru. Maybe equal to it.
He landed in a crouch, watching Archer straighten up from the crater with the casual ease of someone who hadn't even broken a sweat.
That shouldn't have been possible. Archer was strong, sure, a high-level trainer with real combat experience. But the body in front of him was, fundamentally, still just a human body. No amount of borrowed power should have let an ordinary person move at speeds that took Ash years of systematic training, and a system-granted technique, to achieve.
"System." Ash's voice was low, urgent. "Analyze the Crown. Now."
He pushed off again, sliding into Soru himself to put distance between them, eyes locked on Archer as he waited for the readout.