Chapter 660: Regigigas Rises from the Earth
When the war for absolute supremacy between the eras concluded.
The victor was naturally the vastly superior Dragon Clan.
This wasn't merely the selection of the era; it was the selection of the world itself.
Regardless of historical precedent.
The Dragon Clan...
Was the undisputed protagonist of the current epoch.
The sheer magnitude of this apocalyptic conflict was staggering.
Not only the entirety of the Rocky Mountains, but even the surrounding geographical sectors could distinctly detect the tremors of the massive war.
And when the synchronized, triumphant roars of the Dragon Clan finally pierced the heavens, echoing boundlessly across the entire Rocky Mountain range...
The Pokémon inhabiting the peaks collectively stabilized their racing hearts.
They had synthesized the final data.
The Dragon Clan was victorious.
Consequently, their future continuity was secured.
The central nexus of the Rocky Mountains.
Historically, this specific coordinate was a sprawling valley fortified by four towering mountain peaks.
Currently...
The western peak had been systematically pulverized into dust.
The valley now sported a massive, newly formed breach opening toward the west.
However, from the Tyrantrum clan's operational perspective, this structural damage was irrelevant. In fact, it conveniently streamlined their routine patrols.
Kazuya had sustained substantial physical trauma.
That specific Crimson Genesect sat at a baseline of Lv. 88, perfectly mirroring the Tyrantrum patriarch.
However, the kinetic pressure it projected fundamentally exceeded the Tyrantrum's—despite being a Steel/Bug-type burdened with a catastrophic 4x vulnerability to Kazuya's Fire-type assaults.
The Genesect's innate biological advantages were sufficient to compensate for the vast majority of its elemental deficit.
The primary variable was their capacity to fluidly execute mechanical reconfiguration.
To illustrate the data: if their baseline velocity in combat configuration was 90, shifting into high-speed configuration instantly spiked that parameter to 150.
Factoring in the Genesect's raw level...
The velocity metrics generated during its high-speed configuration mathematically bypassed Kazuya's, forcing him into a highly reactive, defensive posture.
The secondary variable was the Genesect's extraordinarily advanced cognitive processing.
Unlike the simplistic, instinct-driven algorithms governing the vast majority of Pokémon, the Genesect possessed unparalleled combat intelligence.
Naturally, their processing capacity couldn't rival dedicated Psychic-type Pokémon, nor could it match a genuine supercomputer.
But it undeniably operated on an entirely different cognitive plane compared to standard biological entities.
If nothing else...
Their ability to partially synthesize and articulate human linguistics served as absolute, empirical proof.
One merely needed to reference the intelligence parameters of Team Rocket's Meowth to fully grasp the implication.
This high-tier combat intelligence, synergized flawlessly with the Genesect's form-shifting capabilities, exponentially spiked its overall combat output.
Had the Genesect possessed literally any other elemental typing...
Kazuya mathematically would have been forced to push his bio-engine into a critical, life-risking overdrive to secure the victory today.
At this exact chronological moment...
Kazuya sat heavily upon the blood-soaked, corpse-strewn earth.
He executed a slow, 360-degree visual sweep, meticulously calculating the Dragon Clan's aggregate losses.
The Dragon Clan's eight Champion-tier powerhouses had all survived without catastrophic incident.
The Mega Garchomp and Dragon Dad were practically devoid of structural damage; it was highly probable their designated adversaries lacked the requisite combat baseline to inflict meaningful friction.
The Tyrantrum was currently standing beside the shattered carcass of an Armaldo, sighing heavily, engaged in unknown internal processing.
The operative who had sustained the second most severe trauma was the Hydreigon.
He had been locked in combat against a Volcarona matching his Champion-tier baseline. It had been an exceptionally grueling engagement; he only managed to secure the kill after the Mega Aerodactyl executed an aerial intervention to assist.
However, executing a comprehensive comparative analysis...
Kazuya verified the data.
He was undeniably the operative who had suffered the most severe structural damage.
This outcome was entirely within his pre-combat calculations.
Exactly as projected, the Bug-type coalition mathematically lacked the capacity to field a substantial volume of Champion-tier assets.
Excluding the three Genesect...
The only other entities breaking the Champion threshold were the Armaldo, the Volcarona, and the Yanmega.
The Armaldo sat at the mid-tier Champion level.
The other two were positioned at the lower-tier Champion level.
Aside from the Hydreigon vs. Volcarona matchup—which was mathematically balanced—the adversaries assigned to the other Champion dragons were almost universally inferior in baseline output.
Only Kazuya had been forced to punch upward against the Bug King.
There was nothing else to synthesize.
King against King.
The matchmaking parameter for that specific duel wasn't dictated by raw combat metrics; it was dictated by absolute hierarchical status.
As the Dragon King, it was his strict biological obligation to dismantle the Bug King.
Kazuya continued his visual inspection, evaluating the casualty reports across the major tribes.
The pseudo-legendary vanguards had essentially emerged unscathed.
As entities permanently garrisoned within the hyper-lethal central nexus of the Rocky Mountains, their aggregate combat baseline astronomically exceeded the swarm's.
The demographics that had suffered slightly more tragic losses were likely the Rampardos, Haxorus, Scrafty, and Tyrantrum...
Clans whose combat doctrines inherently prioritized hyper-aggressive, reckless frontal assaults while completely ignoring defensive protocols.
When subjected to the swarm's coordinated encirclement tactics, it was mathematically guaranteed they would suffer higher mortality rates.
The vanguards that had preserved their combat integrity most flawlessly were undeniably the Druddigon and Aerodactyl.
The former were exceptionally cunning.
They had permanently entrenched themselves underground, occasionally reaching up to violently drag a single insect beneath the surface to dismantle it in isolation.
The latter possessed absolute air superiority.
They executed rapid, high-velocity dive-bombing runs, utilizing their fangs or talons to instantly execute a single insect, before leveraging their overwhelming velocity advantage to immediately regain altitude. The swarm possessed absolutely zero countermeasures against their hit-and-run tactics.
"Acceptable. The output is substantially more positive than my initial projections."
After finalizing his observations, Kazuya exhaled a long breath, releasing a fraction of his internal tension.
Pre-combat:
The Dragon Clan had mobilized roughly nine hundred combat operatives.
Post-combat:
Kazuya estimated that a minimum of eight hundred dragons remained functional. Subtracting the entities who had sustained permanent, crippling biological trauma, the active roster sat comfortably around the seven-hundred mark.
This outcome vastly exceeded his most optimistic calculations.
The Bug-type coalition's baseline strength was significantly weaker than his initial projections.
Of course, this data could also be interpreted as the inevitable consequence of being biologically sidelined by the era for an extended epoch; they had mathematically lost their former glory.
In summary.
Following the conclusion of today's conflict...
There mathematically shouldn't exist a single biological collective on the planet possessing the raw martial capital to threaten the Dragon Clan's absolute sovereignty.
"Flor~"
Florges slowly floated over, gently wrapping her green vine whips around Kazuya's massive arm.
"My structural integrity is stable." Kazuya turned his head, projecting a reassuring smile.
Originally, Kazuya had absolutely zero intention of permitting Florges to deploy to this theater.
Factoring in her profound aversion to combat and absolute distaste for slaughter, Kazuya had explicitly desired her to remain as the primary defensive anchor in the grassland.
However...
Both Kazuya and his younger brother were deploying to the frontline.
If Florges remained behind, her psychological parameters would never stabilize; her anxiety would remain permanently redlined, completely devoid of any sense of security.
Therefore, she forcefully inserted herself into the deployment roster.
Her initial biological imperative for executing Evolution...
Was specifically to acquire the capacity to protect the collective.
If she failed to deploy during an apocalyptic crisis of this magnitude...
What mathematical utility did that Evolution serve?
At this exact moment...
Kazuya was profoundly grateful she had chosen to intervene.
Throughout the duration of the war...
Florges had successfully stabilized and preserved the biological functions of a minimum of one hundred dragons. She was undeniably the absolute MVP support operative on the entire battlefield.
Had she not been deployed...
The Dragon Clan's casualty reports today would likely have forced Kazuya to aggressively claw at his own face in sheer frustration.
"Flor."
"The primary strategic objectives have essentially been secured. We merely need to execute a final, coordinated push to formally annex the rainforest, and then we will initiate a prolonged phase of biological recuperation and systemic consolidation." Kazuya stated softly.
"Flor~"
Florges smiled, nodding gently.
That was the exact operational reality she deeply desired.
Following her evolution, Florges possessed a remarkably high tolerance for routine. She flawlessly executed the exact same daily tasks without ever registering a single parameter of boredom or monotony.
Regarding this specific biological trait... Kazuya genuinely held profound admiration for her.
Rumble, rumble—!!
Suddenly, the earth began to violently heave.
The Dragon Clan was instantly alarmed. The nervous systems that had just begun to power down immediately redlined into absolute combat readiness. They executed rapid, 360-degree visual sweeps, frantically scanning the perimeter for newly materialized hostiles.
The collective calculation was that a massive, undetected subterranean swarm had initiated a delayed offensive.
However, Kazuya's Aura sensors verified the contrary.
There wasn't a massive cluster of Aura signatures beneath the surface.
There was only one Aura signature.
An entity projecting an astronomically, terrifyingly massive Aura.
And it was positioned directly beneath Kazuya's feet!
"Flor!" Florges let out a sharp cry of alarm.
Kazuya had abruptly snatched her up and launched into a high-velocity vertical ascent, the sudden kinetic shift startling her.
Before she possessed the chronological bandwidth to query Kazuya regarding the anomaly...
She visually acquired the data.
At the exact coordinate they had been resting moments ago, a colossal, ancient behemoth was slowly, methodically dragging itself out from beneath the shattered earth.
How massive was it?
It was mathematically several magnitudes larger than the Tyrantrum patriarch had been during their initial encounter.
If describing the previous iteration of the Tyrantrum as a "small mountain" was a slight linguistic exaggeration...
Describing the entity currently materializing before them as a mountain...
Was absolute, empirical fact.
"The Colossal Pokémon, Regigigas... I believe I have finally synthesized the exact variable that violently flushed that insect swarm out of the subterranean depths."
Kazuya hovered in the high altitude, firmly clutching Florges, his golden pupils locked onto the absolutely suffocating, oppressive silhouette of the ancient titan.
Having operated within the Pokémon world across six distinct reincarnations... spanning over two centuries...
This was the absolute first chronological instance Kazuya had achieved visual confirmation of Regigigas's physical form.
During his previous reincarnation, while garrisoned within the Snowpoint Temple, he had successfully detected the dormant Aura of Regigigas deep underground.
But he had never achieved direct visual contact.
This officially marked their first physical encounter.
Regigigas.
Was exponentially more massive, and astronomically more terrifying, than Kazuya's internal calculations had projected.
Once upon a time...
Kazuya had anchored the operational hypothesis that Regigigas functioned as the absolute baseline "floor" for box-art Legendary power-scaling.
After all.
Within the broader Pokémon franchise...
Aside from possessing exceptionally profound lore documentation, Regigigas practically lacked any authentic, high-tier combat showcases. In fact, during the Hoopa movie Clash of Ages, it was unceremoniously relegated to functioning as a minor background asset alongside Zekrom and Reshiram.
Consequently...
Kazuya had formulated the calculation that Regigigas operated on a parallel combat tier with the Unova dragons.
Although articulating this data might be slightly offensive to his old comrade...
In Kazuya's internal power-scaling matrix...
Zekrom and Reshiram represented the absolute bottom tier of major Legendaries, operating on a roughly equivalent baseline with standard, non-Primal Groudon and Kyogre.
However, at this exact microsecond...
Processing the absolutely suffocating, crushing kinetic pressure radiating from the titan... Kazuya verified the data: he had catastrophically underestimated the Colossal Pokémon.
Kazuya raised a single claw.
Broadcasting a highly compressed, soothing Aura pulse to instantly pacify the frantic, terrified collective below.
He issued a strict override command, demanding they maintain absolute operational discipline and expressly forbidding any unprovoked hostile action.
Regigigas wasn't an entity harboring malicious, destructive intent.
Similar to Ho-Oh and Lugia, it was an entity universally classified as a benevolent, stabilizing force within the global ecosystem—it merely suffered from a historically underwhelming public relations presence.
It absolutely wouldn't initiate a hostile offensive against the Dragon Clan...
...Probably.
Kazuya mumbled internally.
He lacked the data to verify whether the apocalyptic acoustic and seismic friction generated by the Dragon/Bug war had been the specific variable that violently interrupted Regigigas's slumber.
If that calculation proved accurate...
The parameters were highly volatile.
The Dragon Clan might genuinely be forced to absorb a catastrophic physical beating.
After all, even benevolent deities operated on emotional algorithms. If an external entity violently disrupted your hibernation cycle, initiating an aggressive, punitive response was entirely within standard biological logic.
Suddenly.
Kazuya's golden pupils contracted sharply.
"Wait, analyzing the visual data... Is this the 'Fully Operational' configuration?"
Kazuya meticulously observed the stationary, towering silhouette of Regigigas.
The seven circular nodes arrayed across its central chassis—mimicking the constellation of the Big Dipper—were currently radiating an intense, pulsing crimson light.
According to the highly specialized, historical research compiled by Cynthia's grandmother, Professor Carolina:
When all seven nodes on Regigigas's chassis achieve maximum incandescence, it signifies that Regigigas's cognitive processing has achieved absolute, peak lucidity.
Translating the data into operational mechanics:
Regigigas's Slow Start debuff window...
Had completely expired.
Prior to the introduction of Generation IX, Slow Start was a biological bottleneck entirely exclusive to Regigigas.
And it absolutely wasn't an advantageous parameter.
Within the simulated League tournament environments (the games):
The mechanical effect of Slow Start was documented as:
For the first five turns the Pokémon is in battle, its Attack and Speed stats are halved.
Translated into authentic, real-world physics:
It dictated that for a prolonged, chronological window immediately following its awakening from hibernation, Regigigas's baseline combat output would suffer a catastrophic, systemic degradation.
It could be analytically estimated that its combat effectiveness would plummet by roughly a third.
"Data synthesized."
In that exact microsecond, Kazuya achieved absolute clarity.
He finally processed exactly why his historical calculations had flagged Regigigas as weak, and exactly why his current visual and Aura data were flagging it as an absolute terror.
It wasn't exclusively due to the entity's historically underwhelming cinematic portrayals.
It was simultaneously due to the fact that the Aura signature Kazuya had detected beneath the Snowpoint Temple in his previous life was radiating from a Regigigas locked deeply within the Slow Start debuff.
At that chronological juncture.
Its combat baseline was mathematically incomparable to its current, fully awakened, peak operational state.
Just as he finalized this calculation...
The colossal, metallic titan directly below him initiated movement.
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