Martin watched as his family's Guardian Pokémon was reduced to ashes by Moltres' flames, not even leaving behind a corpse. His body went weak, and he collapsed to the ground.
He knew then—the Hall family was finished.
All he had wanted was to let his son disgust the Turner family a little, but he never expected the Turners to retaliate so ruthlessly.
What had the Hall family done to deserve the personal wrath of a Champion?
Did he regret it? Regret was hardly the word—what was done was done.
Harold watched as Martin was killed by Metagross with a single swipe of its claw, a complex expression on his face.
If his grandson hadn’t happened to visit the Turner family, he would never have been able to handle that Luxray with his own strength.
Still, the Hall family had brought this upon themselves with their despicable methods of provoking the Turners. Fortunately, his love-struck granddaughter had brought Oliver home today. Otherwise, Harold had originally intended to keep this matter from Julian—but now there was no hiding it.
A few days later news spread that the Hall family—a minor clan in Luminara City had ceased to exist.
The one who acted was, naturally, Julian.
After learning the reason behind this, the other families of Luminara City immediately warned their clansmen: do not provoke any women from the Turner family.
Whether the love was genuine or not didn’t matter—if she was a Turner, just stay away from her.
One woman from the Turner family had destroyed an entire minor clan. Even if the Halls were at fault, the price was far too steep. Now, whether from the main branch or a collateral line, any marriageable woman from the Turner family was seen as a walking disaster by these families.
They feared that one wrong move could attract Julian’s attention.
This led to a situation where, for several years, no woman from the Turner family would be married into any local family in Luminara City, resulting in quite a few unmarried women in the family.
When Harold learned of this, his feelings were mixed.
But the benefits were also evident: the Turner family now overshadowed the other two major families, becoming the undisputed top family in Luminara City.
A 22-year-old Champion—the other families admitted they couldn’t afford to provoke him, so they opted to steer clear.
If it had been an Elite who annihilated a family like this, they would almost certainly have been hunted down by the Drakorian authorities—unless that Elite’s family had extraordinary influence.
Trainers held the highest social status in every country across the world, Drakoria included.
But precisely because of this, there were also many restrictions placed on their actions.
If you thought you could act recklessly based on your strength, you were sorely mistaken.
That said, these restrictions weakened as a trainer’s strength grew. By the time you reached the Elite tier, unless you killed dozens of innocent people openly or committed truly heinous crimes, at most you would be arrested—but they wouldn’t take your life.
And if you became a Champion, then things were on a completely different level.
As long as you didn’t betray the country or commit acts that truly outraged public conscience, you could occasionally do some "out-of-line" things.
After staying with the Turner family for about a week and spending quality time with his grandparents, Julian finally left.
However, he didn’t return to the Imperial Capital—instead, he embarked on his journey to challenge the National Gyms.
He hadn’t forgotten that he still had a main quest to complete.
Previously, he had already obtained the National-level Grass-type, Rock-type, and his own Steel-type Gym Badges. That left fifteen more badges to collect.
And so, all fifteen of the National-level Gym Leaders received challenge notifications from Julian at different times.
The Gym Leaders: "………"
What was this supposed to be? A Champion coming all the way down to stomp on them like they were newbies?
National-level Gym Leaders were generally trainers in the late-stage Elite tier up to early-stage Pseudo-Champions.
Although they were puzzled about why Julian wanted to challenge the Gyms, they all accepted his application. After all, Julian was a Champion now—his very title meant they couldn’t refuse.
Besides, being able to battle a Champion was actually a rare and valuable opportunity for them.
In just half a month, Julian had beaten all fifteen Gyms.
During these two weeks, Julian traveled to many places across Drakoria, and his Pokémon made significant progress.
Of course, in the Gym Challenges, he didn’t use Metagross—that would have made things completely pointless.
Instead, he relied on Dragonite, Kartana, Arcanine, and Gengar, all at the late-stage Elite level. He rarely used Moltres and Aggron, who were at the Pseudo-Champion level.
Over these two weeks, his Pokémon thoroughly expended all their stamina and energy. The high-intensity battles every day continuously transformed their accumulated potential into actual combat strength.
And make no mistake, every Gym Leader he faced was strong—their main Pokémon were all capable of battling above their level.
But against Julian, who was even more monstrous, every one of them was beaten down brutally.
Among the fifteen Gyms, only two gave Julian a tough fight.
One was the Ghost-type Gym, whose Gym Leader was an early-stage Pseudo-Champion.
Ghost-types were one of the most troublesome of the eighteen types—their tricks and unpredictability were unmatched, and many Ghost-type Pokémon knew moves like Curse, Destiny Bond, and Perish Song—the kind of moves that essentially said, 'If I can’t beat you, I’ll drag you down with me.'
With several nasty and frustrating tactics, the Gym Leader managed to take down one of Julian’s Pokémon in a full 6v6 battle.
Of course, this was also partly because Julian’s Pokémon wasn’t at its peak condition at the time.
If it had been in peak condition and still lost to an opponent of the same level, then that opponent’s Trainer would have to be even more of a cheat than Julian himself.
Originally, Julian had considered recalling his Pokémon when he saw it wasn’t in good shape, but the little guy insisted on fighting to the end.
And the only one among Julian’s Pokémon who would say something so stubborn was Kartana.
Pushing itself too hard, and already severely weakened by Curse, it ultimately fell to the opponent’s Destiny Bond.
The second challenging Gym was the Dragon-type Gym controlled by the Drake family.
The Gym Leader was Wade, the younger brother of the Dragon Elite Victor, and also one of Julian’s teachers during his time at Imperial University when he participated in the Hundred Schools League.
Now, Wade was already an early-stage Pseudo-Champion Trainer—and his primary specialty was Dragon-types, one of the strongest offensive types among all eighteen.
Not to mention that Dragons also had the highest number of pseudo-Legendaries.
Julian finally got to witness his teacher’s full dragon legion.
Their levels, strength, move power, and battle discipline—all of it was topnotch.
In the end, Julian won the full 6v6 battle, but at the cost of one of his Pokémon being defeated.
And of course, no need to even guess—the one that lost was Kartana.
Kartana’s philosophy was simple: as long as it was still standing, it would keep fighting.
It knew very well that in Gym battles, it would only get injured—maybe badly—but it wouldn’t die.
If this had been in the wild or a secret realm, it would never have fought this recklessly—because wild Pokémon don’t hold back.
*****
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