Chapter 580: Probably an Illusion
Days flashed by.
For the past few days, Arthur had been trapped in the territory of the Phantom of the West by an endless stream of challengers, unable to go anywhere...
The intensity of the battles recently made him cry for mercy.
Even as a battle maniac, he felt mentally exhausted.
"Next... surely... no one else is coming to challenge me, right?"
After beating another challenger from who-knows-where, Arthur was so tired he could barely speak properly.
Serena from the Otter Team gloated beside him.
"Heh, who told you to provoke the two most popular women in the world's competitive scene as soon as you arrived?"
Arthur wanted to cry but had no tears.
He didn't want to!
"How was I supposed to know those two didn't get along..."
Yes, a large part of why his life was so miserable now was because: Future Yuzuru and Gwyneth didn't get along!
This directly caused the heat of the topic surrounding Arthur to never cool down.
Arthur felt like he was just collateral damage, completely reduced to a tool for those two women's quarrel, but others didn't think so.
The line of men envious, jealous, and hateful of him probably stretched from this territory all the way to the edge of the desert!
"Hehehe~" Serena laughed radiantly. "That's what you get for not paying attention to the world competitive scene. Your team is Kubfu's number one seed this year, after all."
"..."
Arthur thought to himself: Even if I paid attention to the competitive scene, why would I care about women's gossip first?
The conflict between Future Yuzuru and Gwyneth was actually quite simple: it was a battle for the title of Queen of the competitive scene between the new and old generations!
Future Yuzuru was a rookie. Her growth trajectory was actually quite similar to Arthur's. She entered the professional circle only last year. After dominating the doubles stage with a perfect record in her first year, she announced her promotion to the main roster at the end of the year!
However, she was much more high-profile than Arthur. She was the daughter of a wealthy conglomerate family. She didn't play professionally for money, but for fame. She wanted to shine and dazzle the world!
So, as soon as Future Yuzuru announced her promotion to the main roster at the end of last year, she high-profilely challenged the world's number one female player at the time: Gwyneth, in an exhibition match.
The result was a brutal beating...
Gwyneth mercilessly beat her 6-0...
After the match, Gwyneth didn't spare Future Yuzuru's feelings at all, resolutely declaring: "You're at least ten years too early to challenge me!"
That defeat made Future Yuzuru transform rapidly. From then on, she corrected her attitude and worked harder. In terms of results, it undoubtedly gave her growth a huge push.
But that didn't mean Future Yuzuru would be grateful to Gwyneth.
On the contrary, the phrase "You're at least ten years too early" remained firmly nailed in her heart, becoming a humiliation she vowed to wash away on the battlefield!
Since then, their relationship hadn't been harmonious.
After the season started, they played in their respective leagues and didn't have much chance to meet. But this event attracted the world's attention, causing them to meet before the Champions Cup.
It just so happened that there was a ready-made topic on which their views were diametrically opposed.
This sparked a fire!
It couldn't be stopped...
Arthur was suffering too.
He thought: If you two want to duel, just do it yourselves. Can you leave me out of it?
Please spare me!
Unfortunately, this inner voice couldn't reach the ears of those around him correctly.
"Watching the two most popular beautiful women in the world's competitive scene fight over you, do you feel a special sense of accomplishment now?"
Arthur rolled his eyes.
Since it was his acquaintance Serena saying this, he couldn't do anything about her teasing. If it were a stranger, Arthur would have skillfully taken out his Poké Ball by now.
Anyway, there was a high probability they wouldn't listen to his explanation, so skipping the procedure and starting directly would save both sides some time.
After these few days, he had almost developed a conditioned reflex to such challenges—hearing keywords, his hand would subconsciously reach for his Poké Ball!
However, affected by this, Arthur's event points were terrifyingly high!
His win count had broken through the sky, leaving everyone else in the dust on the battle points leaderboard!
Taking the top spot on the leaderboard was already a sure thing for him, almost impossible to change.
At this time, some people started having other thoughts.
"That's fine too. Let that Kubfu guy monopolize the points leaderboard. According to Phobos's rules, the first place on the points leaderboard only gets at most 8% of the betting pool. He can only get money; he can forget about the treasures rewarded by the Legendaries!"
When saying "only get money," these people enunciated very, very forcefully!
As the heat of the Ashen Desert event rose higher and higher, the betting on this event worldwide had long reached an astronomical figure!
Arthur could indeed only get money, but that was a huge sum unimaginable to ordinary people!
Not to mention that these people just assumed: Arthur being tied down here by endless challenges meant he definitely didn't have time to collect Seeds, so other leaderboards related to Seeds naturally shouldn't concern him!
Little did they know that although human activity in the desert was becoming more frequent, recently more and more Seed Pokémon, unable to bear the disturbance, had run to Old Tyranitar's lair to seek protection.
People thought these Seeds seeking the Phantom's protection naturally wouldn't count towards the event tally, equivalent to heads taken by event NPCs.
They didn't know the truth might shock them!
Time flashed by, and several more days passed!
Although Phobos hoped this event could continue forever, preferably for a few more months so they could sell livestream and video rights to make a huge profit.
Unfortunately, they could afford to delay, but Groudon in the desert couldn't wait any longer.
On this day, finally, with a heart-shaking roar!
Groudon personally arrived near the Phantom of the West's territory in its gigantic Primal Reversion form!
Arriving with it were Ho-Oh and Rayquaza, who had come to help.
Even the other desert Phantom, Garchomp, had come.
These undoubtedly announced: The Legendaries were finally ending this event!
Groudon's incomparably huge and shocking battle form made Gwyneth's teammates whisper doubts again: "Can someone really stop such a Legendary? That Kubfu kid must be bragging, right?"
For some reason, after they finished speaking, they felt Groudon seemed to glance in their direction.
Then, Groudon stopped roaring...
They didn't know if it was their illusion, but the group felt that Groudon seemed to be acting a bit... awkward right now?
Probably an illusion, they thought.
Then came the exciting moment.
All trainers who had collected Seeds needed to hand them over to the Legendaries face to face, and the Legendaries would reward the person who collected the most Seeds as promised.
At first, everyone waited calmly.
Because there were still many people stranded in other parts of the desert, not near this territory, they had to wait for them to rush back as soon as possible.
But as they waited, some people gradually couldn't stay calm!
Something seems... a bit wrong?!!
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