Deep within Ice Pillar Cave.
In an area regarded by the Pokémon living here as the "Forbidden Land."
The illusion that usually shrouded this place, preventing other creatures from approaching.
Was now flickering with extreme instability, like a faulty light bulb, due to the condition of its creator.
Those distorted phantoms would occasionally become clear, then shake violently and shatter like a poor signal, even disappearing completely for brief moments to reveal the empty ice cave behind them, before struggling to reform again. The cycle repeated endlessly.
Before anyone realized it.
The passage leading to this forbidden ice cave had quietly filled with countless figures.
Upon closer inspection, they were an "army" made entirely of Sneasel and Weavile.
There were no fewer than three hundred of them.
Within the bounds of Ice Pillar Cave alone, they were absolutely one of the most numerous species.
That was also why they could hunt freely throughout Ice Pillar Cave. Regardless of Type Advantage, other Pokémon would choose to avoid them.
Yet at this moment, these Sneasel and Weavile were not hissing furiously at the illusion that even their Dark-type selves could not resist.
Instead, like old men sitting calmly by a fishing rod, they slowly sharpened their hooked claws and waited for the illusion to finally collapse. Then they would swarm in and tear apart the being inside, their "hereditary enemy."
The reason it was called a hereditary enemy was simply because that old thing inside had lived far too long.
So long that even their clan leaders had changed through countless generations, while it still stubbornly lingered within that cave.
However, those days were about to end.
As natural hunters, the Weavile could sense that the creature deep within the ice cave, the one maintaining this illusion, did not have much time