Sorry, Bulbasaur...

Lin Xia and Bulbasaur stood there like two lifelike living statues, rigid and motionless. Only the frantic flicker deep within their eyes, born of ultimate terror, revealed that they were still conscious.

That enormous shadow—the true form of the Illusion Demon Spider—still maintained a hazy outline beneath the refracted moonlight.

But Lin Xia clearly sensed, even "saw," the invisible sight before him—several thicker, bridge-like invisible threads glowing with a dim purple light.

They extended from above those savage mouthparts, connecting precisely to the main "web" threads wrapped around them!

Then!

An overwhelming, terrifying pulling force struck!

There was no sound! No flash of light!

Lin Xia and Bulbasaur's bodies were violently dragged as if seized by an invisible giant hand!

Their feet plowed two deep furrows through the grass! Their bodies, completely beyond their control, stiffly moved toward the massive shadow of the Illusion Demon Spider beneath that distorted moonlight—

Slowly, yet irresistibly dragged closer!

Closer and closer!

That enormous, savage mouthpart, half-hidden in the air like the source of a nightmare, and those six dim green compound eyes like dead stars became increasingly clear in their vision!

A cold stench, mixed with the decay of souls and the sweetly fishy reek of Rotting Flesh Poison, pressed toward them like something tangible!

Move! Damn it, move!

Bone wings! Poison vines! Anything! Break these damned spider threads!

The Soul Power within him was like a trapped beast, crazily battering against the source of Life Poison within his first soul ring.

The green poisonous mist roared and churned through his meridians like an enraged beast, trying to shatter those invisible shackles.

Lin Xia poured all his will and all his strength into one desperate gamble, forcing the power born of life and poison into motion!

Bang!

It felt as if something invisible within his body had been forcibly torn open!

Excruciating pain exploded through the nerve endings embedded by the spider threads, like countless red-hot steel needles stabbing into his brain!

Yet beneath that agony, an incomparably condensed dark purple poisonous mist, carrying the properties of the newly absorbed Rotting Flesh Poison of the Skyhorn Snake and Crystal Stone Poison of the Earth Crystal Snake, violently burst from every pore of his body—even uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes, his mouth, and his nose!

This poison mist was no longer merely gaseous. It resembled viscous blood marrow, filled with intense corrosive power!

Its color was so dark a purple it was nearly black, carrying a metallic sheen and a nauseating stench of rust and rot!

Sizzle—sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!

A teeth-grating sound erupted wildly at the boundary between Lin Xia's skin and the air!

The nearly invisible Illusion Demon Spider threads coiled around his body and sunk deep into the connection with his soul made the sound of violent corrosion the instant they came into contact with the Composite Poison erupting from him, as though they had encountered their natural enemy!

Wisps of purple smoke, finer than hairs and nearly invisible to the naked eye, rose from Lin Xia's body!

Those were the corroded spider threads dissolving!

Although the poisonous mist could not instantly melt through every tough Illusion Demon Spider thread, nor could it fully reclaim control of his body.

Its terrifying corrosive force was like strong acid splashed across cold steel bars, instantly eating countless tiny gaps into those threads and weakening their ability to transmit mental commands and control their limbs!

The stiffness in Lin Xia's body abruptly lessened by a fraction!

That sensation of being encased in concrete gave way to an incredibly faint tremor that belonged to him alone!

His fingers suddenly twitched, as though he had finally reestablished the faintest connection with his body!

"Bul—ba—!!!!"

At nearly the same moment, Bulbasaur, tightly bound at Lin Xia's side, erupted as well!

Lin Xia's struggle and the terrifying poisonous aura bursting from his body were like a beacon lit amid despair, completely igniting the deeply buried power within Bulbasaur—a power born from the bond between Pokémon and Trainer that transcended life and death!

As well as that reckless resolve, born solely to protect Lin Xia!

The violent, stubborn light instantly replaced the terror filling its crimson eyes!

The dark green vine bulbs across its body and the massive seed on its back burst with unprecedented emerald radiance with a hum!

That glow even faintly penetrated the invisible spider threads wrapped around it, which were likewise sizzling under the corrosion of the poison!

The immense life force and poisonous origin contained within Bulbasaur completely boiled over, erupting without restraint like a dormant volcano!

The muscles in its sturdy four limbs bulged as it desperately tried to break free of the spider threads and rush back to Lin Xia's side!

Its Vine Whips struggled futilely against the void-like restraints, as if trying to tear apart this invisible cage!

One human and one Pokémon, beneath the absolute shadow of death, relied on their bond and the bizarre power unleashed by Life Poison to brazenly resist the mental shackles of a superior predator!

Hiss—!!!!!

A soul-piercing shriek unlike any before, mingling intense pain and towering rage, came from the demon spider's mouthparts!

Its eight cold, dim green compound eyes instantly locked onto Lin Xia!

As an expert in mental control, it could clearly sense that the Illusion Demon Spider web network it had always been proud of, the network that had never failed it, was being crazily eroded by the filthy, highly corrosive poison erupting from that tiny human's body!

What enraged it even more was that this damned prey had not only retained the ability to resist, but the poison erupting from his body was even affecting it!

It was even disrupting the precision of its control over some of the villager puppets!

Unforgivable! It had to deal with them immediately!

Those two enormous, terrifying sickle jaws, gleaming with a cold dark-blue metallic light, suddenly opened like massive gates!

Its dark, bottomless mouth was like a passage to hell. Extremely viscous dark purple saliva dripped from within, corroding deep pits into the ground with sizzling sounds the moment it landed!

An even more terrifying suction force emerged from it!

It did not intend to chew them. It intended to directly swallow and dissolve these two struggling prey that had enraged it, along with that filthy poisonous mist!

That bottomless maw descended like a spinning vortex of death, carrying irresistible suction and highly corrosive venom capable of dissolving a soul beast's carapace!

It was so fast that it left behind only a dark afterimage!

Lin Xia's eyes nearly split apart!

The backlash from forcibly circulating his Soul Power had already made blood spill from his mouth and nose. His meridians felt as though they were breaking inch by inch, while the erosion from the spider threads had stirred his mental power to the verge of collapse!

Every bone in Lin Xia's body creaked. Resisting the poison's eruption and the Illusion Demon Spider threads' pull had already drained the last of his strength.

Facing that enormous devouring mouth that blotted out the sky and left no escape, his eyes filled for the first time with complete, cold despair.

He knew he could not evade it.

This ordeal had finally reached its end.

Yet, at the final instant before that abyssal mouth swallowed him, Lin Xia used the last of his clarity to sharply turn his head and look deeply at Bulbasaur beside him, who was also struggling desperately. Its Vine Whips flailed futilely in an attempt to save him, but the spider threads held it firmly down!

That small green figure, those blood-red eyes filled with fear, reluctance, and unwillingness, branded themselves into Lin Xia's shattered nerves.

"I'm... sorry..."

Lin Xia's cracked lips moved soundlessly, his eyes filled with boundless apology and one last trace of tenderness.

The next instant, a tenth of a second before that giant mouth closed and swallowed him whole!

The last sliver of Soul Power within Lin Xia, squeezed out as though wringing dry his very soul, erupted fiercely alongside his resolute will!

"Return!"