It was around eight-thirty.
The challengers arrived fashionably late.
When they saw the students who had nearly surrounded the entire battlefield, they were startled.
"W-What's going on here?"
"What else could it be? Just like yesterday, everyone's here to watch. Get in there already—the agreed time is almost here."
Prompted by their companion, the two challengers hurriedly squeezed through the packed crowd and arrived before Heiduo, who had been waiting for quite some time.
Heiduo was undoubtedly a powerful Gym Leader with exceptionally high standards. After observing from the sidelines all day yesterday, neither of them had managed to figure out his exact criteria.
They had both lost, yet someone had received a Badge just because his last Pokémon had taken down two opponents?
But when they considered copying that approach, they suddenly remembered that victory was not the ultimate goal of a Gym Challenge.
And simply taking down two Pokémon was not enough...
"Hm? You're here?" Heiduo raised his eyelids slightly, cutting off their apologies. "Let's begin. You first."
He pointed at the boy among them who possessed six Badges.
"...Okay."
The boy nodded, while the girl beside him stepped back.
The original schedule had been one match in the morning and one in the afternoon.
But Heiduo felt that was too time-consuming, so he decided to finish both battles in the morning.
It was not like he needed to rest, and the Pokémon could be rotated anyway.
Both sides took their places at the Trainer platforms.
The referee loudly announced the match rules.
Honestly, Heiduo could recite these rules backward by now. But it was a required procedure. Even if he did not want to hear it, it still had to be read, because it was for the challengers, not him.
The rules were finished.
"My Gym doesn't