The surface of the rock wall around that mark had taken on a semi-transparent, glassy texture, as if it had been scorched by intense heat before rapidly cooling and solidifying. Fine cracks spread outward from its edges.
Xinhai saw the mark, and a trace of gravity flashed through his eyes. But he had no time to think, because Slowpoke's attacks did not pause in the slightest.
"Gardevoir!"
At the very instant Gardevoir landed after Teleport, Slowpoke's figure once again became a blurred afterimage, appearing less than five meters from Gardevoir's landing point.
Slowpoke opened its mouth, gathering a water-blue energy sphere within—Water Pulse. Unlike before, however, finer ripples flowed across the sphere's surface, and it spun noticeably faster, as though it had been deliberately enhanced by psychic fluctuations.
"Gardevoir!" The moment Gardevoir landed, Gardevoir sensed the approaching Intimidate, but there was no panic in Gardevoir's eyes.
With a light tap of Gardevoir's foot against the mossy ground, Gardevoir stepped diagonally half a pace to the right in an almost dance-like posture. Then Gardevoir drew back the left foot and swung the right foot outward, completing a smooth turn within that tiny space.
The turning technique of the Eight Trigrams Step flowed beneath Gardevoir's feet with a natural rhythm. From heel to sole to toe, each point of contact with the ground shifted Gardevoir's center of gravity without the slightest perceptible pause.
That Water Pulse screamed past Gardevoir's side with rippling energy spinning at high speed, nearly brushing Gardevoir's shoulder and lifting a strand of hair in its wake.
The trailing shockwave carried by the water exploded into the mossy ground two meters behind Gardevoir, splashing damp soil and fine droplets everywhere. Yet Gardevoir remained completely unscathed, spared by that single step's worth of distance.
What was more, when Gardevoir's body