"It's the middle of the night. Why aren't you sleeping instead of coming out here to play ghost?" Lin Hao tossed the branch in his hand into the frozen campfire and rolled his eyes.
Standing before him was none other than Mewtwo, that artificial god. Mewtwo hovered half a meter above the ground, its tail swaying leisurely. Its purple eyes settled on Lin Hao.
"I used a psychic field to isolate the surrounding space." Its voice rang out in Lin Hao's Sea of Consciousness, flat and even. "The woman named May won't wake up, and she won't hear our conversation."
"Oh, how considerate." Lin Hao settled into a more comfortable position on the rock. "So? You went to all this trouble just to stand here like an oversized purple lamp?"
Inside the System Space, Ho-Oh and Groudon were already pressed against a virtual window, ready to enjoy the show.
Ho-Oh: "Fight! Fight! Master, hurry up and put it in isolation!"
Groudon: "Roar, roar! (I bet one cucumber that Mewtwo's going to get chewed out.)"
Back in the real world, Mewtwo ignored Lin Hao's teasing. It descended to the ground and looked at him. "I don't understand your logic." Mewtwo stopped moving.
"What don't you understand?"
"You awakened us." Mewtwo took a step forward. "You possess the greatest power in this world: the Full Pokédex. Every being from myth bows before you."
Mewtwo raised its hand, gathering a ball of purple light in its palm. "If you wished, you could destroy the Kanto League in a single day. Within a month, you could rewrite this planet's rules. You could become a true god."
Mewtwo closed in on him. "Yet you stay by the side of that immature Charmander. To conceal your power, you'd rather invent those ridiculous excuses."
"What do you take us for?" Mewtwo's voice deepened, and the atmosphere around them suddenly grew oppressive. Lin Hao paid its pressure no mind, merely considering how to stuff it back into the System Isolation Room.
After hearing it out, Lin Hao let out a long yawn. "Finished?" He picked at his ear.
Mewtwo knitted its brows. "You're avoiding my question."
"I'm not avoiding it." Lin Hao stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. "You're overthinking things." He walked up to Mewtwo. Even facing a legendary Pokémon that could reduce a city to scorched earth with a flick of its hand, he met its gaze without fear.
"Mewtwo, what does power mean to you?" Lin Hao asked.
Mewtwo replied, "Absolute strength capable of overturning the established order."
"Wrong." Lin Hao shook his head. "What's so great about ruling the world?" He started counting on his fingers. "You have to get up at six every morning for meetings, review mountains of paperwork, coordinate relations between the regional Leagues, and even when you go to bed at night, you have to watch out for terrorists like Team Rocket trying to assassinate you."
Mewtwo fell silent. For the first time, its brain stalled.
"See?" Lin Hao spread his hands. "Ruling the world is really just landing yourself a lousy job with round-the-clock hours and no days off."
"I was a corporate drone working overtime every day in my previous life. Did I transmigrate here and get the Full Pokédex just to keep working overtime somewhere else?"
Lin Hao pointed at himself. "I'm an ordinary person. An ordinary person's greatest dream is not having to work, waking up whenever they please, fishing wherever they want, and eating whatever they like."
"Rather than taking you all out to destroy the world, I just want to watch you fight over places to sunbathe in the System Space." Lin Hao looked straight into Mewtwo's eyes. "I hold this power for one reason: so I can keep lazing around forever."
"Understand?"
Mewtwo was silent for a long while, and the tension eased a little. Purple light shifted in its eyes. It had never heard anything like this before-an argument that was absurd, yet internally consistent.
"You..." Mewtwo muttered, turning its head aside as it retorted somewhat awkwardly, "You're a hopelessly ordinary person."
"Thanks for the compliment." Lin Hao sat back down on the rock.
"But," Mewtwo turned back and stared at Lin Hao, "do you think trouble won't find you just because you don't go looking for it?"
"What do you mean?" Lin Hao paused.
"The aura of laws emanating from you stands out far too much in the darkness." Mewtwo's figure gradually faded. "Let's see how long you can hold on to this ridiculous philosophy of 'lazing around.'"
"I'll be watching you." As the last echoes faded, the purple light dissolved into the darkness. The surrounding wind, the chirping insects, and the crackling campfire settled back into quiet.
"Tch. Damn tsundere." Lin Hao curled his lip.
Inside the System Space, Groudon quietly put away its cucumber. Lin Hao stretched and was just about to return to his sleeping bag to catch up on sleep when something suddenly happened.
"Vee!" A shrill cry pierced the night from the backpack hanging at Lin Hao's waist! It was the Runic Eevee!
Then a system panel popped up in Lin Hao's mind, flashing red repeatedly, accompanied by a piercing alarm:
[Warning! Mythical spatial rift detected!] [Warning! High-threat target has locked onto the host's coordinates!] [Warning! Mythical gene resonance has triggered a backlash!]
Lin Hao frowned and yanked open the backpack's zipper. Inside, the Runic Eevee had curled into a ball. The golden divine rune on its forehead had actually turned dark red and was pulsing rapidly!
"Holy shit, what's going on now?" Before Lin Hao could finish speaking-
A thunderous crack suddenly rang out from the void overhead. An inky spatial fissure tore open like a giant eye, steadily expanding in the night sky above the campsite.
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