"Garde!"
Gardevoir looked flustered, staring fearfully at the distant Jangmo-o.
Seeing that everyone had been deceived, Gardevoir helplessly pressed a palm onto the top of Ye Qing's head.
Pink light stimulated Ye Qing's mind, steadying him, and the scenery before his eyes began to twist and distort.
Jangmo-o's earlier innocent look was gone. Now, the Pokémon was staring straight at him.
As Gardevoir's power spread, the scene before Ye Qing and the others shattered like a mirror.
Fierce winds howled, and great flurries of snow fell from the sky. Their surroundings were incredibly dark, with crooked trees growing everywhere.
The markings on these trees varied. Some resembled distorted human faces, while others looked like trapped beasts.
Ye Qing focused his gaze. The distant Jangmo-o had vanished, leaving only a terrifying Froslass floating in midair.
"Holy shit, a Froslass!"
Zhang Tuzhen fell onto his backside, clearly scared shitless.
He had grown up here, and stories about Froslass were the ones he had heard most often.
According to legend, Froslass wandered through blizzards, hunting down humans and Pokémon who had let their guard down.
They excelled at freezing their prey with cold air and liked to display their victims' corpses at home to admire and collect.
There were also stories of Froslass frequently appearing in villages and taking human children away, mistaking them for Snorunt. But once they discovered these were not their own children, they would end their lives in horrifying ways.
Remembering these terrifying legends his mother had told him, Zhang Tuzhen immediately burst into tears with a wail, thick snot spraying everywhere like jelly.
"So it really is a Froslass."
Ye Qing steadied himself. He had long heard how terrifying Forbidden Ridge was, but their easy journey earlier had made him careless. If Gardevoir had not been here just