Ye Li looked away from the screen flickering with streams of data and toward a corner of the office. There, a pitch-black Pokémon, its golden ring markings giving off a faint glow in the dim light, lay curled up, quietly dozing.
Umbreon.
It was his only partner since coming to this world, and the one he trusted most.
After spending every day together and training rigorously during this time, Ye Li had gained a thorough understanding of Umbreon's strength. It possessed almost off-the-charts defenses and stamina, which, combined with its endless array of disruption and recovery moves such as Yawn, Confuse Ray, and Moonlight, were enough to give any proud opponent a splitting headache.
The tactical system Ye Li had named "Moonlit Torture King" might have seemed rather "underhanded" to others, and its battles tended to drag on, but it was terrifyingly reliable. As long as an opponent's attacks did not reach the threshold needed to knock Umbreon out in a single hit, the scales of victory would slowly, irreversibly tip toward it, until its opponent's will collapsed under endless attrition and disruption, ending in utter defeat.
But this seemingly flawless strategy had one fatal weakness.
-it lacked decisive power, the strength to settle a battle in a single blow.
Against ordinary Trainers, this steady approach never failed. But against someone of Lorelei's caliber, a powerhouse who truly stood at the pinnacle of the world, mere "torture" was probably far from enough. The Pokémon of top-tier powerhouses possessed willpower and explosive strength far beyond the norm. They might well exploit Umbreon's lack of offensive power to force through a lethal strike capable of turning the battle around.
Ye Li needed a trump card. One that could instantly overturn the entire table in a desperate situation. A killing move powerful enough