It smoothed the waves at sea, quelled the fury of the sky, and brought a brief pause to the ultimate showdown about to erupt within the Temple.
Everyone instinctively turned their gaze toward the stretch of sea where the change had occurred.
The Sea God, Lugia.
It had finally descended upon the world.
Accompanied by that sacred cry, a pillar of water of unimaginable thickness shot skyward from the center of the whirlpool, piercing the clouds like a colossal crystal column connecting heaven and earth.
Within that crystal-clear pillar of water, an enormous yet elegant silver-white figure slowly rose from the depths.
Its form was so perfect, its flowing contours filled with mythical beauty. Its enormous, finlike arms spread wide, and the blue plates along its back refracted a dreamlike sheen in the sunlight.
It simply hovered there in silence, releasing no aggressive energy.
Yet an absolute, sacred pressure, originating from the very pinnacle of life and transcending all laws, swept across all of Shamouti Island and the entire surrounding sea in an instant, like a tangible shock wave.
Whether the Pokémon League's fleet or Team Rocket's submarines, at that moment, they all seemed to become fallen leaves in a storm, tiny and powerless.
Inside the Temple, Lance and Giovanni, who had been locked in a fierce confrontation, both froze.
Lance's Dragonite, a normally proud pseudo-legendary, now lowered its head uneasily, a series of suppressed cries rumbling in its throat-an instinctive reverence for a being of a higher order.
Giovanni's Mewtwo, the ultimate biological weapon created with the claim that it would surpass all gods, also reined in its all-conquering arrogance. It hovered in midair, its purple eyes fixed gravely on the distant silver-white figure, while even the psychic field around its body fluctuated unsteadily.
This was a true god.