Chapter 158: A Stalemate of Bitter Struggle

Although the Reflect wall blocked the majority of the damage, scorch marks from the flames still lingered on Ralts.

Tang Yi had no time to spare for feeling distressed over Ralts, and the young Pokémon knew very well that the opponent would not give her the time to cry out in pain.

Ralts scrambled up with the utmost speed, took a deep breath, and once again chanted a crisp melody while simultaneously erecting Reflect walls with both hands.

Fletchinder’s offensive capability was simply too overwhelming; without the Reflect wall to counteract it, Tang Yi even doubted whether Ralts could survive the next round of attacks.

Yet, even so, this was merely a desperate, drawn-out delay.

Tang Yi knew this clearly, and Wei Chenhai saw it just as plainly.

"Fletchinder, keep the pressure on!"

Having successfully executed Agility, Fletchinder had completely seized the initiative on the battlefield. What she needed to do now was to utilize repeated swoops, driving Flame Charge continuously against Ralts’s Reflect wall.

Ralts’s only effective counterattack was Disarming Voice.

Tang Yi did not have Ralts use any other moves. Although Ralts did not voice it, he could already sense that, given the young Pokémon's current mental capacity, other moves simply wouldn't land.

Fletchinder was altogether too nimble; the time it took to transition from takeoff to top speed was vanishingly short, faster than any opponent they had encountered before.

There was no need for any fancy tactics; this was already a stark, tangible crushing of overall strength.

Ralts and Tang Yi had not given up yet.

When the Reflect wall was shattered once again, Ralts neither dodged nor evaded. She quietly gathered Psychic energy in her palms in advance, and almost the very instant she took the full-frontal impact of the Flame Charge, she unleashed the Psychic blast simultaneously.

"Too slow!" With the attack at point-blank range, the diving Fletchinder swiftly flipped mid-air. One moment she was in a downward plunge, and in the blink of an eye, she had pivoted, darting off toward the right with lightning-fast lateral speed.

Tang Yi clutched his head in near-agonizing dismay.

It was U-turn.

He hadn't expected Fletchinder to have mastered this move as well. Compared to raw offensive power, U-turn allowed Fletchinder to instantly pivot and retreat at top speed immediately after every strike.

A Psychic attack launched at such close quarters had been evaded yet again.

"Use Peck!" Wei Chenhai suddenly shouted.

Tang Yi looked up at his opponent with a hint of surprise. The fact that Wei Chenhai didn't continue using Flame Charge gave him a vague inkling of something.

The power of Peck was slightly lower than Flame Charge, but the situation remained unchanged; Fletchinder was still maintaining relentless pressure through sheer speed.

"Continuous Teleport!" Tang Yi changed his tactics as well.

Without Flame Charge, Fletchinder’s speed dropped by just a fraction. More crucially, Tang Yi felt that Ralts’s physical condition couldn't endure many more attacks.

Relying on Reflect for passive defense was no solution; they had to use Teleport to create distance.

Ralts had practiced continuous Teleport for a long time, and her proficiency was decent, but Fletchinder's speed was still able to follow rapidly.

While the young Pokémon nimbly dodged, Fletchinder’s fists, crackling with Flying-type energy, swung blow after blow.

Moreover, Fletchinder’s footwork was exceptionally crafty. Her high speed and mobility allowed her to do pretty much as she pleased; one second she would appear to be charging straight from the front, and the next second she would abruptly veer off and materialize from behind.

Ralts was beginning to struggle with the adjustment. Her mental energy ultimately had its limits, and she was starting to feel dizzy and disoriented.

At the crucial moment, Tang Yi shouted out, "Don't panic! We'll do this together!"

Then he fell silent. But Tang Yi no longer focused on giving commands—under these circumstances, there really weren't any instructions he could offer. Instead, he concentrated his attention entirely on Fletchinder.

Yet Fletchinder was too fast; this was not something he could react to as a human being.

Tang Yi thought of energy perception. Although he had not yet mastered skill liberation, thanks to that period spent with the Hoppip, his energy perception was barely usable.

Perhaps it could work.

No, it definitely would!

Everything he had worked toward until now was by no means in vain!

Tang Yi took a deep breath and simply closed his eyes, preventing his gaze from instinctively trailing after Fletchinder.

Whatever his eyes managed to catch would only be the red residual flames left in Fletchinder's wake, which would easily lead to misdirection.

That being the case, he would rely entirely on energy perception!

With his eyes closed, Tang Yi had no time to adapt to the darkness as he sensed with absolute concentration.

Tang Yi could not yet perform long-range energy guidance, but mere perception was well within his reach.

Though hazy, Fletchinder’s vibrant energy was actually not difficult to sense.

Tang Yi still couldn't fully trace the trajectory of Fletchinder's moving energy, but if he focused on just one or two directions, the difficulty dropped by more than half.

As for the other directions, Tang Yi chose to trust Ralts.

Fletchinder’s movement trajectory was being silently broadcasted in real-time within Tang Yi’s mind.

He believed that Ralts, at this very moment, could feel his inner thoughts.

To the left—no, that was a feint. It's the right, she's coming from the right!

Opening his eyes once again, Tang Yi saw to his delight that Ralts had used Teleport to position herself precisely so that Fletchinder's Peck struck empty air.

The power of Peck itself was limited, but under a high-speed dive, the velocity amplified the move's impact.

Unable to check her momentum in time, Fletchinder’s missed strike slammed into the arena floor, kicking up a spray of shattered stone.

Tang Yi frowned slightly at the sight. No wonder Wei Chenhai had changed tactics; a high-speed Peck possessed sufficient power while also conserving Fletchinder’s Fire-type energy.

Unfazed by the failed strike, Fletchinder simply treated it as a blind cat catching a dead mouse and swiftly launched a second wave of attack.

Tang Yi immediately closed his eyes, carefully sensing the trajectory of the energy and relaying it almost simultaneously to Ralts via telepathy.

This tactic was one he and Ralts had never used in actual combat before, but their mutual accord made their first-ever cooperation appear remarkably practiced.

The second Peck missed as well.

Then the third, the fourth, the fifth...

Every single time, Fletchinder appeared to be just a fraction too late, yet time and time again, she was evaded by the narrowest of margins.

Peck left nothing behind on the arena except a scattering of pitted craters and countless stone fragments.

Wei Chenhai quickly snapped out of his astonishment.

This clearly could no longer be explained away as mere coincidence.

On the field, Ralts was still using Teleport to continuously harry Fletchinder.

Wei Chenhai finally decided to make a change: "Fletchinder! Stop conserving energy, use your full power to end the match!"

Just as Tang Yi had anticipated, all of Fletchinder’s Fire-type energy presumably originated from the fire sac in her abdomen.

Although she possessed the Fire type, Fletchinder's actual reserves of Fire-type energy were inherently limited.

Out of caution, and before fully probing the opponent's bottom line at the start of the match, Wei Chenhai had not rushed to let Fletchinder exhaust her energy.

That had been the correct approach.

And now, he had finally decided to accelerate the pace of the battle once more.