In the realm of the mind, all communication is spiritual. The moment Phantasm sensed the energy, it instantly recognized the aura—this monster was the same being who had pulled it out of the X-Lab.
"What are you doing?" Phantasm asked angrily.
Though innocent, it wasn't naïve. It could clearly tell this creature was controlling its body.
"Hahaha, consider yourself honored—you're now the host of my virus," Lucius said with a grin.
"Virus host?" Phantasm clearly didn't understand the term.
But Lucius didn't explain. He surged forward and opened his jaws wide.
Phantasm's will erupted into a blue aura, bracing itself against Leviathan's gaping maw.
With a crushing bite, Leviathan shattered the blue halo like glass. Phantasm's concentrated will was clamped between its fangs.
"No… I haven't finished seeing this world yet…"
As Leviathan swallowed it whole, Phantasm exploded with a surge of blue light, like a thousand swords piercing outward in all directions.
Yet the energy blades disappeared into the boundless dark like stones into a lake—rippling, but without impact.
Lucius devoured Phantasm's will, and began corrupting its spiritual realm.
Although Leviathan had a physical form, its nature straddled the material and the metaphysical. It could infect the flesh—and pollute the mind.
Due to Leviathan's corruption, Phantasm's once-vibrant spiritual energy—like green nutrient fluid—began to boil and morph into Leviathan's hues of dark gold and crimson.
Within Leviathan, Phantasm's will grew drowsy, as though it were about to fall asleep. It understood: its spiritual energy was running dry. If it fell asleep, its will would vanish completely.
Desperately, it kept unleashing its power. But cut off from the external spirit world, it couldn't replenish its energy. The more power it spent, the heavier the exhaustion became.
Then—a glimmer of hope. A light in the darkness.
A portal?
It seemed like an opening. An exit.
Phantasm surged toward it, channeling its remaining energy.
Faster. The portal grew larger and brighter.
"If I make it back into the spiritual world, my will can fully recover!"
It sped up again, straining, as the portal's glow spilled across its form.
"Almost there… just a few more seconds…"
It reached out. The light embraced it—
—And vanished.
Gone. Swallowed by black.
"No… No…"
Phantasm screamed in despair.
The portal had been an illusion—created by Lucius. A false hope, meant to drain its willpower.
Though trapped inside Leviathan, Phantasm's mythical psychic power could still cause damage. Lucius would rather it waste energy chasing salvation than attacking him.
As Phantasm poured its final energy into that chase, Lucius finished corrupting its mental realm.
Of course, Phantasm lacked combat experience. A seasoned Psychic-type like Mew or Mewtwo would've never fallen for the trap. They would've kept attacking until Leviathan was forced to eject them.
But now, Phantasm's will was spent. All Lucius had to do was let the virus consume and assimilate it.
The corrupted spiritual realm no longer resembled a grand incubator. It had become a vast gold-and-crimson hexagonal hive.
This hive was composed of endless nested hexagonal cells. Each smallest unit contained a single living will.
These were all the humans and Pokémon Lucius had infected: from young Kuran, to Chansey, to Treecko—up to Kyogre and Phantasm.
Each occupied at least one hex. The stronger the infected, the more cells they consumed.
Pokémon were sorted by type—Water-types with Water-types, Fire-types with Fire-types.
Among humans, those with closer emotional bonds were placed near each other: Cassidy with Butch, Dolores with Bernard.
This… was everything he had collected.
Lucius gazed in awe at his masterpiece. He hadn't even realized how much genetic data he had amassed.
How powerful could the Virus Evolution System become… if it infected not only every Pokémon and human in this world, but every living thing?
On the surface, Phantasm's body, lying in the grass, suddenly snapped open its eyes.
Its once-clear blue pupils pulsed and shifted, transforming into a gleaming gold and crimson.
Lucius had fully seized control of the body.
At that moment, a message popped up in his system interface:
[Clone Pokémon 'Synchronize' trait analyzed. Virus Evolution Progress +50%. New ability acquired: Abnormal Assimilation. Primal Gene (Mew) obtained.]
He'd gained Mew's Primal Gene?
Lucius glanced at his system panel. The mission tracker for devouring Primal Genes now read: 2/10.
It made sense—Phantasm was a clone of Mewtwo, who in turn was cloned from Mew. Its primal origin was always Mew.
Returning to the hive in the spiritual world, he found two new additions at the core: Phantasm and Mew.
Interesting…
Lucius turned his focus to his newly acquired ability: Abnormal Assimilation—the power to redirect or distribute damage he received across infected hosts with weaker wills.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, Lucius—who had already assimilated two Deoxys and Phantasm—understood that none of his infected Pokémon had a stronger will than him. In other words, any damage inflicted on him could be offloaded entirely to others.
That… was insane.
He immediately grasped the sheer power of this ability. If he were scorched by fire, he could simply transfer the burn damage to any of his infected Pokémon. And if he redirected it to a Pokémon with the Flash Fire ability, not only would he avoid harm himself, but the target Pokémon would gain a power boost from the transferred flames.
Tch—broken, absolutely broken.
Of course, as overpowered as this ability seemed, it wasn't invincible. For instance, Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire would be too intense for most Flash Fire Pokémon to endure. Divine flames couldn't be trifled with.
By now, the conversation between Zinnia and Azelf had come to an end.
Lucius, naturally, was well aware of who Zinnia was.
She was one of the Draconid people, a group descended from ancient dragon shamans—a counterpart to Lance and Ryuki, and a guardian of skybound power.
In the original canon, she led the Draconids in awakening Rayquaza, working alongside the protagonist to shatter a meteor on a collision course with the planet.
And now, based on what Phantasm had overheard during her exchange with Azelf, Lucius pieced together their next move.
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