Elf: Is the bear apprentice the weakest? I'll shatter the sky with my fists.

Li Chen looked out the window. In the reflection of the glass, Er Guiyan was dancing with joy because of his victory. "That kid treats every battle as a celebration."

"..."

N was silent, his fingertips hovering above the teacup, and he suddenly thought of the always gloomy forest in his childhood.

The Pokémon in my memory always huddled in tree holes, their eyes bloodshot from being hurt by humans...

Broken wings, charred fur, and figures that tremble at the sight of Poké Balls.

This is also the reason why I don't want to use the Poké Ball.

Except for Zoroark, the other Pokémon followed here temporarily and are all very powerful.

The crystal glass suddenly reflected the jumping figure of the evil spirit, who was using his thorn stick as a baton to beat the time for the restaurant band.

The mask reflected rainbow-like light spots under the chandelier, and each vine was overflowing with vigorous vitality.

"...I see."

N gently pressed his chest, where something was melting.

For the first time, he realized that battles weren't all about pain, but could also be like this...

Dazzling happiness.

"Ugh......"

Li Chen's sigh was like a fallen leaf, gently falling into the silence between the two of them.

He turned the teacup, and the bottom of the cup made a crisp sound when it hit the porcelain plate.

"do you know?"

Li Chen's gaze pierced through the lingering heat and stared at N: "Friends are like vines in the forest."

As he spoke, his fingers drew tangled curves on the table: "One line may be fragile, but thousands of lines are intertwined together-"

As soon as he finished speaking, Li Chen suddenly clenched his fist, causing his fork to tremble slightly. "Even a storm can't break it."

The ripples in the teacup reflected N's shrinking pupils.

The voice of Quixotes replayed in his mind like an old tape: [You were born to be the sword of Pokémon, to cut off all the shackles of mankind].

These words were engraved into his bones like genes.

But at this moment, Li Chen's fingertips were tapping the table lightly, and the rhythm was strangely consistent with the tune hummed by the evil spirit in the distance.

The moonlight filtered through the colored glass, casting mottled spots of light on the back of his hand, which was very beautiful.

"friend..."

The word rolled awkwardly between N's lips and teeth.

He suddenly realized that he was like a dark crow always hovering outside the glass window, and someone was trying to open the door that had never been touched for him.

"I want to ask you, what is your ideal?"

Li Chen's question was like a stone suddenly thrown into a calm lake.

N's eyelashes trembled a few times, and a determined light gradually ignited in his eyes.

"My ideal is..."

His slender fingers touched the planet pendant on his chest, "Create a world."

N's voice suddenly became as clear as the melting water from the snowy mountains. "There, every Pokémon will no longer have to cry because of human desires."

The neon lights outside the window changed color at that moment, dyeing his profile a gorgeous purple.

Erguiyan had stopped playing at some point, and his eyes under the mask were quietly staring at this young man who always talked about "protection" but couldn't even hide his own scars.

"So, in order to achieve this ideal, what will your reality be like?"

Li Chen's second question was like an invisible sharp blade, accurately cutting through N's carefully constructed defense.

The young man's emerald pupils contracted violently, and his knuckles scratched wrinkles on the tablecloth.

"What is my...truth...?"

N was in a trance.

He suddenly remembered the high windows of Plasma Castle that never let in sunlight, the smell of leather in Quixote's gloves when he stroked his head, and the look reflected in the eyes of the Pokémon below him when he stood on the podium - the boy whose smile was like a puppet.

"......"

When N hastily looked away, he found that his reflection in the glass window was gradually overlapping with the boy in his childhood who was crying while holding the injured conductive flying squirrel.

Chapter 512 N's Enlightenment

N's breathing suddenly stopped.

The reflection in the teacup swayed, and he saw how Zekrom's lightning had once imprinted the proof of his ideals in those emerald eyes.

But when Li Chen's questions peeled back his flowery words, what was revealed was a paleness that even he himself had never seen directly...

It turns out that those passionate speeches and those lightning that destroyed the shackles were always just...the beginning.

It's like a child holding a wooden sword and declaring war on the windmill, but never thinking about how to clean up the debris after the war.

"I......"

N didn't know how to answer at this time.

boom!

Erupt suddenly placed the mask upside down on the table, with a "bang" like a gavel of judgment.

The lights in the restaurant became dazzling at this moment, pinning his shadow to the wall, making him as thin as a lost ghost.

N's gaze pierced him like a knife, thunderclouds swirling in his emerald pupils. His voice trembled, even he himself was unaware of it. "So what about your ideals? Have they never wavered?"

"hehe."

Li Chen suddenly smiled.

He raised his hand to catch a fallen leaf that floated in from the window. The veins of the leaf were as clear as the lines of fate under the light.

With a flick of his fingertips, the leaves spun and fell outside the teacup in front of N.

"My ideal... is like this leaf..."

In the ripples of the tea, it seemed as if Irene was reflected lying on Li Chen's shoulder and pointing.

On the dessert brought by the waiter in the distance, there was a chocolate label that read "Celebrate the Encounter".

“It seems fragile, but it’s growing every day.”

Li Chen tapped the table with his fingertips and chuckled, "This is my path."

N clenched his napkin, the white fabric crumpling into thorns in his palm. "Human desire...is like an ever-expanding black hole."

At this moment, the neon sign outside the window switched to a casino advertisement, and the dazzling colorful light flashed across his tense jaw.

"You save a Meree sheep today, and tomorrow you'll want to round up the whole ranch. So-called idealists are just greed dressed up in a veneer..."

"how about you?"

Li Chen suddenly interrupted him, stabbing his knife into the steak with a clang. "Isn't the ideal recognized by Czechrom also a kind of desire?"

N's lips just curled up: "I did it for Bao..."

"stop."

Li Chen's dinner knife hit the edge of the plate with a "ding" sound, and the crisp sound was like a dividing line.

The pianist in the corner of the restaurant happened to play the wrong note, and the harsh dissonance made N's eyelashes flutter.

"Do you know?" Li Chen suddenly leaned forward, his shadow covering N completely, "The true ideal—"

He dipped his fingertips in red wine and drew bloody footprints on the snow-white tablecloth. "It's like this, step by step."

Beep, beep...

The sound of an ambulance siren was heard outside the window, coming closer and then gradually disappearing.

N stared at the gradually spreading traces of red wine and suddenly found that they looked very much like the dried blood stains on the Plasma Group's flag.

Li Chen's words pierced N's eardrums: "If the road to your ideal itself is creating sacrifices..."

Before he finished speaking, he suddenly grabbed the dinner knife. A cold light flashed across N's bangs, and a few strands of hair fell off. "Then this ideal is nothing but a beautiful noose."

N's pupils contracted violently.

He saw his pale face reflected in the dinner knife, and further away was the giant figure looming in the thunder clouds of Zekrom.

A sudden rusty taste washed over my throat. I'd bitten the tip of my tongue without realizing it...

"Zekrom's approval is just the ticket. The true test... is whether you dare to put your ideals to the test of reality."

The restaurant's glass windows suddenly reflected a strange scene:

N's shadow split into two, one wrapped in black thunder, the other burning in fire.

But the real him sat at the intersection of light and shadow, his knuckles clenched until they turned white...

Li Chen's words vibrated in the air, and every word seemed to burn the souls of the two.

He lowered his head and stared at his palm, which seemed to still retain Irene's warmth.

The passion of idealists and the calculations of realists are fighting in their blood.

"You know what? When ideals shine into reality, they don't create shadows."

Rumble...

Thunder roared outside the window and heavy rain poured down.

Li Chen's pupils flickered in the lightning, as if two dragons were wrestling in them.

The soaked shirt stuck to my back, cold as armor and hot as flames.

"It's the first light before dawn."

N's teacup suddenly slipped from his fingers and was caught steadily by the vines of the evil tree before it broke.

The splashing water droplets hover in the air, and each drop reflects a different picture.

The left eye is the sky torn apart by Zekrom's thunder, and the right eye is the horizon burned by Reshiram's fire.

"I see..."

His trembling fingertips touched the water droplets, and two dragon shadows intertwined into a DNA spiral in the ripples.

All the pieces suddenly had a completely new way of fitting together...

The restaurant's glass curtain wall shattered, not from the wind and rain, but from the shockwaves of the twin dragon resonances.

N stood up, opened his arms in the rain of crystals, and countless prisms stitched his torn shadow back together.

When the first rays of morning light once again penetrated the clouds, blue and black flames finally ignited simultaneously in his irises...

"Hey! Are you training the ultimate villain?" Irene's soul suddenly came up from behind, pinching Li Chen's ears with her cold fingertips.

"Little fool..."

Li Chen slapped her thigh with his backhand, and the touch felt like solidified fat, which sank slightly.

He turned his head and took the tip of the elf's trembling ears in his mouth. A low laugh escaped from between his teeth, and his hot and moist breath dyed the translucent earlobes red: "I am..."

"Help a lost dragon find its lair."

"Li Chen, bad!"

Irene's soul struggled violently in Li Chen's arms, and her translucent skin glowed with a peach-colored halo.

"Why are you always like this!" She tried to pinch Li Chen's neck in shame and anger, but her fingertips passed through the solid object and the other party grabbed her wrist instead.

"If a man is not bad, women will not love him..."

Li Chen chuckled.

Li Chen (￣з(〃'▽｀〃) Ai Lin

"Since we're here, let's have a go."

"???"