CH108 (722), Truth Behind The Seal (2)

"I can see why you would say that Hoenn's safety is guaranteed, and I'd say that you're right with how thorough that failsafe seems to be," I freely admitted since I had sensed that he had been truthful the entire time. "So, about that seal," I followed up to prompt him to finally tell me what was sealed beneath our feet. It wasn't the subtlest approach, but Dusknoir did not seem to mind. In fact, I could feel that he was amused, and he even smiled for a moment before he spoke up again.

"Before I answer that I would like to ask how much you know about the deities and gods since it pertains to the explanation you want; I'm referring to the spirit deities and gods here, or ghost deities and gods as you humans probably call them," Dusknoir came with yet another counter inquiry instead of giving me a straight answer, though I did not mind since I was interested to hear what he wanted to say on the topic; In my opinion, any information on Legendaries was quite interesting after all.

"Well, I know of Giratina, who according to the legends is one of the creators of our universe; Then there's Lunala, who is the god of the moon; Marshadow, who is a god of shadows, and finally Hoopa in its primary form, who can manipulate loops that wrap space," I replied and my eyebrows involuntarily rose when I finished since I came to a startling realization.

"You're not trying to say that a Hoopa is sealed here are you?" I asked incredulously since I had already decided during one of my earlier musings that the idea of a legend being sealed here was ridiculous. "No, the seal does not contain Hoopa," Dusknoir answered with a shake of his head. The fact that I actually felt myself relax a bit when he said that, showed that I had unconsciously tensed a bit at the idea, which meant that I was not so confident in my assumption after all. I felt the tension come right back when I saw an honest-to-Mew playful smile flash by on Dusknoir's face before he put up a serious look.

"It seems like you know about the Gods, though you did not mention any of the deities; You did not even mention Spectrier, who to my knowledge should have shown itself to you humans in the past," Dusknoir mentioned and I guess Spectrier slipped my mind since I personally did not consider that particular trio as legitimate Legendaries but more like glorified tale/myth figures as Arcanine had originally been. Nonetheless, the fact that Dusknoir said that Specterier was only one of the ghost deities implied that there were more, which was surprising since I honestly did not know of any other ghost Legendaries unless there were some variants I did not know about.

"Well, I have to admit that Spectrier slipped my mind, but I don't know about any other gods aside from that one," I freely admitted, but was swiftly met with a denial from Dusknoir. "Spectrier is not a god, but a deity," he refuted and honestly I was surprised at his reaction. "Isn't that the same thing?" I couldn't help but ask since that was the case as far as I knew. "No, while both denote a divine status, they are not the same," Dusknoir denied; "While all Gods are deities, not all deities are Gods," he followed up, which honestly did not tell me much and just felt like he was repeating himself.

Apparently noting my confusion, Dusknoir decided to elaborate. "All Gods are born as such; Meanwhile, a deity does not necessarily have to be born as a deity. It is possible for a Pokemon to become a deity by being elevated to one by one of the Major Gods or through one's own struggle," Dusknoir explained. 

I would freely admit that I had known of/considered the possibility of regular Pokemon being able to become deities since that was what I have been aiming for for my Pokemon which was why I paid so much attention to their potential, so hearing the confirmation of that from Dusknoir was still extremely exciting. Mothra/Butterfree, Horus/Xatu, Nyx/Umbreon, Tatsumaki/Alakazam, and Hades/Gengar were just as excited when they heard Dusknoir's words, and Dusknoir laughed warmly seeing everyone's reaction before turning a bit somber. 

"I was just as excited when I was told about the possibility of us being able to become deities as well, and I'm sorry that I have to pour a bit of cold water on you, but I feel obligated to tell you that doing so is unbelievably hard. I have heard of only a handful of Pokemon that have managed to do that despite my nearly 12 millennia on this plane, and all of those Pokemon had to go through an untold amount of hardships while also having incredible luck to eventually reach that point. One's potential is only the simplest if not most cruel hurdle on the way to becoming a deity," Dusknoir lamented and I felt like he was taking the last bit pretty personally.

Still, to think that Dusknoir was close to 12 thousand years old; Wow. It was no wonder he was lamenting the potential hurdle if he was still at the (low) palladium stage after nearly 12k years. The poor guy probably had blue or deep blue potential at the moment, but considering how long it took him to reach his current strength, he was likely born with even worse potential and had simply managed to raise his potential through sheer accumulation from ingestion/absorption of lucky material encounters and regular useful items. 

My second thought was damn that's old. I mean, I knew that ghosts have absurdly long lifespans compared to other species/types but seeing a live example felt different compared to simply knowing something theoretically. To put it in perspective, that was more than 4 times Professor Oak's age, which was anywhere from 2300 to 2800 years I think, and more than double the age of humanity's current civilization, which was nearly 4900 years old. Was age the right word when referring to a civilization? Maybe it was length instead? Regardless, I chose to ignore that and rather focus on gaining more concrete information.  

"You mentioned you heard about a handful that succeeded; Can you tell me which Pokemon those were?" I inquired, and Dusknoir readily agreed. "Sure, I don't mind, though I have to add that these events happened long before my time. I simply heard about them from my predecessors who heard it from their predecessors," Dusknoir said ambivalently. 

"I already mentioned Spectrier, who is a spectral Pokemon. Nonetheless, if we mention Spectrier, we have to mention two more Pokemon, who along with Spectrier managed to pacify and unite the continent to our west, ushering an era of unprecedented peace and unity that lasted for millennia before the trio moved on to the greater continents. Those two are Glastrier and Calyrex." Dusknoir shared, and I vaguely remembered something like that being mentioned in Calyrex's PokeDex entry, though the human history that I had in my super library did not mention anything about this kingdom/empire. 

"How come I can't remember hearing about that kingdom if as you have said, humans have seen Spectrier?" I asked since he brought it up. "From what I was told the kingdom dissolved long before the first humans made it to that continent, so I doubt you would find much about it. As for the appearance of Spectrier before humans, that happened when some humans stumbled upon the cemetery Spectrier set up for the Calyrex and Glastrier that fell to near extinction following the dissolution of the kingdom," Dusknoir replied and he seemed quite sorrowful when he mentioned the last bit.

"How is that possible?" I asked honestly baffled at how two species that managed to produce deities could be pushed to near extinction. "It's actually pretty simple, they were outnumbered. Despite them producing a member that became a deity, the species themselves while strong were still on the same level as the other strong species of the continent. In fact, while both the Glastrier and Spectrier species were nearly on par with apex species, the Calyrex species can barely be considered a top-level species. When the deity trio set off for the bigger stage of the world, the Calyrex tribe only had a single 7th Stage protector, while the Glastrier and Spectrier had a few 7th Stage and a single 8th Stage protector respectively," he shared and I had to wince at that since I could imagine how that went.

"I see you have an idea what happened after that," Dusknoir said after noticing my reaction. "As you've no doubt guessed, once it was clear that the deity trio was gone for good, their tribes began to suffer attacks. The protectors while extremely strong could only deal with so many Pokemon especially since some of the apex and top tribes had protectors that were just as strong or nearly as strong. While that might not have been a problem if only some of the other tribes attacked them; However, their being targeted by literally everyone else eventually led to their numbers falling to pitiful numbers, which ultimately attracted the attention of the deity trio, though by then the Glastrier and Calyrex had been reduced to a very small number," Dusknoir elaborated before putting on a slightly proud look.

"Unlike the other two tribes, the Spectrier tribe was luckier since their being spectral Pokemon meant that only an unlucky few actually died, while most of them simply had to spend a few years to regather their dispersed essence, so when the deity trio came, the Spectrier tribe had suffered no real loss and only required Spectrier's help in regaining full of control their physical form. Anyway, the trio then chose to relocate their tribe members to the bigger continents where they could keep a closer eye on them, but before they left, they chose to bury their fallen compatriots on an island not far from the outskirts of the continent," Dusknoir said; Hearing him mention the difficulty of actually killing a ghost, I understood why he puffed up a bit and as a ghost himself, he had a right to be proud I guess.

This explained why those three Pokemon could no longer be found anywhere in Galar or the rest of the western continent. I also noticed that he did not mention what happened to the tribes that pushed the Glastrier and Calyrex tribes to near extinction, but that was probably deliberate on his part. "Do you know if the deity trio retaliated?" I went ahead and asked. "I do," Dusknoir replied happily, though it did not show on his face. 

"This may surprise you but from what I have been told, the deities did not hand out any other punishments aside from forcing the protectors of those tribes into an essential house arrest," Dusknoir said sounding slightly baffled, and I kinda understood why he would feel like that since I also had trouble believing that they would show such restraint towards groups that nearly decimated their fellow species members.

I could not help but wonder if other deities or gods had been involved there, forcing the trio to hand out a rather moderate punishment instead of a harsher one. Maybe there were some rules or laws that they had to adhere to that prevented them from taking revenge, but either way I had to say that it felt to me like the other tribes came off the whole thing way too easily. I was not saying that I thought Calyrex and his two friends should have exterminated them, but a house arrest, really?

Anyway, after that, he shared that some humans with nothing better to do, actually settled on the frozen tundra that the island had turned to over the years due to the influence of the many buried Glastrier, and a bunch of descendants of these humans eventually managed to dig up the remains of the buried Pokemon, which seemed to have triggered an alarm since Spectrier showed up and took away the remains under the eyes of the surprised humans. Interestingly enough, according to Dusknoir the trio's tale seemed to have spread and was used as a lesson by the various top and apex species/tribes. 

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