[Shell, LP 0]
With his life points reduced to zero, the duel ceremony ca to an end. The Seal of Orichalcos began to spiral and contract, slowly closing in on Shell.
But at the sa ti, a powerful force erupted from his deck.
The flas of the Phoenix transford into a towering pillar of fire, briefly morphing into a phantom image of a phoenix in midair. The fire swept across the entire field, enveloping all three duelists in its dazzling brilliance.
After a blinding flash that made it impossible to keep their eyes open, an image appeared.
It looked like an ancient battlefield from ages past, a world plunged into endless wailing. The sky was torn apart like a shattered painting, revealing a terrifying rift.
Within that rift, it seed as if a dreadful evil god was lurking. Its deep and cold gaze looked as though it would devour all living things.
An army of monsters surged onto the battlefield like a tide, their silhouettes monstrous and grotesque under the dying sunlight. So had horns and wore armor, so flew through the air, and so were blood-red demons whose roars shook the heavens and earth.
A brutal war erupted on the ground, flas devouring everything. A burning phoenix fell from the sky, its feathers flashing brilliantly in the fire, its mournful cry echoing over the battlefield for a long ti.
"Is this... an image of the past?" Jaden muttered.
Though it was just a guess, they all seed to understand what it ant.
The forces of the evil god had invaded the spirit world, igniting a fierce war in a dinsion unknown to humans. The fallen phoenix was probably the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.
This scene was perhaps the Phoenix God's way of saying: "It wasn't that I didn't want to help you back then, I was just weak and got knocked out early."
The fallen phoenix dissipated, its released flas absorbed into so stone tablet.
It seed that after that battle, the Phoenix God's spirit entered a sealed state. The only reason it could now send these images was by using the last bit of Phoenix power that the group had just absorbed from the tribe's statue ruins.
The scene shifted again, from the spirit world to reality.
It was an ancient village surrounded by mountains.
The warm sunlight was suddenly blocked by thick clouds, and monsters surged in from all directions. The silhouettes of various monsters flickered in the dark forests, and the village was trampled into ruins.
Behind all those monsters, beneath the clouded sky, a huge black shadow watched everything with a sinister grin. On its forehead was the six-pointed star mark of Orichalcos.
"How... could it be like this?" Shell muttered in disbelief.
Suddenly, he understood.
No, he should have figured out long ago that there were many suspicious points about the invasion of his village. But until now, his mind had always been under Orichalcos's influence, intentionally led to ignore these things, unable to think in that direction.
Now, having lost the duel and with his soul about to dissipate, Orichalcos's connection finally broke. Only then could the Phoenix God seize a gap to deliver the truth to him.
From the very beginning, the evil monsters that invaded his ho were summoned by the God of Orichalcos.
They orchestrated the whole invasion, then appeared as saviors at the mont of despair, giving Shell a chance to gain power. That way, he would willingly sell his soul and work for New Doma.
Kira, however, was not surprised at all. He had more or less already guessed as much.
Because this was also an old trick that Old Doma loved to use.
The three swordman of Old Doma were recruited by similar thods. Dartz, using his power to glimpse destiny, discovered the potential in Alister, Rafael, and Valon, and decided the three were destined to beco the three swordman of Doma.
So, Dartz personally created childhood tragedies for them, planted seeds of darkness in their hearts, and step by step guided them to join Doma in pursuit of power, becoming his strongest swordman.
An old trick—nothing new.
After another burst of intense light, the vision disappeared, and the phantom body of the Phoenix God gradually faded. Its last bit of power seed to have been completely burned away.
anwhile, the Seal of Orichalcos had shrunk to the point where it was almost touching Shell.
"Was I wrong...?" Shell gently closed his eyes and sighed deeply.
"Shell!" Jaden tried to reach out to him.
Shell looked at Jaden one last ti and smiled slightly.
"You have good companions," he said. "I hope your future... will be different from mine."
With that, his soul left his body, shot up into the sky mixed with the green pillar of light, and vanished into the horizon.
This might have been the first ti Jaden had ever witnessed, with his own eyes, soone lose their soul after being defeated in a duel.
It seed to have left a considerable impact on his young heart.
Jaden's expression grew a little complicated, but Kira remained as calm as ever. He simply stepped forward, bent down, and took Shell's deck.
"There's nothing else we can do," Kira said solemnly, slipping the deck into his empty card box. "All we can do is inherit his will and keep moving forward."
And inherit his deck as well.
Jaden was silent for a mont.
"...Yeah."
"Alright, it should be dawn at the academy by now. Let's go back."
"..."
They had probably only spent a single night in the spirit world, but they gained quite a lot—a skeleton deck, an insect deck, plus the Phoenix God and King of the End...
But as for the latter two, they weren't decks—just a few cards, not enough to make a full deck. Strictly speaking, Shell's deck was also a bit of a ss, mixing unrelated engines and stuffing in a bunch of even more random spell and trap supports.
Yeah, a sign of a strong player.
Kira, now blessed by spirits and having trained at the academy for so long, was no longer a complete novice at God's draws. Even when building decks he could now be a bit bolder, but even his boldness only amounted to adding a few more obscure cards to raise the deck's ceiling.
Every ti he saw strong players build decks in such a wild, "anything goes" way, he couldn't help but be impressed.
The last bit of power in the Phoenix God's card seed to have just run out. Though it could still be used, it had beco just a normal card. But after seeing the images the Phoenix God had shown, holding this card felt just like picking up a trigger for a hidden side quest in an RPG.
As for King of the End, it was hard to say. Though "Demise, King of Armageddon" now looked completely ordinary in Kira's hand, with no sign of a spirit inhabiting it, in the previous duel it was clear this card was special.
Kira decided it would be best not to use such mysterious cards rashly, and to study and test them first upon returning.
In the world of Yu-Gi-Oh, so cards are dangerous. So evil cards require sacrifices to wield, and may even backfire on the duelist. "Demise, King of Armageddon" seed to be one of those.
Kira summoned BLS and sliced open space with a single sword.
Just before stepping into the rift, Jaden suddenly stopped.
Kira turned his head: "What's up?"
"Oh, nothing, it's just..."
Jaden seed to be thinking deeply for a few seconds.
Then he looked up, regaining his usual cheerful smile.
"...Even though I still don't get a lot of what that guy said, I suddenly feel really glad I ca to Duel Academy and got to et soone like you, Kira."
Kira smiled slightly.
"Yeah, I feel the sa."
He turned around.
"Let's go. Don't keep them waiting too long."
Jaden: "Okay~"
The two stepped into the rift, and after another dizzying journey, soon landed back on solid ground.
Right where they had left, in Duel Academy's abandoned dormitory, in the room etched with ancient writing and Millennium Item symbols.
But upon opening their eyes, the first person they saw was a bit unexpected.
It was Mokuba Kaiba.
When Mokuba saw the two land, his eyes lit up: "Ah, you're already back?"
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