Nightfall draped Duel City in deep black velvet.
Countless stars glittered across the heavens, like crushed diamonds casually scattered by the Creator.
They complemented the dazzling, sleepless sea of lights on the ground below.
Although the Multiverse Duel Arena's main stadium had already concluded its bustle for the day,
the city itself seemed to have only just awakened.
The streets and alleyways brimmed with the laughter and chatter of duelists, adventurers, and tourists.
Mikasa stood alone at the edge of a building rooftop.
The biting night wind howled past from above, tossing her ink-black short hair into disarray.
Her signature red scarf also snapped loudly in the wind.
She lowered her head slightly.
Her eyes, usually as calm as deep pools,
silently overlooked this prosperous city that seemed almost unreal.
Yet in this year's Top 100 Tournament, her final ranking had stopped at thirty-fifth place.
For someone from the Giant World,
achieving such a result in a competition that gathered monsters and geniuses from every world
was already an extraordinarily rare honor in the eyes of outsiders.
And accompanying that ranking was a generous prize of ten million Beli.
This was not ten million Beli from ten years ago, before the World Government had reformed currency denominations.
After rigorous planning and appreciation of the currency,
ten million Beli now possessed an astonishing amount of purchasing power.
After all,
the one-hundred-million-Beli bounties that had once driven countless One Piece pirates mad
would only amount to a little over four million Beli now.
It could be said that such a massive sum of ten million Beli was enough for an ordinary person to live several lifetimes without worrying about food or clothing on Sea Star.
However, Mikasa felt not the slightest joy over any of it.
In her heart, failing to enter