Chapter 377
What is that?
"When was that monster summoned?"
While the host and audience stared in disbelief, Godwin revealed a knowing look on his face. "So it's finally here, the Red Dragon... Yago, immediately notify Akutsu to stop MOMENT's operations. Tell him that if he doesn't want to disappear like Placido's hometown, he should do as I say."
"Yes, sir!"
After Yago stepped down, Godwin turned his attention back to the arena. "Now all the conditions are met. When the Dragon Signers, unleashing their true power, battle each other, the duel will enter a new dimension..."
Just as Godwin had predicted, the Red Dragon made its next move.
He hovered above the arena, the surging storm blinding everyone. The next second, Yusei and Jack, along with their respective dragons, were swallowed whole by the Red Dragon. At the same time, Ryuusei and Akira were also enveloped by the red light emanating from the dragon mark on their right arms and were taken away together.
When they came to their senses, the four of them found themselves in a strange space that resembled a starry sky.
Yusei and Jack's D-Wheel sped along a path of light with no end in sight, while Ryuusei and Aki were enveloped in red power and flew behind them.
Ryuusei's little face was full of confusion. "Where is this?"
Aki: "What's going on? Yusei...?"
Jack was the quickest to react, "Looks like we've arrived at a new battleground, Yusei!"
Chapter Thirty-Two: Quick-Play Spell; The Final Blow
"A new battleground...?"
As countless stars flew past, Yusei murmured softly, "What are you trying to tell us, Red Dragon?"
Just then, something unexpected happened ahead.
As everyone gradually approached an ancient altar, a group of devout believers knelt beneath it, worshipping five ancient figures standing atop the altar with their hands raised.
(=_=)/(=_=)/(=_=)/(=_=)/(=_=)/(=_=)/
"This is?"
"What's this?"
While Yusei and the others were puzzled, Jack, who knew a little about the inside story, slowly spoke up, "These are the People of the Stars that Godwin once spoke of."
"People of the Stars?" Yusei mused, noticing the right arms of the five figures on the altar. "The same markings as ours."
Jack: "Dragon Marker... are you suggesting that we transcend distant times and spaces, bound together by some karmic connection?"
As the D-Wheel moved forward, the group came to another scene, a sight that Yusei and Jack knew all too well. "That's New Domino City and its satellite district?!"
Just as Yusei was pondering what this meant, a wall of purple flames suddenly rose within the satellite area, and the surrounding buildings rapidly collapsed.
Ryuusei: "What? What happened?"
Soon, the purple flame wall circled around and eventually formed a huge ground painting.
Qiu stared intently, then muttered, "That's... a spider? A giant spider painting has appeared in the satellite area!?"
This scene gave Yusei a bad feeling. "The satellite region is gradually being destroyed? What does this mean?"
Jack wondered, "Could this be the future?"
"Is this what the Red Dragon wants to tell us? In other words, is the being that caused all of this in the future the enemy we will face?"
Just as Yusei was wondering what kind of enemy it was, Jack's next words brought him back to reality.
"Yusei, let's continue the duel!"
"What?"
"Even if the end of this duel leads to hell, I will settle things with you! Our duel brought us here, so the only way out is for our duel to end!"
"Jack... alright, since you're so eager to fight, I'll play along to the end. Round over."
Even if Yusei wants to uncover the truth, he at least needs to leave this place first.
"My turn!"
(Yusei Fudo SPC7, Jack Atlas SPC7)
Jack glanced at the card he had drawn, a slight smile playing on his lips. "Heh~, let's settle this, Yusei!"
He grabbed another card from his hand and slammed it onto the Duel Disk: "I summon [Flame Resonator] once more."
After Flame Resonator re-entered the field, Jack immediately pressed the button to set the card face down, "And then Tribute [Flame Resonator] to activate the Trap Card [Nightmare Demon Swarm]!"
"This Special Summons three [Nightmare Demon Token] to the opponent's field. When these tokens are destroyed, the controller takes 800 damage for each one."
In the blink of an eye, the Flame Resonator was split into three small black demons, which landed around Yusei.
[Nightmare Demon Token: Attack Power 2000] ×3
Then, Jack habitually turned the car around and gave the order, "Red Dragon Archfiend, attack the derivative! Suppress with Absolute Power!"
The Red Dragon Archfiend pounced on it, slamming down one of the derivatives with its fiery claws.
Upon seeing this, Yusei quickly revealed a Level 2 monster card, "I activate the monster effect of [Artisan Gamiel] from my hand!"
"When your monster battles, from the start of the Damage Step until damage calculation, by sending this card from your hand to the Graveyard as a cost, that monster gains 300 ATK this turn."
[Nightmare Demon Token: Attack Power 2000 → 2300]
[Yusei Fudo's hand: 1 → 0]
The next second, the dragon claw struck, instantly shattering the derivative into pieces.
"Waaaaah--!"
[Yusei Fudo: LP 2300 → 800]
While the actual damage didn't have much of an impact on Yusei, D-Wheel lost its balance due to the impact.
This sight startled the two women following behind.
Ryuusei: "Yusei?!"
Aki: "Is that power the same as mine?"
Fortunately, Yusei was a good driver and quickly regained his balance. He shook his head and asked, "What happened with that impact?"
"It seems this is the real battle between Dragon Seals, Yusei!"
At this moment, Jack grabbed the remaining two cards in his hand and sneered, "Yusei, you activated the effect of [Artisan Gamiel] to reduce damage in order to avoid reducing your Speed Counter, but the premise of retaining Speed Counter is that you still have time to use them... Activate [Sp-Boost]!"
"This round, add 4 Speed Counter, accelerating to 11!"
As soon as the card was played, the speed of the Lucky Wheel increased dramatically, leaving Yusei far behind.
"Let's decide the outcome with this card! Activate [Sp - End of the Storm]!"
[Jack Atlas's hand cards: 2→0]
In an instant, a storm arose and quickly spread throughout the entire area.
"When there are 10 or more Speed Counter, destroy all monsters on the field. For each monster sent to the Graveyard, those High-Speed Counters take 300 damage!"
Sending Stardust Dragon to the grave only deals 300 damage, so Jack's main target is the derivatives, triggering their effect damage to deliver a fatal blow to the Yusei.
So Yusei could only do one thing, so he quickly shouted, "[Stardust Dragon]'s effect activates! When it activates an effect that destroys cards on the field, Tribute Stardust to negate that effect!"
"That's it~! You have to do this, Yusei! This way, Stardust will never come back..."
But at that moment, Yusei gave a wicked smile, "Solvadocana!"
"What?!"
"At this moment, I must banish the graveyard's Quick-Play Spell [Meteor Sound Attack]!"
Upon hearing this, Jack turned his head sharply, exclaiming in shock, "Quick-Play Spell from the graveyard!?"
As is well known, the reason why Spell Card other than Speed Spell cannot be used in Ride Duel is that the Field Spell [Speed World] has an effect that causes the user to take 2000 damage when activating Spell Card other than Speed Spell.
However, if a 'Spell Card effect' is activated instead of a 'Spell Card', then the effect will not trigger. In other words, Speed World will not react to Spell Card whose effects are activated from the graveyard. Moreover, Yusei simply banishes Spell Card from the graveyard.
"The effect of [Meteor Sound Attack] is that when a [Stardust] Synchro Monster on your field Tributes itself to activate its effect, you can banish this card from your Graveyard as a substitute for its cost. Therefore, [Stardust Dragon] does not need to Tribute itself and negates the effect of [Sp - End of the Storm]."
"And because it's not an activated Spell Card, the Field Spell [Speed World] won't cause me any damage."
As soon as Yusei finished speaking, Stardust Dragon flapped its wings, and the storm was instantly dispersed.
'Roar--!!'
Hearing Stardust Dragon's seemingly triumphant roar, Jack was momentarily stunned by this incredible maneuver. "How could something like this happen...!?"
However, he had a strong mentality and recovered quickly. "But your disadvantage remains unchanged, Yusei! As long as I attack the token again in the next turn, your life points will reach zero... End of turn!"
The moment the round ended, the Side Effect? of the boost kicked in, and the Speed Counter dropped to almost nothing, allowing Yusei's D-Wheel to instantly overtake.
"My turn!"
(Yusei Fudo SPC8, Jack Atlas SPC2)
Yusei glanced at his hand, a smirk playing on his lips, before playing it. "Activate [Sp - Final Strike]! When you have 8 or more Speed Counter, double the ATK of one of your monsters!"
[Stardust Dragon: Attack Power 3500 → 7000]
"Attack power is a whopping 7000?!"
"This is the end!" Yusei swung his arm and shouted, "Stardust Dragon! Charge, Meteor Sound Attack!!"
Immediately, the Stardust Dragon opened its massive maw once more, unleashing a starlight dragon breath more than twice as thick as before, instantly engulfing the Red Dragon Archfiend and Jack.
"Hmph! Ahh..."
[Jack Atlas: LP2200→0]
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Spider's Mark!?
The moment Jack's health points reached zero, the scene shifted again, and the two were instantly back on the racetrack in reality.
"Hmph! Ahh..."
With a scream, Jack, who had suffered physical damage, lost control of the slippery Lucky Wheel and was thrown into the air.
A salute to the birth of the King of Car Crashes!
Anyway, upon seeing Jack's car overturn and get injured, Yusei quickly got out and ran over to check on him, "Are you alright, Jack?"
"Why... why was I defeated again...? Was it a mistake... that I... gave up everything to become king... all along...?"
"When you become fixated on the illusory title of 'King,' you've already limited your potential, forgetting that duels have infinite possibilities."
"Possibility...?" Jack could no longer hold on and fainted.
At the same time, everyone noticed that the big screen showed Jack's health points had already reached zero.
The Spiky-haired Host, looked around in bewilderment, completely unaware of what had just transpired in the duel. "What happened? What happened?"
"What happened? The outcome is already decided."
It was only after Godwin's reminder that the host snapped out of his daze and quickly raised the microphone, "Finally... the match is over! Winner, Yusei Fudo!!"
"King, Jack Atlas's undefeated myth has been shattered! Here we witness the birth of New King! The New King's name is Yusei Fudo! The New King is Yusei Fudo, the king of the Satellite District has been born!!"
"Yusei! Yusei! Yusei...!" ×N
The audience was unfazed by the original king's mishap and continued to chant Yusei's name. They did not deny Yusei's status just because they did not see the duel, after all, Yusei's overwhelming strength was undeniable.
Aren't they being a bit too cold-hearted? Jack used to be their idol, after all. Don't they consider the original king's feelings?
Oh, the injured person is in a stable mood now, so everything is alright!
Car crash king:...
After watching the medical staff move Jack away, Yusei quickly took the twins, Ryuya and Ryuko, and ran away before the reporters surrounded them.
It would be troublesome if they got harassed by reporters, so Yusei even forgot about meeting Godwin.
Back in the familiar twins' home, Yusei and the others finally relaxed.
"What are your plans next, Yusei?"
In response to Ryuusei's question, Yusei thought for a moment and replied, "I definitely can't go to the Public Security Maintenance Bureau, so I'm planning to go back to the Satellite District."
Ryuuga: "What's wrong with you? Didn't you say you were going to save your companions? Can't you spend more time with us, Yusei?"