When everything fell apart, Keith dropped to his knees as if his bones had been pulled from his body.
Under the flickering candlelight, Keith seemed to have completely lost his strength and will. He merely stared at the lone "TM-1 Rocket Launcher Spider" in his hand, muttering to himself as though he had lost his mind.
"It shouldn't have been like this. It never should have been like this!"
Thinking about it carefully, though, it was understandable. After finally drawing the one card out of a deck of dozens that could turn the duel around, all it brought was even deeper despair.
"Card of Demise" had replenished five cards in his hand at once, yet before he could even warm them in his palm, four of them had gone straight to the Graveyard.
Putting himself in Keith's shoes, Yu Ming felt that he might not have been able to accept that outcome either.
"That was supposed to be a card that could turn everything around!"
Faced with Keith's ferocious gaze, as though he wanted to devour someone alive, Yu Ming could not help nodding.
"That's true."
Ignoring the causes and consequences, that statement alone was not wrong.
Yu Ming remembered that in his previous life, cards like "Graceful Charity" and "Pot of Greed," which drew cards and thinned decks without any cost, had all been banned one after another. As for the various treasure cards from the anime, they were either nerfed into useless garbage or would never be printed as real cards in their lives.
In a game where every deck had an inherent ceiling, massive card draw was as broken as it got.
Drawing five cards at once was a powerful comeback tool in any deck.
So the question was...
"Why did it still turn out like this?!"
"Don't you know the answer best yourself, Champion?"
"I..."
Keith was left speechless.
At that moment, Yu Ming could even see Keith's face gradually flushing red, his breathing becoming shorter and heavier. Someone who did not know better might have thought that he himself had been infected by the Virus Card.
But honestly, Yu Ming was not mocking him.
"You're the American champion of Magic & Wizards. You're an old player who came up under the Kingdom Rules, so you can't break free from your old 'experience.'"
In his previous life, although many anime-only fans might not have known the rules of Spellcaster Cards before and after Duelist Kingdom, Yu Ming had specifically looked into them.
Besides the things almost everyone knew, such as 2000 LP, summoning without Tributes, and making things up on the spot like an RPG, there were several other important rules:
First, players could not be attacked directly.
Second, if the opponent had five monsters on the field while you had no monsters and could no longer summon any, you lost.
Third, if an Attack Position monster was destroyed by a Spell or Trap, half its ATK would be dealt as damage to its controller.
The existence of these rules directly determined the core structure of decks during the Kingdom era:
"Monsters."
Yu Ming spoke.
"During the Spellcaster Cards era, monsters were not only spears for defeating enemies, but also shields for protecting oneself. Players relied on their monsters like summoners, deciding victory or defeat through battles between monsters. Therefore, every player who came from the Spellcaster Cards era inevitably had a large number of monsters in their deck, and to support those monsters, the rest of the deck had to be built around them."
To put it simply, if one did not consider the RPG elements of improvising on the spot, the basic idea was this:
Summon monsters and keep them on the field.
On that basis, one had to find every possible way to launch fierce attacks against the opponent and destroy their monsters while preventing their attacks.
At the same time, one also needed card-draw methods to thin the deck.
"And in order to make the cards in the deck as effective as possible, there were also certain restrictions on Types and even Attributes."
That was why, during the Duel City era before archetypes had been created, so many powerful duelists—those so-called Japanese champions and runners-up—used the Types they controlled as their titles.
"Keith, as a champion, your deck must be built like that too, isn't it?"
In an instant, Keith's face went pale.
"You're not someone who likes to defend, so your low-Level monsters either have extremely high ATK or standout special effects."
"Sphere Time Bomb."
"Motor Shell."
"Cannon Soldier."
Some of their effects might have seemed unimpressive to card players, but in the early anime environment of two thousand Life Points, and even in the current environment of four thousand Life Points, they posed no small threat.
"But at the same time, they all share one trait—their DEF can barely surpass 1500. In other words, not a single one of the low-Level monsters in your deck exceeds that line."
Therefore, the result had already been decided.
"Because I'm the American champion of Spellcaster Cards, Crush Card Virus can lock down my deck so completely?!"
Clenching the card in his hand, Keith practically ground those words out through his teeth.
"Yes."
It was not as though there was no way to break the lock, but that would basically require the sort of draw that people mocked as a "god draw," something like the state Pharaoh and Little Yugi had reached during the Ceremonial Duel.
And Keith was obviously a normal person. Normal people had to care about deck construction.
So...
"Because you were once a powerful champion, you lost... You can understand it that way if you want."
After all, there were plenty of duelists in the anime who had clung to the same old-fashioned mindset and failed to adapt to the new rules.
For example, those two characters who had once been Japanese champion and runner-up had achieved nothing in Duel City, while the anime-original arcs only became more absurd the further they went.
"Heh, you sure know how to talk, brat."
Keith seemed to want to laugh, but his stiff mouth only made his expression even more vicious.
Still, he eventually lowered the only card in his hand.
"Then come on, brat. Claim the victory that belongs to you!"
Clutching the "TM-1 Rocket Launcher Spider," he roared.
"I end my turn like this!"
"...My turn. Draw."
Yu Ming watched Keith's crazed yet bitter expression in silence for a moment.
Out of habit, he glanced at the card in his hand, but did not slap it onto the Duel Disk or Set it.
At this point, it no longer mattered what was in his hand.
"I don't think I'll ever forget you, Keith Howard."
"..."
"I'm actually very grateful to you—although it caught me off guard, you truly taught me how to face this kind of situation with the right attitude."
So...
"I'll bring this duel to its close with the respect you deserve."
Yu Ming slowly raised his hand and gave the final command.
"Dark Blade, attack directly."
The fiend warrior gripping the battle-axe leaped high into the air. A bloodthirsty scarlet gleam flashed beneath its rare-silver helmet as the Axe of Despair carved a final arc.
Sizzle.
Keith Howard LP: 2700 → 0 Congratulations, Host, for defeating the duelist 'Bandit Keith.' You gained 200 points from this duel, with an additional 150 points awarded for your first victory.
The duel was over.
When the Shadow Game ended and Keith's body collapsed like a heap of mud, Yu Ming let out a long breath.
A warm current gradually flowed through his body, leaving him pleasantly warm. His earlier exhaustion slowly faded, and even his burning internal organs gradually settled.
Of course, this was not merely a subjective feeling.
He could even see the high-temperature burns on his body healing at a visible rate!
"Looks like the winner of a Shadow Game can repair their injuries."
For him right now, that was undoubtedly good news. At least he would not have to drag his injured body around everywhere, and could leave this damned place in relatively good condition.
Only...
"How does it work?"
Yu Ming's thoughts could not help drifting.
But before he could think any further, a faint voice reached his ears:
"Because you absorbed my 'soul power.' That is how this world's rules work."
Does this place have martial souls too?
Are you from some continent or something?
A chaotic storm of thoughts ran wild through Yu Ming's mind, but he knew that those were not what he should be complaining about right now.
Looking toward the source of the voice, he saw a man.
Although he lay on the ground like a heap of mud, covered in injuries, a pair of eyes beneath his sunglasses stared at Yu Ming.
"...Why are you still alive?"
Before you continue