Honestly, Yu Ming was not trying to be clever here. He sincerely believed it.
"First of all, you were the one who dragged me into this godforsaken place. You were the one who wanted to use me as a sacrifice."
Watching Ogorou Daimon's increasingly twisted, hateful expression, Yu Ming shrugged.
"And now you suddenly snapped over something completely irrelevant. I honestly can't understand what reason or standing you have to hate me."
"Shut up!"
That was the response he received.
Before the words had even fully faded, Yu Ming heard Ogorou Daimon's emotion-filled mechanical voice.
"Seto Kaiba's people are one thing, but why do even you possess this kind of power?!"
Oh, now he got it.
"So what you mean is, you human scum who spent your life tinkering with weapons realized after death that you were actually a useless piece of trash, but didn't want to admit it, so you pushed all the blame onto someone like me—someone who has nothing to do with you and is just trying to survive here."
The leap in logic was rather abrupt, but when he thought it through, it did make a strange sort of sense.
"Betrayal... put simply, it was just your stupid, pathetic jealousy acting up."
"You little brat..."
"Shut up, you third-rate mongrel using a second-rate deck. Did you spend several decades of your life living like a dog?"
"Guh..."
Facing the android's seemingly humiliated gaze, Yu Ming merely raised a hand and picked at his ear.
"When it came down to it, I was just a bystander dragged into your ambitions. I had no obligation to listen to your whining, much less endure the resentment of trash like you. And yet you people just kept pushing your luck..."
The white-haired youth narrowed his eyes.
"Old bastard, did you really think I had no temper?"
"Roar!"
All of a sudden, the five-headed evil dragon threw back its heads and howled. The rising and falling dragon cries, almost like wails of grief, added an inexplicable chaos to this murky ritual ground.
"Hm?"
At the same time, Yu Ming suddenly noticed that the phantom that should have been translucent seemed to have become more solid.
Two of the heads representing different elements had already returned to normal. Firelight intertwined with wind and lightning, setting off a roaring elemental storm.
"Hmph. It seems some of my colleagues have already claimed victory."
Clearly, he was not the only one dueling here. Judging by the Five-Headed Dragon's state, and considering the number of the Big Five, there should have been five duels taking place at once.
So the question was...
"Who the hell was so bad at this?"
Yu Ming merely sighed.
"But never mind. No matter what happens, this so-called evil dragon can't be revived."
And as for why...
"This is already over."
On his field stood the two powerful monsters, "Mist Demon" and "Jinzo - Psychic Shockwave." Under real card rules, this obviously would not have been fatal, but this was anime.
Here, Life Points were halved!
"Battle Phase. Jinzo - Psychic Shockwave, attack."
Yu Ming swept his arm forward.
"Psychic Shockwave!"
The shockwave roared as the psychic strike from Psychic Shockwave surged forth.
At the same time, Yu Ming's gaze followed the strand of fallen black mist caught within it toward Ogorou Daimon's field.
Passing over the lone monster, his eyes focused on the back row—besides "Call of the Haunted," there was another Set Card there.
Putting himself in the other man's shoes, in an environment like this, anyone intending to use Jinzo as their main force would never put too many Trap Cards into their deck.
Which meant...
"I activate my Set Card."
As the bottomless, dark vortex rose, a faint green glow emerged from within.
"Quick-Play Spell—'Concentrated Current.'"
Amid the roar of surging electricity, Psychic Shockwave's aura steadily began to rise.
"By this card's effect, I can increase the ATK of one monster on my field by an amount equal to its DEF. This effect lasts until the end of the turn!"
So, Jinzo - Psychic Shockwave's final ATK was...
ATK/600→2000
In the end, the pitch-black shockwave swept through, completely swallowing its feeble kin. The aftershock also shook Ogorou Daimon's mechanical body until sparks flew everywhere.
"Guh..."
Ogorou Daimon LP: 4000→3600
"It's not over yet. Mist Demon, attack directly."
"Oooohhh!!!"
With nothing to stop it, the blast of magical force crashed down upon his body.
Power from hell and darkness invaded him, corroding his outer armor and spreading corpse-gray pallor across his remaining flesh.
But...
Ogorou Daimon LP: 3600→1200
He was still alive.
"What a pity. You really were just a little short."
Clenching his mangled fists, Ogorou Daimon spoke coldly.
"I thought I had made every possible preparation, but it seems I still underestimated you."
"You didn't sound like that when you snapped earlier."
"To drive me to this point, you truly possess power that cannot be underestimated."
"Is it possible that I only needed one turn to beat you into this state?"
"...Enough nonsense! That is all in the past. Now I hold the advantage!"
Before Yu Ming could add another sarcastic remark, the android's loudspeaker-like voice began echoing again.
"'Mist Demon' will be destroyed at the end of the turn and deal you one thousand points of damage, while 'Fallen' will deal you eight hundred points of damage during my Standby Phase."
And Yu Ming only had sixteen hundred Life Points remaining.
To put it in the words commonly used in this world...
"Under the effects of these side effects, your life, already like a candle flickering in the wind, will be completely extinguished!"
"Ah, he said it..."
"You will be buried by your own cards!!"
Ogorou Daimon waved his mangled arm, his voice rising into a shrill crack.
"I win!!!"
Watching the android's excited appearance, Yu Ming could not help raising an eyebrow.
How should he put it?
"Although it's a little late to remind you, randomly raising flags isn't a good habit."
"What did you say?"
As an ancient relic in his forties or fifties, he naturally could not understand what Yu Ming meant.
But he had no chance to question him.
As Ogorou Daimon struggled up from the ground, he saw the monster identical to himself standing before him.
"Jinzo?"
But it had taken on the form of a ghost.
"Spell Card—'Psychic Ectoplasm.'"
Looking behind him, Ogorou Daimon saw only a card being activated.
"After this card is activated, once during each player's End Phase, that player selects one face-up monster they control, Tributes it, and inflicts damage to their opponent equal to half the Tributed monster's original ATK."
"Psychic Shockwave's ATK is twenty-four hundred, and half of that is..."
Ogorou Daimon instantly fell silent.
But that was fine. Yu Ming could finish it for him.
"It's twelve hundred, exactly equal to your Life Points."
How should he put it?
"What a coincidence, isn't it?"
The android's crimson eyes trembled, flashing wildly like alarm lights.
Ogorou Daimon seemed to want to say something, but it was already too late.
"Boom!"
The monster identical to him suddenly collapsed entirely, and the released spiritual shockwave hurled him away.
"AAAAAH—"
Ogorou Daimon LP: 1200→0
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