Hikaru spent two full days in the Branded Dimension, then set off on a new round of exploration.
Beyond testing a few of the other "infected" dimensions, he doubled back to the Mountain Dimension for a visit.
At the Mountain, the previous Thunder Dragon had already come off shift, and the new keeper, though it had never met Hikaru, knew who he was. It welcomed him with the courtesies given to guests and asked him to stay a while.
Because of what he and Atticus Rhodes had done here in the past, a good number of spirits from the Mountain had turned into birds and beasts, or shifted into dragons on the order of Aeon Thunder Dragon, Thunder Dragondark, or Thunder Dragon Colossus, and left for other dimensions. The two of them held a certain standing here.
Even so, in this dimension, Hikaru's name did not carry as far as Atticus Rhodes's. The reason was plain enough. Atticus Rhodes came by every month to visit.
He looked after the young, and he put on a few small performances for them, and so the spirits here held him in warm regard.
Hikaru stayed a while, then went on to other dimensions, some on return visits, some on plain travel. Nothing new caught his eye. The fresh challenge letter he had put in with Spellcaster's Village had gone unanswered. This round of exploration closed, in that respect, on a note of regret.
He was in no rush.
Most of the dimensions he had already explored no longer needed a further look. The only three that still stood as his main directions were the Gladiator Beast Dimension, the Branded Dimension, and the Duel Terminal Dimension. If a trial partner had not surfaced this time, he could look again in a few days. That did not trouble him.
Better use of his time was to prepare for a run at another of the "corrupted" dimensions.
The Eldlich Dimension, for one. It was a place both he and Alkahest Alchemist had long been curious about.
And speaking of Alkahest Alchemist.
Hikaru watched Alkahest Alchemist step down off the machine, and a familiar puzzlement caught at him again.
Why.
Why, even now, could no coordinate reading be pulled off Alkahest Alchemist?
When they had pulled the reading off Gem-Knight Crystal earlier, they had not been able to pinpoint the Duel Terminal Spirit Dimension, but they had at least drawn out fragments.
Yet even now, not a scrap of information on Alkahest had come through.
Strange.
Alkahest was puzzled by it too, though the puzzle did not trouble the alchemist much. In Hikaru's ranks, Alkahest had always been part of the logistics side, not a front-line combatant, so as far as the alchemist was concerned, not finding home did not much matter to Master.
More to the point, Alkahest was already turning every one of the old classmates' cards out through alchemy. There was no real need to go looking for the homeland.
Compared to that, the one thing that ate at Alkahest daily was the failure, so far, to complete the golden transmutation.
Even so, over these past few days Alkahest had been holding back a little. The earlier slip had been real and had nearly put Master into a coma, so the alchemist did not act as loose as before. Now, before every serious job, Alkahest wrote out notes in advance, wary of getting something wrong again.
If that happened, Lady Tierra would not even have to hand out punishment. The alchemist would not let it go.
While the others busied themselves with their own work, Hikaru returned to the Synchro Dimension.
To his relief, over the past few days there had only been one 5D's match, and the randomization had gone back to something more sensible. Crow had taken the field. Though he had not called out his undefeated Earthbound Immortal Wiraqocha Rasca, Black-Winged Assault Dragon on its own was more than enough to send a chill through the room.
Few could take that kind of relentless life-point drain and keep fighting after.
Everything seemed to be moving in the 5D's team's favor. Many spectators felt that the WRGP had already reached the point where the rest of the tournament need not go on. Just hand the trophy to 5D's at the end.
Our 5D's team looks every inch the champion. Every one of them can go one-on-however-many. The other teams are what they are.
Jack, and Leo and Luna, took the online chatter with warm hearts, since it read as their team's strength winning the acknowledgment of most of the world. To Yusei and Crow, it looked more like a crisis.
To Crow, it was hard to say how much of it came from real belief.
Many were only riding the excitement. Others thought so, so they added their voice to the same tune.
And a fair few were carrying a colder aim.
The 5D's team had grown too well-known across the world of late, and too many mouths were doing too much of the boasting. That left more than a few uneasy with them. But their tide was riding too high right now, so those uneasy voices simply blended in with the ordinary support and joined in the wild cheering. Once 5D's lost, what came next could be a wave of criticism roaring like the sea.
Yusei carried the same worry.
He knew the shape of it.
If saving the world, winning humanity's future, came as easily as all that, humanity would have long since won it back.
There had to be a great many hidden dangers still waiting in their path. Worse than that, they did not even know what those dangers were doing at this moment.
More still, the truly strong duelists among them were, in all likelihood, holding back and had not shown their true strength yet. Under those conditions, the loose praise was less "praise" than a form of ruinous flattery.
The best proof was, up to this very moment, their "die-hard fans" still hadn't broken a thousand!
And that was after Hikari revealed his face and personal reputation boosted their numbers dramatically. Without Hikari, after more than a week of competition, they probably wouldn't have been able to find even ten or twenty new die-hard fans.
Hikaru quite understood their situation, feeling that the current state of things wasn't optimistic.
In this world, Yusei was still subjected to too much scrutiny.
And as the competition progressed, after each team's duels, more and more information came to light about each team, and so more, truer, and sufficiently formidable contestants began taking the stage one after another.
For instance...
Today, Kite Tenjo, wearing a cold expression, mounted his D-Wheel. He glanced at the small robot beside him. The robot immediately gave him a salute, transformed into a great machine, and interlocked with him and the D-Wheel. Then he began dueling his opponent.
This seemed to be Kite Tenjo's first formal Turbo Duel. When Hikaru heard Kite Tenjo was about to duel, he practically the very next second summoned his teammates to come watch.
At first, they'd thought Hikaru had encountered someone with the same surname as himself and was simply intrigued. But they quickly realized that Hikaru bringing them to watch this person's duel absolutely wasn't out of interest or curiosity, but out of...
Sheer strength!
Kite Tenjo, this person's strength surpassed nearly everyone's imagination!
Now, Kite Tenjo had only a single Rank 8 Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon on his field, while his opponent's field held a full three monsters with 3000 ATK.
"Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon's effect. Once per turn, I detach 1 Xyz Material from this card and target 1 monster on my opponent's field to activate. I take control of that opponent's monster until the End Phase. While control is taken by this effect, that targeted monster's card name is treated as Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon, its ATK becomes the same as this card's, it cannot attack directly, and its effect is negated."
The anime version of Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon.
"This card can be directly overlaid on top of a Cipher Dragon monster."
Kite's body suddenly erupted with clear red light, his body beginning to burn hot violently. Some of the objects around him were even blown aside by the sudden surging wave of force!
"I overlay another Cipher Dragon taken from your field to perform an Xyz Rank-Up!"
"Rank-Up?"
"What is that?"
In the spectator's seats, Shay stared wide-eyed at this scene, missing nothing. "It's appeared again. Kite's Rank-Up..."
He and Yuto, after their encounter with the Throne family, had obtained the power of "Rank-Up." But that Rank-Up required "Rank-Up-Magic" to assist.
If the Synchro Dimension's Synchro was mutual coordination, and the Fusion Dimension's Fusion was mutual compatibility, then the Xyz Dimension's Xyz was... the soul's ascension!
He, who had completed his ascension through external aid, only wanted to take revenge as soon as possible, and to find Lulu as soon as possible.
But Kite had long since completed his own self-ascension!
"Xyz Summon! Rank 10, Galaxy-Eyes Cipher X Dragon!"
"4000 ATK!?" His opponent was a bit shocked. "Damn, that's already enough to beat my Super Psi Gunner..."
"Hmph. Using Cipher X Dragon to overlay again, Rank Change! Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon!"
The Cipher light underwent a transformation, and before long, it converted into photons.
This was precisely light's nature.
It was both particle and wave!
"Eh? Why?" Leo and Luna asked in surprise.
From Rank 10 down to Rank 8? Although the ATK didn't change, it felt strange somehow.
"Full Armor Photon Dragon's effect. Once per turn, I can detach 1 Xyz Material and target 1 face-up card on my opponent's field to activate. That card is destroyed.
I destroy your Continuous Spell Card, Insect Neglect."
Boom.
With this, the Continuous Spell Card that let him banish Insect-Type monsters from his own Graveyard to negate attacks disappeared too.
Kite Tenjo glanced over, and flung out his left hand: "Using Rank 8 Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon to overlay, Rank-Up Transformation, Xyz Summon, Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Blade Dragon!"
"His ATK actually exceeded 3000 again, reaching 3200!"
"Cipher Blade Dragon's effect. Once per turn, I detach 1 Xyz Material and can target 1 card on the field. Destroy that card.
I destroy your Set card."
!!
His opponent went pale with shock.
They watched as this person's Set card rose up, then was sliced through by twin blades of light, shattering in an instant.
It was actually Mirror Force!
If Kite Tenjo had rashly attacked, he might have lost outright!
His opponent swallowed hard.
It was fine. Even if the attack came through, it would only cost 1200 Life Points; he could still fight on.
"I overlay using Rank 8 Full Armor Photon Dragon!"
Kite raised his hand, pointing at the sky: "Hart!!! Are you watching!! Big brother is here—————"
His body lit up with a scorching red glow, red deepening to purple, purple deepening to black. Along with his shout, even the television signal began to distort, and then...
"This card can be directly overlaid onto a Galaxy-Eyes Xyz Monster to Xyz Summon. Using Rank 8 Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon to overlay, Chaos Xyz Change!
Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon!"
Zzzzzzz.
The entire course began to fluctuate violently, and the picture of Kite's duel turned into television snow before long. By the time the WRGP officials had finished emergency repairs, the duel was already over.
Winner: Kite Tenjo!
"So, so strong..." Sweat beaded on Crow's forehead. "This guy... he alone is enough."
Although they hadn't heard everything, most of those present had barely managed to catch Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon's first effect. Its terrifying compounding power weighed on them like a heavy pressure.
But this kind of pressure quickly transformed into motivation.
A strong player showing up at this point in time wouldn't make them fear him, but rather bring a sense of "he's finally arrived."
They all rallied their spirits again, but Kite Tenjo was feeling a bit down.
After the duel, he'd learned from his left and right hands that because he'd put too much force into it, the duel had blown out into visual snow at the very end. Never mind young master Hart, probably very few people had watched to the end normally, much less seen Kite's dashing figure.
This left Kite Tenjo a bit at a loss. Did he really have no choice but to pray for a random matchup with Team Despair?
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
By the time he returned to his seat brooding, even thinking of abandoning this boring diplomatic work and identity to sneak into Team Despair, Team Despair had already sent out a member to duel.
Kite Tenjo took one look at that person's face and paused, then slapped the table and shot to his feet with a whoosh.
"Quattro!? What is he doing with Hart!?"
Quattro, his teacher Quinton's younger brother, was someone he knew relatively well. He hadn't expected to see Quattro appear in this duel. If it was him, then it seemed like it could at least...
"An FTK!!!!??"
"No, it never even reached contestant Amis's turn. Contestant Quattro performed an astonishing one-turn kill, without even entering battle, just by whittling down Life Points, is that all it takes to pull something like that off!?
This, this is an FTK!!
So, so terrifying, Quattro!!"
With the appearance of a brand-new enemy, countless people felt a brand-new pressure.
Number monsters, an FTK deck, this Team Despair seemed far more terrifying than what they'd shown at the start!
Perhaps there were even more terrifying, even more incomprehensible trump cards hidden away.
"Hahaha, an FTK deck. Truly an astonishing deck." Jack laughed heartily. "But it doesn't matter. As long as I go first, that Gimmick Puppet won't be able to show off its might, will it?"
He said this with confidence, because his driving skills were far superior to those of people from other dimensions. Relying on his driving advantage, he could easily overtake his opponent during the run and secure the first move.
This was his enormous edge.
Whether the choice was made by some hidden hand of fate, or simply a pillow appearing right when someone was about to nod off...
The next moment, information lit up on their screen.
Their team's duel, which hadn't come up for many days, was beginning!
Team 5D's versus Team New World!
"Finally our turn again? Good! This time, let me handle it!"
Jack laughed heartily and strode out with big steps, welcoming Team 5D's long-awaited duel, and his own first appearance!
Hikaru looked up and exchanged a glance with Yusei.
Team New World.
Yusei shook his head. Clearly he didn't know either.
I see.
"Ohhhhhhh!!! The match every eye is upon has begun!" The MC had been specially invited to this competition.
"Our KING, Jack Atlas, versus the rising new star with a rapidly climbing reputation of late, Team New World's Paradox!!!"
"Ladies and gentlemen! Cheer to your hearts' content, and look forward to this exciting duel!!!"
...
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