Passing through the Dimension Gate, Tenjo Hikari and the others arrived at the Inner World.
Contrary to what everyone imagined, there was no murky smoke or pervasive black fog here. Instead, this world was bright and sunny, and everywhere looked idyllic.
The chirping of birds and fragrant flowers, the scenery was akin to that of Duel Academy.
Of course, if you count the crowd of Mr. Ts blocking the surroundings like a never-ending wave of cockroaches, it wasn't as pleasant.
Black mist swirled around several Mr. Ts, transforming into black Monsters that rushed at Tenjo Hikari. Ed waved his left hand and leapt forward, a blood-red Hero appearing in the air, the scarlet blade eliminating the Mr. Ts like raindrops.
However, even when pierced, the Mr. Ts wouldn't die. The smashed Mr. Ts' cards combined to form a huge robot that swung its fist.
"Armed Dragon!" A towering dragon appeared with a roar, catching the robot's giant fist. When this strike proved ineffective, dozens of Mr. Ts transformed into a black sludge, flew into the air, and combined black cards to generate several dragon heads.
Five-Headed Dragon!
It didn't take long for the dragon formed by dozens of Mr. Ts to begin deep breathing, clearly intending to wipe out Tenjo Hikari and the others.
At that moment, divine light descended from the sky, a seven-colored rainbow illuminating all around, overwhelming hope arriving: "Rainbow Dragon!"
John followed closely, summoning his most trusted entity. Facing the Five-Headed Dragon's breath, a gigantic Dragon Lord shielded the front with its wings, blocking the five-colored torrent.
Seeing that this couldn't take down Tenjo Hikari and the group, more Mr. Ts transformed into cards to try to stop them, but the prepared ones would not surrender lightly.
At that moment.
Crackle—
Suddenly, the sky darkened, sunlight vanished, and clouds massed.
The mountain-like black cloud pressed down on the entire world.
Some weaker individuals felt the difficulty in breathing.
The gathered Mr. Ts turned into black cards amidst the wind, then reformed into humanoid shapes and teleported to either side of the road.
A mass of shadows.
A mass of death.
Appeared directly in front of the students.
Appeared at the grand gates of Duel Academy, confronting Tenjo Hikari and the others.
It was a skull-clad skeleton whose body was entirely composed of bones, and its head was a ram's head, like the Archfiend described in the Bible.
"Darkness!" Judai stepped forward, "Your manipulation of our memories, control over our lives, it ends here!"
"Interesting." The dark entity extended a skeletal hand from beneath its black robe toward Judai, "Do you want to settle the score with me here?
Well, as a human, I ask you, Yuki Judai, do you have the right to represent all humankind and duel me?"
Upon hearing this, Yuki Judai hesitated for a moment.
In the original series, Yuki Judai dueled Darkness because there were hardly any humans left. Being one of the few remaining, he naturally had that right.
But now, he couldn't say "I represent everyone."
However, this tactic didn't work on Tenjo Hikari.
"We don't represent anyone. I won't represent anyone else; I only represent myself." Tenjo Hikari looked at Darkness, feeling the mental anguish that pierced him, saying, "Even if I can't destroy you, others will cross over my corpse and use better tactics to defeat you."
"Hehe, Tenjo Hikari, you utter 'battle of attrition' without hesitation. You seem entirely unashamed?"
"Why be embarrassed when you can deceive Spirits to attack us, use Mind Control, Memory Manipulation, Existence Erasure, and deploy the Mr. Ts in waves against us. We can surely counteract." Tenjo Hikari spoke plainly, "There's no reason we can't use this tactic."
Tenjo Hikari has always responded to enemies' ploys by devising larger ones.
Previously, intending to scout alone wasn't a big deal. Now, with so many here, whether calling on the brothers to challenge Darkness one turn at a time, it was achievable.
But for now, he wouldn't do that, and Darkness…was well-prepared in advance.
"Hehe...Okay, humans, I'll give you an opportunity then, a chance to wholly defeat me." Darkness didn't place much importance on verbal rivalries.
Ultimately, whether Tenjo Hikari's group or Darkness, their aim was singular: eradicate the other!
The previous conversation with Darkness and Manjome was quite clear.
There was no option of coexistence.
Darkness wasn't bothered by "battle of attrition" tactics.
But he wasn't delighted to accept them either.
His travel from a remote future possibility to this era wasn't a trivial act leading toward death but was based on surveying historical moments: this era where the King still slumbered, Dimensions interconnected imperfectly, the new generation yet unseen, and multiple Dimensions lacked formal diplomatic relations or unity was best to divide, and annihilate all human "hope."
Earlier, the nameless king could exist; later, perhaps multiple Dimensions would formally cooperate. Neither option was favorable to him.