The milestone event, Duel City, has officially concluded. The fiber optics and communication signals seemed to have wings, carrying the final battle report to the world in the blink of an eye...
...and onto the players' forums.
At this moment, the players were in a state of extreme excitement.
"Duel King! Youyu has claimed the title of Duel King!"
"See, didn't I say it before? Youyu is truly the main character of this world!"
As the on-site camerawoman brought on board by Youyu, Miss Yue Hua was now genuinely overjoyed.
The livestream had reached the highest viewership in its history!
Across all sections... no, on the entire platform, it was number one!
Happiness came too abruptly, and life had suddenly reached a peak. And all of this was thanks to Youyu-san.
Now she stood below the stage, her face flushed, looking at Youyu, her heart pounding like crazy.
She now felt that even becoming Youyu-san's steed didn't seem so bad... and might even be a little profitable.
Beside her, Xue Lang, stood with chest puffed out, looking as if he didn't recognize anyone.
He, Xue Lang, was the man who almost defeated Marik, almost took the Winged Dragon of Ra, and almost made it to the semifinals of Duel City!
But none of that mattered, what was more important was that from now on—
—he would be the lackey of the Duel King!
No, no, need to strike a pose here, I might just overdo it...
Events like Duel City are currently the world's top-tier Duel Monsters tournaments... in fact, it's probably the only one of its kind.
After all, there's no other organizer wealthy enough to halt the daily operations of an entire city to make way for a card game.
Such large-scale and high-level tournaments naturally attract worldwide attention, especially from the Inner World of duelists.
It's fair to say that this competition has a significant impact on the Inner World. After all, it involved the Gravekeeper Race, the leader of the Ghouls Group rumored to hold the Sun God, Marik Ishtar, and also Muto Yugi, who defeated the Father of Duel Monsters, Pegasus, and is considered the strongest Dark Duelist.
Almost everyone knew that the Ghouls Group was established by Marik to exact revenge on the Pharaoh within Yugi, and for this purpose, he recently stirred up chaos in the entire Inner World.
So regardless of the competition's outcome, it was bound to have a considerable impact on the entire Inner World.
However, those impacts were all for later; the most immediate and relevant impact for Inner World duelists right now was...
...the bets on this competition!
Having defeated Kaiba Seto, and then battled through Duelist Kingdom, bringing down Pegasus from his pedestal, becoming a major shareholder in the International Fantasy Society, and holding the title of the First Duel King, Muto Yugi went up against Youyu, who had only ever dueled Kaiba Seto once without a decisive outcome...
Any gambler with a functioning brain knew which side to bet on. Almost no one thought Youyu had any hope in this final.
However, it was different with the Nightwalker Association.
The men in the Nightwalkers, led by the president, all spontaneously bet on Youyu.
Though they didn't hold much hope for Youyu either, it didn't matter; after all, he was one of their own, and supporting him was the right thing to do.
Throughout the competition, every on-field situation change, LP fluctuation, and game reversals made gamblers worldwide skip a heartbeat.
When Yugi summoned the Obelisk the Tormentor and used the "Fist of Fate Shock Wave," everyone thought the match was over.
But, against all odds, Youyu not only withstood the attack, but also quickly summoned the Sky Dragon, leading to the two deities clashing and perishing together.
This was followed by Yugi pulling out a still-warm Dark Magician Knight straight from the field print, while Youyu faced him head-on, baiting out the knight's two nullifications and summoning the Shining Flare Wingman, leading to a final exchange of attacks and defenses, with both sides laying all their cards on the table in a gamble...
...Without a handful of sedatives, most people wouldn't have been able to endure watching this final match.
Yet the update on the battle report, the changes in data, none of it was as shocking as the final result.
A draw.
At that moment, as the host Kaiba Group officially announced the battle report, two Duel Kings were born.
Upon receiving the battle report, the Nightwalker World was silent for a while, and then the entire room erupted in cheers.
Duel King! One of us became a Duel King!
Usually, at such times, the house would take all. But in the Duel Monsters realm, a draw was almost unprecedented, having never occurred in any major tournaments, leading to a lack of rules for dealing with this situation in bets.
After an urgent discussion, the final decision was to treat the bet as a draw as well, with all wagers returned to the bettors.
Though no money was earned, it didn't matter, as it didn't stop the men in the Nightwalker World from raising a toast excitedly.
See Mr. Kuroda, shirtless, raising a glass of what was suspected to be flammable liquor and shouting, "Drink! Everyone drink up today!"
A player, having become good friends with him, responded by smashing his glasses on the ground with the same excitement and raised his glass, "Come, come, come! Tonight, no one should expect to go back with their clothes on!"
And then there was a group of muscular men who hugged each other in excitement, playing some meaningless wrestling games.
It was said that Kusunoki Manager was just with his Meimei or Meimei—he himself didn't seem to remember clearly—and upon receiving the news, put everything aside without another word and rushed back to headquarters to celebrate with his members.
President Tosawa Mukuro sat dumbfounded in his chair upon seeing the battle report, then cracked a foolish grin after a long pause, chuckling dryly.
Duel King!
Although he always knew Youyu was impressive, but this... was too impressive, right?!
President Mukuro quickly pulled himself back, slapped his head, and cursed himself twice.
What am I doing here laughing foolishly alone?
Show off! Start showing off!
So he immediately dialed the phone number of another Inner World organization leader he knew: "Hello? Yes, it's me, hahaha! You heard too? Oh, it's really troubling me, this new kid just stirred things up by becoming a Duel King without a blink, hahahaha..."
President Mukuro ranted endlessly, saying a lot of unproductive things before hanging up the phone, yet still felt unsatisfied, so he dialed another organization leader.
"Is this President Pinghai? You heard too? Hahaha, news spreads really fast in this era! Who knew? Suddenly we have a Duel King...
... Oh right, Pinghai, come to think of it, isn't it about time for our organizations' annual friendship match? I remember you guys won last year, didn't you? Your newcomer was really impressive last year!
Should we spar again this year? As for penalties... it doesn't have to be too harsh, after all, it's just a friendly match, a little implication would suffice. How about the loser remains bald forever, hahahaha..."
President Pinghai on the other end: "..."
A friendship match? Friendship my foot! You guys have a Duel King, a Duel King! Who would compete with you?
At this time, President Pinghai demonstrated his skills as a high-level leader, saying that his organization was currently too busy, couldn't find time, and although they would love to play, they regrettably had to decline...
President Tosawa Mukuro, while verbally expressing understanding, thought to himself—
—Ha! Ridiculously busy, I bet you're just scared of our Duel King!
Just remembering how cocky he was last year after winning the competition, made Mukuro think of only one word—
—Satisfying!
Of course, his show-off was not over yet. His contact list still had a long list, it seemed today would be quite busy...
The only downside is he could only contact one person at a time, which was time-consuming and laborious.
Mukuro even started considering the idea of creating a group and pulling all those various presidents, chairmen, and major leaders into it, where everyone could collectively listen to him show off, perhaps even express mutual admiration and share remarks within the group, wouldn't that be wonderful...