After returning to the Great Universe Workshop, Hikaru almost without pause placed the Outer Entity Azathot card he'd obtained onto the machine he'd long prepared, then quickly sent his questions along with the card to the "Selfless Painting School."
After sending the card over, Hikaru instinctively wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Terrifying.
Although, honestly, even if he really were made to use the Outer God, he could; he'd still dare to use the Outer God as Fusion Material in a duel. But holding the Outer God in his hand, that feeling was utterly different.
In that moment, he clearly felt his thoughts being affected, beginning to find reasons and excuses to "deceive himself." If he really hadn't resisted the temptation, he could guarantee that he himself would absolutely, without realizing it, have replaced every card in his deck with cards meant to support Outer Entity Azathot, losing himself.
The key thing was, thinking back on it now, it wasn't even strong!
The three-trick combo was certainly handy, but the great Outer God's true utility was as an escort, not a finisher—
Hikaru rubbed his face.
Close call. He'd nearly sabotaged his own deck into weakness.
Only, this relief of his, in the spirits' eyes, wasn't relief but resolve after remorse.
So dazzling!
So Fusion!
This was their lord, their companion, the absolute Fusion user they respected, a duelist who, even facing an existence with the terrifying power of "Outer Entity Azathot," could harden his heart and give it up outright!
The newly joined Albaz was so shocked its jaw practically dislocated.
In its world, those spirits would devour and fuse with one another for powerful force. But here with Hikaru, even with an invincible existence like "Outer Entity Azathot," he could still hold to his original heart.
Such a human, such a duelist—this was the ability the spirits in its memory, in its world, ought to have!
Just as it was thinking this, the dimensional gate lit up again, and the broken Assembler slowly returned from the spatial gate.
"Beautiful!" Tierra cheered.
After triple modifications, the Assembler had finally held up—
This was her talent!
Not relying on "power," but on her knowledge of mechanical design!
"But..."
She looked at the teetering Assembler and still shook her head.
Not enough.
This still wasn't enough. She'd have to prepare even better materials, modify it again, increase its damage resistance, or it would still blow up the next time it went in.
Seeing the Assembler slowly sent back, the heart Hikaru had been holding in suspense finally settled.
But thinking about it this way, it was still a bit of a loss. If it was just an exchange for intel, one Azathot didn't feel quite worth it. After all, he didn't need to use it; he could try others, like the still-unfound Zane. Mustering three Level 5s would be very simple for him too.
As for whether he could withstand it, that was his problem.
But Hikaru still trusted Zane Truesdale a lot.
Just as Hikaru was pondering these things, Flame Sword suddenly spoke up: "My lord, there's something!"
Something?
Hikaru looked above the Assembler.
Originally, that position was where "Outer Entity Azathot" had been placed. But now, Azathot was gone, yet there were still cards placed on top!
And... more than one!
Tierra raised her hand, and a few puppet strings flew out from the air, gently picking up the cards. To her surprise, she found that those cards had no special power and were cards that could be used normally.
Three of them.
Hikaru reached out to catch them.
The first card...
Elder Entity Norden!
A Forbidden card!
Hikaru hurriedly flipped to the second.
Cyber-Stein!??
A Forbidden card!!
Hikaru was delighted and gave a hehe chuckle.
Worth it, worth it. No loss at all.
One traded for two!
This round came out ahead.
The Azathot card was rather troublesome for Hikaru to use, but these two were much simpler. The latter might need a bit of extra Life Points, but that wasn't very difficult, and the former was even on-call anytime with Instant Fusion.
Though Norden's range of application was relatively limited in his deck, so it wasn't especially useful.
Hikaru flipped open the third card, inwardly anticipating whether it was another banlist heavyweight, and then he saw...
Myutant Ultimus.
It was that one!
Hikaru raised an eyebrow.
Not bad at all.
Myutant Ultimus, whose Fusion Materials are 3 Level 8 or higher Myutant monsters, and whose effect is: when a card's effect activates, it can banish a Myutant card from the hand, Graveyard, or face-up on the field to activate. That effect is negated and banished.
Secondly, when this monster is destroyed by the opponent, it can also add banished Myutant cards of yours to the hand, up to one each of the Monster, Spell, and Trap types.
It combined disruption and recovery. But the problem was, fusing it using 3 Level 8 Myutant monsters was rather a loss, because the three Level 8 lower Myutants also came with their own corresponding effects.
Of course, since Hikaru had quite a few convenient Deck-fusions, it could serve some use. What's more, Hikaru had earlier, relying on the power of Super Polymerization, obtained a "Teleport Fusion" in his duel with Devon, so that counted as one more Fusion outlet.
But speaking of which—
Hikaru looked at Cyber-Stein.
Right, Cyber-Stein could Special Summon it directly from the Extra Deck. Thinking about it that way, it was probably the Cyber-Stein "bonus gift" that Azathot had sent?
Hikaru didn't dwell on it too much, but joyfully put away the three cards.
It was rare to obtain three cards of considerable strength all at once, so Hikaru was naturally pleased.
But next, what he was more curious about was Azathot's "reply."
He and the research spirits turned the audio file the Assembler had exported into paper form. As he read it, he gradually grew somewhat alarmed.
Unlike last time, this time "Azathot" carried "emotion"!
Earlier, when Hikaru found a way to communicate with it, although he'd obtained some decent intel and could confirm it bore no malice toward humans or spirits, he could also sense that it merely had no malice, yet also no goodwill!
Because if it really held goodwill, it could fully have let other spirits leave its dimension safely.
But it hadn't, because it... simply didn't care.
It was more indifference and disregard!
But this time, its attitude had changed.
It was a little bit pleased!
In the reply, Azathot mentioned that it had not the slightest interest in those spirits who, because of its strength, tried to become a part of it. But toward the outstanding duelist "Hikaru," who could hold firm, who could duel, who could even resist its powerful force, it showed considerable interest. This duel was both a recovery and a kind of re-observation.
It was a god.
But not the "Azathot" people conventionally think of.
Although it was the Azathot of this world, of these countless universes, it was not the Azathot of the "Cthulhu Mythos" system.
Though a bit of a mouthful, Hikaru could understand.
It was the "Azathot" under the grand system of Yu-Gi-Oh, so although it had some of Azathot's characteristics and traits, it wasn't entirely so. For instance, it itself had emotions, and could itself feel bored.
In short, as the "Azathot" of the Yu-Gi-Oh world, it naturally had some unique traits under this worldview.
That was... it liked powerful cards, powerful duelists, powerful duels. It was the aggregate concept-god of this world's entire pursuit of powerful cards and of power. As long as anything touched on this aspect, it could come to know of it.
And precisely because of this, its mental pollution would make the affected existences pursue powerful cards all the more madly, fixate on powerful cards all the more madly, finally becoming puppets of powerful cards, unable even to speak clearly.
Hikaru pondered, and couldn't help nodding.
Indeed so.
Probably, this pursuit of powerful cards also included the pursuit of victory.
Otherwise, that Diabolos wouldn't have turned into that state of wanting to win so desperately. Only, its vision made it think that endlessly putting out super-strong monsters would win. The blind idiocy, the chaotic madness, left it with no thoughts other than the simplest pursuit of victory: "summon powerful monsters, protect powerful monsters." And the spirit's simple thinking left it unable to think up out-of-the-box plays. Xyz Summoning the Outer God was, in its view, just part of the duel; that the opponent was affected was perfectly normal to begin with, since it itself was being affected too.
Hikaru shook his head.
He hoped it could recover afterward. He hadn't even had time to investigate the red-light problem in the Dark World.
After understanding all this, Hikaru continued reading.
The good news was, Azathot said there were only three large parts left afterward, and the remaining odds and ends didn't need to be recovered.
But the bad news was... he'd still have to fight an Outer God three more times!
And it really might be "stronger and stronger."
If there was an opponent who could completely maintain their composure, use the great Outer God at will, and even develop a full board, Hikaru felt he'd have to retreat from its edge too.
A headache.
"Master, take a look at this!" Suddenly, Mudragon called out in delighted surprise.
Hearing this, Hikaru took the audio segment from its hand and read it over carefully.
It was the same style of word order as that "Emperor" of the Gladiator Beasts!
Hikaru hurriedly read on.
As the saying goes, hard the first time, familiar the second. Hikaru had "deciphered" it once or twice before, so he quickly grasped the meaning of this passage.
Absolute Psychic Body?
The Fusion Materials... looked like a Psychic-Type Synchro Monster and a Synchro Monster!?
Still a bit unclear.
Hikaru hurriedly said to Mudragon beside him: "Extract the visual video of this segment. You all go out, I'll watch it myself."
"Yes!"
A moment later, amid a stream of garbled wailing sounds, Hikaru rubbed his forehead.
Got it!
The information was completely obtained!
Hikaru grew excited.
Absolute Axon Kicker!
The Fusion conditions were a Psychic-Type Synchro Monster and a Synchro Monster!
A brand-new Synchro-Fusion monster! More importantly, it also had a very cool third effect: it can be activated by banishing this card from the Graveyard, if it wasn't sent there this turn. Special Summon one Level 10 Psychic-Type Fusion Monster from the Extra Deck as a Fusion Summon!
Wasn't that just Myutant Ultimus!
This was right, all right!
As expected of Boss A!
So generous!
The cards it sent didn't just include synergy, they came with after-sales service too!
Although the Fusion conditions were a bit hard, you didn't need a Fusion-Summoned version of it to activate the effect. As long as you found a way to dump it from the Extra Deck, next turn you could directly freeload a Myutant Ultimus!
A surefire, no-loss deal!
At minimum a free monster-effect-negate!
Whoa.
Hikaru felt this was really pretty good. The only problem was the matter of how to produce this Fusion Monster.
But this might not be all.
A dragon's cry rang out in Hikaru's ear, but he didn't pay it much mind and kept flipping through the things in his hands.
There might be other after-sales service. With this much content, he had to look carefully.
Speaking of which, he really was a few "Psychic-Type" Synchro Monsters short—
He felt the dragon's cry grow more distinct, and more "friendly."
He couldn't help but laugh.
It seemed... the "wages" could be confirmed.
After Hikaru knew he wouldn't be working for free, he read the audio data even more attentively. After about two or three more days, Hikaru had basically organized all the relevant information, and also learned of the other two fusion-support cards and fusion Spell cards that could assist "Psychic-Type fusion."
What rather surprised Hikaru was that Boss A didn't directly give Hikaru the destination for the next task location. It might be letting Hikaru rest and recover his state, or it might not need Hikaru for now, or it might even be that it itself didn't know where the target actually was. After all, although to spirits its body was massive enough, to it, it might instead seem rather tiny and hard to pinpoint.
In any case, after a round of intel-sorting, Hikaru this time made complete preparations.
Skeleton D-Wheel, OK. Mask for disguising his identity, OK. The Synchro-related fusion monsters specific to the Synchro Dimension, OK. Old-model Duel Disk, OK—
Although Hikaru figured he'd absolutely be recognized the moment he dueled, the surface work still had to be done. Otherwise, with the classmates over there doing diplomatic work, him sneaking across alone would be hard to account for, face-wise.
After a dragon's cry that the whole dimension could hear rang out, Hikaru felt everything around him rapidly receding. Before long, he found himself reappearing in the Synchro Dimension base.
That hideout Yusei had specially prepared back then, where he could settle in with peace of mind!
Hikaru took off his helmet, looked around at the unchanged surroundings, and let out a whoosh of relief.
He'd even left some unused alchemy materials here. If they could be recovered, better to recover them and not waste them.
Just as he was about to let the skeleton horse go out for a stroll and tidy up the room in passing, the display screen in the room suddenly lit up, and Yusei's familiar big face instantly appeared on the screen.
Hikaru was nearly startled by him.
He looked at the screen.
"Yusei?"
"Sorry, Hikari, I scared you. But fortunately you came at this time. Can you take this route to get here?" On the screen, Yusei's big headshot shrank down, then a driving route map appeared on the screen.
Hikaru didn't waste words. He put on his helmet directly, tapped the Duel Disk screen on the vehicle, and said: "Tell me on the way—"
Then the D-Wheel started up, wheels racing at top speed.
On the way, Hikaru listened to Yusei's words, and only then learned... that today was the registration day for the WRGP Cup!
And just moments ago, Jack had suddenly gone missing because of the Earthbound Immortals. He was a bit at a loss, then to his surprise discovered Hikaru had teleported in. Although Hikaru was a person from another dimension, on the basis of their prior cooperative friendship and rapport, he instinctively called on Hikaru.
Hearing this, Hikaru agreed directly, then couldn't help but grumble inwardly.
Crimson Dragon, oh Crimson Dragon, as precisely timed as ever...
Always picking just the critical moment, huh!