The scorching gust howled past, and the earth burned in the crimson sea of fire. The blue giant's figure broke through the curtain of flames, his steps seemed to make the ground collapse, and the thick blue beam pierced through the entire steel building.
The giant stood upon the earth, his mountain-like robust body bathed in a pale blue glow, his towering figure reaching the heavens, his crimson gaze shooting down as if from beyond the dark clouds.
Obelisk the Tormentor, Summon!!!
[Obelisk the Tormentor, Defense 4000]
Kagemaru seemed to take an instinctive half-step back without realizing it. The two Phantasms, which had grown bold after the exit of Slifer the Sky Dragon, also seemed alerted, glaring at the Tormentor with fierce eyes.
Kagemaru said in a deep voice, "But even so, Obelisk's attack power is only 4000. Whether it's Hamon or Uria, they can't be defeated..."
Indeed, on Kagemaru's side, Hamon's attack power is also four thousand, and Uria currently stands at seven thousand—if they were to strike, he could even further augment its power under the effect of "Hyper Blaze."
This is why Youyu, with great effort, chose to summon the Tormentor in a defensive state just to be safe.
But Obelisk, known as the "God of Destruction," certainly isn't just about those four thousand points on his stat sheet.
"Activate the Magic Card 'Over Destiny' from my hand," said Youyu. "Select a 'Destiny Hero' monster in the graveyard and special summon a Destiny Hero from the deck whose level is half or less than the selected monster!
I choose 'Destiny Hero Malicious' at level six, special summon from the deck!
Level one, Destiny Hero Disk Commander!"
[Destiny Hero Disk Commander, Attack 300]
The effect of 'Destiny Hero Malicious' in the graveyard activates again! Remove Malicious from the game to special summon another 'Destiny Hero Malicious' from the deck!"
[Destiny Hero Malicious, Attack 800]
"In this situation, to actually summon two Destiny Heroes in one go..." Kagemaru's expression was somewhat complex.
The number of operations conducted by Youyu and the frequency of monster summons in just this one turn were becoming hard for him to keep track of.
He only knew that within this turn, under the premise of his interruptions, Youyu continued to summon a powerful Elemental Hero like Absolute Zero, then gathered three sacrifices to call forth the God of Destruction, still leaving enough capacity to continue operating...
Kagemaru finally seemed to understand why there were so many who liked to boast about Youyu as "the strongest Duel King in history" from the intelligence he had collected.
Many Duelists lucky enough to witness Youyu's serious mode claim that his dueling is entirely different from others'. They describe Youyu's dueling as "a whole new game different from ours," as if his dueling is unbound by any convention known to ordinary people.
Not just NPCs, even players feel the same way, though their focus varies.
Most local NPCs feel that normally, one would summon just one monster during a turn; maybe a really skilled player could play something as powerful as a 'Blue-Eyes White Dragon'—that's an incredible feat. What Youyu does, summoning eight to ten monsters in one turn, can't even be called dueling anymore; it's magic.
The card players, though, find nothing wrong with such card deck unfolding capability—they have seen even more terrifying decks.
What they find outrageous is that Youyu-san can cram several seemingly unrelated systems into a single deck and even include a mass of cards useful only under specific conditions, which is terrifying.
This means even if you have the same card pool as Youyu and a deck of competition-level quality, you never could win against him...
Of course, everyone knows this is a traditional skill of original series protagonists with the character "Yuu" in their names because if he didn't have this ability, Youyu wouldn't qualify as the world's protagonist.
"Obelisk the Tormentor, activate effect!" Youyu shouted, "Sacrifice two monsters to destroy all of the opponent's monsters, then inflict four thousand damage to the opponent!"
Kagemaru looked serious: "So it's finally come."
Knowing that the Three Egyptian Gods were in Youyu's hands, he anticipated needing to face them. He carefully studied all the duels where the Egyptian Gods appeared during the Duel City era, understanding the effects of all the Gods.
Unfortunately, his invincible Three Phantasms did not have the power to resist the "Fist of God Crushing."
The two Destiny Heroes vanished, and a surge of blue radiated from Obelisk's body! He roared and stepped forward, his blue heavy fist dragging a divine blue glow.
Like the explosion of ocean waves, Obelisk's punch shattered the surrounding steel walls from a distance, his punch carried an absolute will of "destruction," which no living thing could resist.
The realm of Phantasm was crushed to pieces under this blow. Uria, Lord of Searing Flames, screamed in agony, shattering into several pieces. Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder, quickly followed his comrade's fate, his mighty bones shattered by the heavy punch, his enormous body disassembling and collapsing.
But the disassembling bones did not dissipate, instead standing solidly before Kagemaru like a mighty fortress, blocking all the aftermath of the God of Destruction's punch.
"Hamon's effect," Kagemaru said solemnly. "In the turn Hamon is destroyed, all damage I receive becomes 0."
Well, it seems the Phantasm isn't entirely useless in the face of the God's power—at least it has protected its master.
"Then I'll set one card face-down and end my turn," Youyu said.
"Heh, you managed to summon an Egyptian God, but still couldn't defeat me," Kagemaru spat disdainfully, "It seems that the so-called God is just like this."
Youyu rolled his eyes at him.
Heh, stubborn to the end.
If Obelisk wasn't feeling merciful today, and if he had just unleashed "Soul Energy MAX" earlier, the old man would already be done for…
You barely saved your life. JPG.
Though he said that, in truth, Kagemaru's back was already soaked with sweat.
In just one strike, his two great Phantasm Lords were instantaneously annihilated, and his demonic domain was torn to shreds, leaving Kagemaru nearly defenseless before the Egyptian God's pressure.
Honestly, he was feeling quite a bit of stress, and his tough talk was nothing more than a facade of courage.
Youyu's turn finally ended, and Kagemaru secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Youyu had 400 Life Points left, while Kagemaru only had 300. Both sides had faint flickers of Life Points left.
Reaching this stage of the duel, neither side could afford a single misstep. Any oversight or negligence could cause the Duelist to be obliterated amidst this conflict of gods and demons.
But as long as there were still Life Points remaining, and his turn would still come, Kagemaru was confident.
He believed he had completely mastered the Three Phantasm, and even the God could be defeated!
"My turn, draw!"
A new card was drawn, and Kagemaru burst into laughter again, as if the darkness pressed upon him by the Destroyer God had entirely vanished.
Youyu frowned slightly.
Has he drawn another crucial reversal card?
"I said, the Phantasm are not dead! Their power is limitless," Kagemaru sneered, "Experience firsthand once again what this means, Duel King!
I Normal Summon 'Dark Summoning Beast'!"
A bizarre one-eyed demon appeared, surrounded by a dense dark mist, its entire body shrouded in darkness, making it difficult to discern its true form, appearing abstract and elusive.
[Dark Summoning Beast, ATK 0]
"The effect of 'Dark Summoning Beast.' By sacrificing this card, I can Special Summon 'Uria, Lord of Searing Flames,' 'Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder,' 'Raviel, Lord of Phantasms' from the graveyard ignoring their summoning conditions!" (Animation effect)
Both Uria and Hamon had been taken down. As for "Raviel, Lord of Phantasms," which claimed to be the strongest Phantasm, it was obvious that Kagemaru had thrown it into the graveyard using the effect of "Hand Destruction" earlier.
It looked like Kagemaru had anticipated a moment like this and had already made preparations in advance.
Youyu: "..."
He recalled this thing.
This is the card that was used in the Other Dimension chapter of the GX Animation when Yuya stole the Three Phantasm?
Here one could see a slight advantage that the Phantasm have over the Egyptian Gods. The Three Egyptian Gods are extremely troublesome to bring out, and if they are summoned in an irregular manner, they only have a single turn to act before they must leave, quite like M78 government workers.
However, the Phantasm are different. Although they are inferior to the Egyptian Gods in terms of effect intensity and resistance, their resilience and ability to return from the grave repeatedly is rather impressive.
Coupled with those powerful Phantasm-exclusive Magic Traps, the combat power of these three is indeed quite formidable.
And now the "Dark Summoning Beast" had already vanished from the field, the black vortex on the ground opened wide, and the red, gold, and blue pillars of light, exuding an oppressive malevolence, shot straight into the sky!
"'Uria, Lord of Searing Flames,' 'Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder,' 'Raviel, Lord of Phantasms'—Summon!!!"