Chapter 168: Divine Summon! Obelisk the Tormentor!
"Chaos MAX Overdrive Blast!!"
The ultimate strike that pulverized anything in its path slammed into the face-down Defense Position monster.
The Duel Disk seemed to anticipate the catastrophic damage this hit was about to produce, its entire internal mechanism roaring at maximum speed.
Amano had no idea if this was the performance limit Kaiba Seto had wanted to see. But it was genuinely the absolute maximum output he was capable of right now.
As Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon's fully condensed destructive force tore forward along its trajectory, the hidden Defense Position monster was forcibly revealed.
Morphing Jar: DEF 600.
When this card is Flip Summoned: Both players discard their entire hands. Both players then draw 5 cards.
Kaiba's draw engine, slightly less powerful than Card of Demise's full six cards for everyone, but Morphing Jar's Flip Effect could restock two completely empty hands back to five in a single move.
The condition for getting to draw, though, was surviving long enough to actually use those cards.
Amano mirrored Kaiba's earlier two-fingered pose and aimed it right back at him.
"Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon's effect: when it attacks a Defense Position monster, the battle damage dealt is doubled based on how much its ATK exceeds that monster's DEF!"
"Double piercing battle damage?!" Everyone watching reacted at once. "One hit and you die instantly?!"
That was exactly right. That was the whole point of calling it the trash compactor.
Morphing Jar's DEF was 600. Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon's ATK was 4000. Double the difference.
"This hit deals 6800 points of battle damage!"
Inside the overloading roar of both Duel Disks running at max capacity, Amano drove his fist forward. Morphing Jar exploded into nothing.
"AAAAAAAAAAH!"
The physical feedback system built into the original Duel Disk prototype delivered the full force of damage that far exceeded a standard Life Point maximum, and the shockwave sent Kaiba Seto physically skidding backward.
"Our battle is not finished, Amano Rei!"
Almost simultaneously with being blasted, Kaiba slapped his palm against the rooftop surface and flipped up the last set card in his back row.
Nutrient Z
Trap Card: When you would take 2000 or more battle damage: During that damage calculation, gain 4000 LP.
One card generating 4000 LP recovery on the spot. Combined with the fact that Kaiba had not taken a single point of damage until this moment, his total effective LP pool was equivalent to 8000.
But even against 8000 LP, the raw numbers were devastating.
Kaiba Seto LP: 4000 -> 8000 -> 1200
Nearly two full health bars destroyed in one blow. Kaiba Seto forced himself upright from a half-crouch, the silver-white coat around him still carrying faint wisps of residual heat from the blast. He had survived, barely, and entirely because of a last-second trap.
Despite everything, the expression on his face was not defeat. It was something closer to exhilaration, more intense than anything he had shown all duel.
Looking at Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon standing across from him, Kaiba seemed to see something he had been searching for.
The resonance of a duelist's soul. The future of Duel Monsters.
"The duel continues, Amano Rei! Morphing Jar's Flip Effect: both of us restore our hands to five cards!"
Both players drew five cards from the Duel Disk in unison.
Since this was happening in the Battle Phase, having a full hand again did not mean Amano could continue summoning. He ended the Battle Phase and moved to Main Phase 2.
Thinking about the next turn, with Kaiba about to charge with two Blue-Eyes White Dragons and six cards in hand at full speed, Amano committed every playable card he had.
"I set two cards face-down and Normal Summon one monster in face-down Defense Position. Turn end."
The turn passed.
Kaiba Seto received his draw.
Having barely survived last turn, now sitting with a restored hand and his own turn finally arriving, Kaiba did not immediately reach for his card.
"Amano. Yugi. This turn, I will show you both the absolute power that crushes every duel monster in existence."
He seemed to already sense what he was about to draw.
"I will use this card to reach the pinnacle of Battle City! And Amano Rei, you will be completely... and utterly... crushed by this absolute force!
"My turn! Draw!!"
After the dramatic declaration, Kaiba Seto drew his card upward toward the sky. The moment he did, the clouds that had been darkening since Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon's arrival gathered into a full thunderstorm overhead.
Amano felt his stomach drop.
He had known this was a possibility. He had been calculating around it. But knowing Kaiba had that card in his deck while the Chronicle had still been rated only A+ was something else.
Then the logic clicked.
The clear condition was not to defeat Kaiba Seto. It was to earn his recognition.
If Kaiba got to summon his trump card because Amano had pushed him to that point, that almost certainly counted as recognition.
Which raised the question of what the hidden clear condition was.
"Spell Card: Burst Stream of Destruction!"
Kaiba's first activation was the Spell Card that shared its name with Blue-Eyes White Dragon's signature attack.
Burst Stream of Destruction
Spell Card: Your "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" cannot attack this turn. If you control a "Blue-Eyes White Dragon": Destroy all monsters your opponent controls.
Blue-Eyes White Dragon cannot attack, but every monster on Amano's field gets wiped. Kaiba's two Blue-Eyes White Dragons opened their jaws in unison, gathered blinding light between them, and fired it all across Amano's field at once.
The sweeping light of destruction reached across every monster zone and shattered two of them simultaneously. But the most important one did not disappear.
Elemental HERO Bubbleman: destroyed.
Unicycle Man: destroyed.
Amano held down his card. "Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon cannot be destroyed by opponent's card effects and cannot be targeted by them!"
The massive, dignified dragon body absorbed the full force of what was essentially a lightning-strike wipe effect and remained standing on the field without a scratch.
"A remarkable monster." Kaiba's eyes stayed on it. "And precisely because of that, defeating it means something."
He sent his second Spell Card into the Duel Disk.
"Spell Card: Dragon's Mirror! I Fusion Summon by banishing as materials the two Blue-Eyes White Dragons on my field and one from my Graveyard!"
Dragon's Mirror
Spell Card: Banish Fusion Materials listed on a Dragon Fusion Monster from your field and/or GY, then Fusion Summon that monster from your Extra Deck.
The exclusive miracle Fusion for Dragon-Type monsters. The moment Dragon's Mirror went on the chain, Kaiba chained a third card on top of it.
"I chain Quick-Play Spell Emergency Provisions! I send Dragon's Mirror from the field to the Graveyard and gain 1000 LP!"
Kaiba Seto LP: 1200 -> 2200
Sending Dragon's Mirror to the Graveyard using Emergency Provisions while it was still resolving its own activation did not interfere with the effect processing. Getting free LP recovery out of it was a standard trick of the era.
Three Blue-Eyes White Dragons were banished as the Fusion Materials, drawn into the enormous Dragon Mirror hovering in the sky. From within the mirror's surface, three dragons carrying the same distinctive markings on their foreheads rose again, re-manifesting on Kaiba's field.
"Blue-Eyes White Dragons, unite once more and reveal your noble and beautiful form before me! Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon: ATK 4500
A second Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon Fusion in a single duel. Something Kaiba Seto had never done before.
Amano looked at the field. "Too bad, Kaiba. By your own rule, a Fusion Summoned monster cannot attack on the turn it's Fusion Summoned."
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon's 4500 ATK was enough to destroy Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon in battle. But that would have to wait until next turn.
"I told you I do not need to wait for next turn, Amano Rei!"
The fourth Spell Card went into the Duel Disk.
"Spell Card: Dimension Fusion!"
Dimension Fusion
Spell Card: Pay 2000 LP. Both players Special Summon all their banished monsters.
Kaiba Seto LP: 2200 -> 200
It was a fortunate thing Sakuya was not here to witness this, Amano thought. If she had been, she would have spent the entire activation in a confused tangle over why someone from the Kaiba family was using what the Nanki'in family considered their exclusive ancestral technique.
Three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, freshly banished as Fusion Materials, returned to Kaiba's field.
"I Special Summon all three banished Blue-Eyes White Dragons back to my field!"
"And I have one over here too!" Amano refused to let that stand unchallenged.
The banished zone on his own Duel Disk had one Blue-Eyes White Dragon sitting in it, sent there as the Ritual Tribute for Chaos Form.
Both duelists drew breath at the same moment.
"Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!"
Blue-Eyes White Dragon (x4): ATK 3000
All four roared through the dimensional barrier simultaneously, materializing on their respective fields.
The watching group went completely silent.
Even Rin Seiya, who had been holding her Eva Terminal steady to record this entire time, felt her hand start to tremble.
"What in the world am I looking at right now? I think I just recorded a genuinely historical moment. Did you see that, Chiaki?!"
Every Blue-Eyes White Dragon card in existence: all four of them, standing on the same field at the same moment.
The current field: four Blue-Eyes White Dragons, one Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and one Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon. Both Duel Disks were almost beyond the threshold of heat-warning now, running with a sound like something on the verge of igniting.
Amano could feel the burning heat traveling up his arm from the Duel Disk, real and intense enough to feel like it might detonate at any second.
"This must be the testing limit of the Duel Disk, Kaiba!"
"But this is not the limit of our battle!"
Kaiba had no intention of stopping. And neither did Amano. Having come this far in a duel, no true duelist would walk away voluntarily.
Finish the duel, or let the Duel Disk take him out in the process. Surrendering was not on the list.
Kaiba Seto raised the card he had drawn this turn toward the black thundering sky above him and drove it into the already-sparking Duel Disk with full force.
"I knew it." Amano went tense.
"I Tribute the three Blue-Eyes White Dragons on my field!
"Scorching wind that blasts the earth barren! Bring me the wine of victory with your almighty power that shakes heaven and earth!
"Divine Summon! Obelisk the Tormentor!!"
From the thunderclouds above, lightning descended. A massive divine figure gradually materialized in full on Kaiba's field.
Obelisk the Tormentor
Level 10 / DIVINE
Divine-Beast / Effect
ATK: 4000 / DEF: 4000
The oppressive force it carried was something completely unlike every other monster on the field. This was one of the Three Phantom Gods: the most legendary monsters in all of Yu-Gi-Oh! history, the cards that had retained the Divine attribute even when they were printed as real cards.
After the Three Wicked Gods and the Earthbound Immortals, Amano was finally standing in front of the Three Phantom Gods.
"Obelisk... that is the actual Obelisk the Tormentor!"
In the moment where every single witness had gone silent with shock, the person hit hardest was clearly Kaiba Chiaki.
Her ancestor, Kaiba Seto of the Kaiba Corporation, had genuinely possessed the most powerful of the Three Phantom Gods.
"Rin Seiya, you are still recording?"
"Y-yes." Rin Seiya had broken out in a cold sweat along her hairline. "Though I am starting to get nervous. Can this video actually be released?"
If this historical footage became a video circulating through Eden, the downstream effect on the current Kaiba Corporation was entirely unpredictable. Kaiba Chiaki understood the principle that extremes tended to invert. Whether releasing it would serve as a ladder to greater heights or become the spark that lit a fuse toward disaster: currently impossible to know.
"HAHAAHAHA!"
Kaiba Seto broke into laughter, unrestrained, the kind of laugh that came from someone who felt they had just stepped onto the summit of every duelist in the world.
"This is the power of a god, Amano Rei! This absolute destructive force that annihilates everything will crush both you and your Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon completely!"
Amano felt the heat burning worse than ever as the Duel Disk responded to the divine presence with a fresh burst of sparking overload. He was standing directly in the face of that oppressive force.
He had not moved back a single step.
"One, two, three..."
Kaiba's laughter cut off. His expression shifted to something more focused. "What are you counting, Amano Rei?"
"Four... and there is the fifth one."
The count Amano had been running through in his head was simple enough. It was the number of monsters Kaiba Seto had summoned this turn.
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon via Dragon's Mirror: one.
Three Blue-Eyes White Dragons returning via Dimension Fusion: that made four.
Obelisk the Tormentor via Tribute Summon: five.
If Obelisk got to activate its effects, Amano had no way to stop what came next.
But Kaiba Seto had just summoned his fifth monster of the turn.
Kaiba suddenly felt the Duel Disk on his arm begin shaking violently, far more intensely than even the overload from Obelisk's arrival. The vibration was building into something structural.
The next second came the sound: a sonic boom from somewhere directly above, atmospheric pressure collapsing under the friction of something entering at speed. The black thunderclouds scattered instantly in every direction.
What replaced them, materializing at the exact center of where the storm had been, rendered the entire sky the color of burning red.
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