Chapter 296: The Undying, Unkillable Strongest Villain
[Final duel chapter! An intense God's Wrath BGM kicks in!]
What kind of boss has a second phase after its HP hits zero?
Just as everyone assumed Amano Rei had already won, the Pharaoh, his LP display reading a flat zero, summoned the crimson Slifer the Sky Dragon out of the roiling thunderclouds above his head.
One of the three Egyptian God cards, its dragon body absurdly massive, coiled and draped almost the entire ancient Egyptian city standing behind the Pharaoh.
The Trap Card Soul Relay: a card capable of rewriting the very rules for winning or losing a duel.
It swapped the loss condition from a duelist's Life Points hitting zero to the monster it Special Summoned from the hand leaving the field.
In the anime's Orichalcos arc, Atem had used this exact card to lock himself at 0 Life Points during his duel with Dartz.
Back then, the monster the Pharaoh Special Summoned from his hand had been Dark Magician Girl.
But now, in this duel against Amano Rei, it was Slifer the Sky Dragon instead.
With his Life Points wiped out by the combined finishing blow of Eve and Scarlight, Atem entrusted the soul of this duel's outcome to the card he trusted most: Slifer the Sky Dragon.
Unlike the real-card version of the Egyptian God cards, which get sent to the Graveyard at the End Phase of the turn they're Special Summoned, the anime-original version of the Egyptian God cards' effect only sent them to the Graveyard when revived via a Spell Card, due to their resistance only covering one turn's worth of Spell Card effects. Special Summoned from the hand by a Trap Card, they would simply stay on the field.
The arrival of a second God Card had, without question, sent shockwaves through both worlds.
Duelists in Domino City could still take it in stride. After all, they'd witnessed the Egyptian Gods descend with their own eyes back during Battle City.
Seeing Slifer the Sky Dragon again mostly left them thrilled and nostalgic.
But the reaction inside Eden was something else entirely. This was the first time in Eden's history that its duelists had ever seen one of the Egyptian God cards, Slifer the Sky Dragon, appear.
According to Eden's historical records, following the appearances of Winged Dragon of Ra and Obelisk the Tormentor, the last of the three Egyptian Gods, the Sky Dragon, had finally made its descent too.
"Slifer the Sky Dragon, huh..."
On the top floor of a professional duelist's residence in the Upper District, the card Winged Dragon of Ra sitting on a gray-haired woman's desk flickered brightly in that instant.
The woman's gaze settled on Amano Rei's image on the wall-mounted screen. "Him again. This guy has an unnatural connection to the gods."
In the club room, Rin Seiya shook the television wildly. "You've got to be kidding me, Scarlight should have won that! What kind of absurd Trap and monster was that?!"
"Seiya, you could eat the television and it still wouldn't change how Amano's duel plays out." Nanami Misaki, by contrast, looked remarkably calm. "The duel isn't over yet. Just watch quietly."
"Big brother..."
Back at the villa, Amano Shio wasn't pressing her face to the TV and throwing a fit the way Rin Seiya was.
Amano Rei's decisive finishing blow with a burning Eve had been canceled out by the combination of Soul Relay and the God Card, and of course Shio felt a pang of disappointment over it.
But deep down, she also felt that this duel really shouldn't end here.
Whether it was a girl's intuition, or because of the pendant that had been flickering nonstop against her chest ever since Amano's turn began, she couldn't say.
The data-life key that had come from the Top Layer's digital immortal, Shiyue Yi, hadn't flickered and grown warm like this since Amano Rei's duel with Kaiba Chiaki.
Atem thrust an arm skyward, declaring Slifer the Sky Dragon's effect: "Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK is 1000 points for every card in its controller's hand!"
Right now, the Pharaoh's hand held Dark Magician, retrieved via Mind Shuffle at the start of his turn; Kuriboh Guardna, retrieved when he chained Multiplying Kuriboh!'s effect against Scarlight; and Graceful Charity, pulled back from the Graveyard when he Special Summoned Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos.
Three cards in total.
"Right now, Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK is 3000!"
"A god with the same ATK as Blue-Eyes White Dragon." Kaiba Chiaki's assessment was grave.
Honestly, at this point in the duel, Slifer's exact ATK hardly mattered anymore. Scarlight's suicidal charge a moment ago had been the last strike Amano had left in him.
If Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend's ATK had still been 3000, it could have traded blows evenly with the current Slifer the Sky Dragon.
But with Swords of Revealing Light on the field, Amano had no way to attack even if he wanted to, not to mention Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend's ATK had already been cut to 0.
And right now, Amano had exactly one card left in hand.
"Is it over already?" Kaiba Seto closed his eyes. "So it really couldn't be done after all. The Pharaoh, returned from the afterlife, has grown even stronger than before. Even three thousand years of connection to the future wasn't enough to surpass him."
Staring down at the last card in his hand, then up at the magnificent Sky Dragon coiled around the entire city behind the Pharaoh, a smile spread across Amano's face that even Kaiba Seto couldn't read.
"So this is where you were waiting for me."
"Don't tell me... he hasn't given up yet?" Kaiba Seto looked stunned.
"Pharaoh. Atem!" Amano held his last card between two fingers like a blade and pointed it straight at Atem across the field. "Bring your god and hit me with everything you've got, Atem! But I am absolutely not losing this!"
Absolutely not losing?
Just a moment ago, Amano had looked completely out of resources, down to launching Eve as his last-ditch gamble.
And now, after blowing up Eve and watching a Phantom God take the field, he was shouting a bold declaration that he'd absolutely never lose.
What, was Eve being alive somehow getting in the way of your plays?
Atem said, "You're declaring you can't be beaten, in a situation like this?"
Even Atem genuinely couldn't understand how, given the current situation, Amano could possibly make a claim like that.
The gap between the two boards was simply too enormous.
Atem's front row held Slifer the Sky Dragon, Black Luster Soldier - Soldier of Light and Darkness, Black Chaos the Ultimate Magical Swordsman, Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos, and Multiplying Kuriboh!, five monsters filling his entire field, with Swords of Revealing Light still locking down attacks from his back row.
By comparison, all Amano had on his field was Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, sitting at 0 ATK.
And Slifer the Sky Dragon's ability meant that the instant Amano Normal or Special Summoned a monster, its ATK and DEF would drop by 2000, destroying it outright if that wasn't enough to keep it standing.
For Amano's ragtag deck of underpowered monsters, that ability was pure overkill.
"Ha. I'll win and show you, Atem."
Amano kept his last card gripped tight in hand, never once revealing it.
Instead, right after loudly declaring he couldn't be beaten in front of everyone, he flatly ended his turn.
"My turn's over. Your move, Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's god!"
Amano flatly ending his turn was every bit as baffling as when he'd Special Summoned Eve back from banishment at the start of the turn, passing over plenty of far more powerful banished monsters to do it.
Claiming he'd absolutely never lose, only to just end his turn like that. Wasn't that basically the same as surrendering?
Amano didn't even have anything set in his back row right now, not that Trap Cards would have worked on a god anyway.
"My turn, draw!"
Atem drew his card for the turn, and with his hand now up to four cards, Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK climbed to 4000.
"Magician of Dark Chaos - Black Chaos's effect, activate!"
[Target 1 card your opponent controls; banish it face-down.]
The Pharaoh pointed at Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, ordering Black Chaos to unleash the terrible power gathered at the tip of his staff. A blast of dark magic banished Scarlight face-down, gone for good.
"This ends now, Amano Rei!"
Having spared no effort to wipe the last card off Amano's field, Atem led his five monsters into the Battle Phase.
"Attack, Slifer!"
Finishing things off with a direct attack from his god was Atem's highest possible show of respect for how far Amano had fought to get here.
Coiled above the ancient city, Slifer the Sky Dragon raised its proud, otherworldly head, its terrible jaws stretched to their limit, gathering lightning bright enough to annihilate everything in existence.
"Superconducting Wave Thunderburst Cannon (Thunder Force)!!"
The god's lightning detonated down from the highest point in the sky, exploding directly onto Amano, who stood on a completely empty field.
Amano, still gripping his card, was swallowed up in the lightning, that same unreadable, confident smile still fixed on his face.
As for why it was a confident smile and not something more, it was because Amano was working overtime just to hold it in. If he could've gotten away with it, that smile would already have been a full-blown, smug cackle.
Amano Rei LP: 750 to 0
Swept up and swallowed by the god's lightning, Amano's last remaining Life Points ticked down to zero.
But when something impossible happens once, people call it a miracle. When it happens twice in a row, people start to feel afraid.
Amano's Life Points had hit zero, and yet the duel still wasn't over.
"What in the world is going on?!" In the crowd, Joey Wheeler had completely lost his patience and leaped to his feet.
Both sides had hit zero Life Points, and the duel still wasn't over.
On the ultimate stage for the strongest duelists in a free-for-all like this, you could apparently watch two people locked at 0 Life Points keep right on playing cards.
The Graveyard zone on Amano's new-model Duel Disk was glowing with the terrifying light of two miracles stacked on top of each other.
The truth behind Amano locking himself at 0 Life Points: Transaction Rollback, sitting in his Graveyard.
Say it again! Transaction Rollback takes MVP!
The very Transaction Rollback Amano had activated on his own turn, the one that copied Final Geas out of Yugi Muto's Graveyard, had stayed sitting right there in his Graveyard ever since.
And right now, the trump card Amano had kept buried until this exact moment was copying the effect of yet another Trap Card in his Graveyard.
The Trap Card he'd discarded as a cost for the Equip Spell Different Dimension Reincarnation the turn before: Graverobber.
"This chain is...?" Kaiba Chiaki's teal eyes trembled violently.
Back during the Academy Challenge Tournament, Amano had once used this exact chain to defeat her, a chain he himself called the slum-style chain.
Use Transaction Rollback to copy Graverobber's effect, then use Graverobber to copy the effect of a Trap Card sitting in an opponent's Graveyard.
And this time, the chain's final target was aimed at the very Trap Card in Yugi Muto's Graveyard capable of rewriting the outcome of the duel.
"I'm copying Soul Relay's effect!"
Transaction Rollback, into Graverobber, into Soul Relay!
Amano's undefeated declaration had built to this final chain, standing toe to toe against the underworld god, Slifer the Sky Dragon.
Honestly, the burst of energy on Amano's side was the stronger of the two.
[Soul Relay] [Trap Card: Activate only when your Life Points hit 0. Special Summon 1 monster from your hand. Your condition for losing the duel becomes the monster Special Summoned by this effect leaving the field.]
Special Summon a single monster from hand, then bind the entire outcome of the duel to that monster completely.
Right now, Amano had exactly one card left in hand. That card wasn't just a monster. It was a Camino chant made manifest.
"This body is the god's shadow, the god's remains, the god's final end!"
Amano raised his last card high overhead, and beneath the sky of ancient Egypt three thousand years in the past, woke the invincible black sun that answered to no one.
"This strike is a despair mightier than the gods themselves, the strongest there is!"
"Soul Relay, I'm betting everything on you!"
"Special Summon! Wicked Avatar!"
[Wicked Avatar] [Level 10 / Divine]
[Divine-Beast / Effect]
[ATK: ?] [DEF: ?]
Amano slammed down the strongest, unbeatable-on-arrival god onto his own field.
In this duel, two Phantom Gods had already taken the field one after another: Obelisk the Tormentor and Slifer the Sky Dragon.
But the god that arrived at the very last moment wasn't the Winged Dragon of Ra. It was a sun that shared the same divine status as the sun god itself.
Wicked Avatar's effect meant its own ATK would always be exactly 1 point higher than the strongest monster on the field.
Right now, the strongest monster on the field was the Pharaoh's own Slifer the Sky Dragon, at 4000 ATK.
The pitch-black sun shifted shape at blinding speed, thunder rolling ominously over Amano's head like a disaster descending, until it had transformed into a Slifer the Sky Dragon rendered entirely in black.
[Wicked Avatar] [ATK: 4001]
Kaiba Chiaki's jaw hung open, too stunned to close. "Wicked Avatar, Special Summoned by Soul Relay."
Only someone who'd actually faced Wicked Avatar before could understand what this meant, or why Amano, completely out of resources, had been able to shout that he'd absolutely never lose.
He really wasn't going to lose now!
Up to now, the only way anyone had ever beaten Wicked Avatar was: if you can't take out the monster, take out the duelist directly.
Because this monster simply couldn't be dealt with.
Shiyue Yi, who'd seen through this exact truth, had built her deck around desperately stacking every Life Point recovery method she could when dueling with Wicked Avatar.
As long as she made sure she herself didn't die, the Wicked Avatar was unbeatable.
But no matter how many Life Point recovery methods a duelist stacked, there was still a limit to what a duelist herself could take.
But in this very instant, Amano had reached the exact state Shiyue Yi had always been chasing and never managed to reach.
By way of Soul Relay, Amano had bound the undefeated, unkillable Wicked Avatar completely to the outcome of his own duel.
If you want to beat me, go beat the Wicked Avatar instead, and the Wicked Avatar cannot be beaten!
Even taking the full 2000-point ATK reduction from Slifer the Sky Dragon's ability the instant it arrived, Wicked Avatar hadn't been affected in the slightest.
"Checkmate, Atem!" Amano finally didn't need to hold back his grin anymore.
Honestly, when Amano had drawn Wicked Avatar the turn before, his feelings about it had been a genuine mess.
Because at that point, backed into a dead end, all Amano had left in hand was Eve's final blast. There'd been no way to actually Summon Wicked Avatar.
But once Eve's final blast forced Atem's hand into the Trap Card Soul Relay, things changed.
Amano, who'd already been completely out of resources, suddenly found himself with an entirely new, functionally unbeatable chain strategy.
Plans have changed. Time to go for the win!
"Wicked Avatar..."
In this timeline, Yugi Muto had never finished his final duel against Tenma Yako and defeated the Wicked Avatar.
That very duel had already been hijacked by Amano the last time he'd crashed into Kaiba Chiaki's Duel Chronicle.
So there was no way even the Pharaoh, returned from the afterlife, could possibly have anticipated Amano pulling out Wicked Avatar at the very last moment.
With Wicked Avatar bound to Soul Relay now on the field, the rest of Atem's board had suddenly become irrelevant.
The whole tone of the duel shifted in an instant, turning into a clash between gods where ordinary monsters simply had no business getting involved.
Whichever god was still standing at the end would claim victory in this long, chaotic free-for-all.
"I activate the Spell Card Graceful Charity, drawing 3 cards and discarding 2! Finally, I set one card facedown. Turn end!"
Since Atem had set one of his hand cards, Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK dropped to 3000, and the Wicked Avatar's became 3001.
"My turn, draw!" Amano drew his card for the turn.
This turn's draw was Dark Magician, not much use here, but it hardly mattered.
"Go, Wicked Avatar!"
Even with Swords of Revealing Light on the Pharaoh's field, it couldn't hold back Wicked Avatar's complete immunity.
The Wicked Avatar, mimicking the shape of a pitch-black Sky Dragon, tore a jagged rift of black lightning straight through Amano's own field, bristling as it was with swords of light.
"Superconducting Wave Thunderburst Cannon (Thunder Force)!!"
Its attack target was, naturally, Slifer the Sky Dragon on Atem's field.
Atem flipped up his set card. "Trap Card, activate! Shield of Conspiracy! I equip it to Slifer the Sky Dragon, letting the Sky Dragon avoid being destroyed by battle once per turn!"
Gods weren't affected by an opponent's Trap Cards, so most attack-negating Traps were pointless against them. But a Trap that granted battle-destruction resistance to its own side could still block a god's strike in a moment of desperation.
Typical Pharaoh. Amano half-suspected that card had been printed on the spot.
Atem said pointedly, "Amano, as long as Slifer can survive one instance of battle destruction from the Wicked Avatar every turn, I won't lose either!"
"Oh? So how exactly are you planning to win?" Amano asked with a sly grin.
"Whoa, big brother's kind of being a villain right now." Shio's commentary was razor sharp.
Binding his own soul to an unbeatable god and using it to corner the anime's own protagonist Pharaoh: wasn't that exactly what a villain would do?
Even though Amano had asked how the Pharaoh planned to win, if he could have seen the three cards left in the Pharaoh's hand after Graceful Charity resolved, he'd surely have been floored by just how godlike a fully-powered Pharaoh from the afterlife could play a hand.
The Pharaoh's remaining three cards.
[Left Leg of the Forbidden One]
[Right Leg of the Forbidden One]
[Exodia the Forbidden One]
Right around the very turn Amano Summoned Wicked Avatar, cutting off any normal path to victory, the Pharaoh had already rewritten his own deck's winning formula into a completely different system.
This was the second turn of Swords of Revealing Light locking down Amano's attacks.
"My turn ends."
With only Dark Magician left in hand, once the Wicked Avatar's attack was done, Amano had no choice but to end his turn.
"My turn, draw!"
The Pharaoh's draw this turn: Right Arm of the Forbidden One.
In the span of a single turn, the Pharaoh had drawn four of the pieces of Exodia, the card that symbolized guaranteed victory.
"I've got four cards in hand now, so Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK climbs to 4000!"
"Then Wicked Avatar's ATK is 4001!" Amano stayed right on his heels.
"My turn ends!"
"My turn, draw!"
Amano's draw this turn: the Spell Card Weapon Call.
It could search an Equip Spell from the Graveyard or Deck, which was nearly useless given the current situation.
And with Shield of Conspiracy on the field, a single attack a turn from the Wicked Avatar alone wasn't enough to break through the Pharaoh's Sky Dragon.
Amano was waiting too, waiting for the card that would break the deadlock.
"My turn ends."
The instant Amano declared his turn over, Swords of Revealing Light, three turns in effect, finally vanished.
"There's no time left, Amano Rei!"
A voice that sounded exactly like Eve's suddenly rang out beside Amano's ear.
Amano: "Eve?"
Eve: "I didn't say anything. Why are you calling me?"
The same voice as Eve, but it wasn't Eve at all. Eva again?
Eva: "You only get this one chance. It's the one Sera left for you. Use it to change how this ends!"
Amano: "The chance Sera left for me?"
At that moment, in Amano's pocket, the Millennium Key Sera had left him right at the start of this Chronicle suddenly flickered with light.
Even through the fabric of his school uniform pocket, Amano could feel the burning heat coming off the key.
Sera: "I can only hold this back for you once, Amano. The rest of the path, you have to carve out yourself."
"My turn, draw." The Pharaoh's draw this turn.
With four Exodia pieces already gathered in hand, playing at the full, godlike level of a Pharaoh returned from the afterlife, this single draw should have been enough to end the duel outright.
But the Pharaoh's draw this turn turned out to be: Palladium Oracle Mana.
With the field already completely full, this card was useless as it stood.
"Is that Simon's key? Amano Rei, so you really are one chosen by the Millennium Items too."
Amano had no idea why Atem had suddenly said something like that.
"I've got five cards in hand now. Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK rises to 5000! My turn ends!"
"Then the Wicked Avatar's ATK is 5001! My turn..."
These two turns went by unbelievably fast, but the sheer pressure of two gods reigning over the field at once, and the tension of both sides silently drawing and passing without a word, still left every spectator watching so tense they nearly forgot to breathe.
Amano rested his fingertips on the Deck slot of his new-model Duel Disk.
For Eva to actually cut into a Duel Chronicle and hand him a hint like that, at least this particular Eva had to be one he could trust.
"There really is no time left. Could it be..."
A duelist's instinct was telling Amano, in this very moment, that stalling any longer behind the Wicked Avatar would guarantee his defeat.
A Pharaoh of the Pharaoh's caliber, sitting on five cards and playing not a single one of them, not even setting a Trap. So what could possibly be in that hand?
Kaiba Seto had been the first to fall exactly this way.
Amano couldn't afford to follow in Kaiba's footsteps, not when he'd been the one to defeat Kaiba Seto with his own hands in this free-for-all.
"Amano!" Kaiba Seto, silent until now, suddenly called out to him right before the draw. "Only your style of dueling can pull this off. Fighting by any means necessary, that's exactly what your dueling is!"
"Don't need you telling me that, Kaiba!"
Of course Amano knew exactly what he had to do.
Everything came down to this one draw!
"I'm betting it all on the same luck that won me ten straight District 32 poker championships!"
"Draw!!"
Amano felt, for a moment, exactly the soul-connecting sensation Kaiba had described at the new Duel Disk's launch event.
Pale-blue data light roared across the sky above, the scene of ancient Egypt three thousand years past overlapping and alternating with the Domino City stage where the duel had first begun.
Caught in the crack between the dimensional realms of three thousand years past and three thousand years hence, Amano drew his card for the turn.
"Spell Card! Monster Reborn, activate!"
"Monster Reborn?" The crowd was stunned.
What monster was Amano planning to revive?
Or rather, with Final Geas having banished most of the monsters in play, what could possibly be left in a Graveyard worth reviving, something capable of beating a 5000-ATK Slifer the Sky Dragon?
"The monster I'm reviving is this card!"
In that instant, the ground of ancient Egypt and the ground of Domino City both shook violently at once.
The colossal god that had crossed three thousand years of time, its towering deep-blue body, was revived in that instant and descended onto Amano's field.
"Descend, Obelisk the Tormentor!"
Using Monster Reborn, Amano revived the god sitting in Kaiba's Graveyard.
This time it wasn't Dark Panther copying the Tormentor's effect. It was the genuine Obelisk the Tormentor!
By any means necessary, that's exactly what this was. Amano had gone so far as to forcibly requisition the Graveyard of Kaiba Seto, a duelist already eliminated from the match.
Kaiba might have been eliminated, but the free-for-all itself wasn't over yet, so just like in a Tag Riding Duel, an eliminated player's Graveyard was still sitting right there on the field.
Amano had known all along that if he faced the fully-powered, afterlife-returned Pharaoh alone, he'd have no chance of winning.
But this was a three-way free-for-all, and if he pooled the resources of all three duelists, he'd still have a shot at victory!
"That won't work!" Atem cut in. "The instant the Tormentor is Summoned, it'll take the hit from Slifer's ability!"
The crimson underworld god's second dragon head unleashed the punishing blast directly onto the Tormentor.
[Obelisk the Tormentor] [ATK: 4000 to 2000]
An Obelisk sitting at 2000 ATK, even freshly Special Summoned, posed no threat at all to a 5000-ATK Sky Dragon.
Unless Amano could still, even under the crushing weight of Slifer's ability, scrape together two more monsters on the field to activate Obelisk the Tormentor's effect.
"Spell Card Weapon Call, activate! I retrieve the Equip Spell Different Dimension Reincarnation from my Graveyard back to my hand, then activate it immediately!"
[Different Dimension Reincarnation] [Discard 1 card, then target 1 of your banished monsters: activate this card. Special Summon that monster in Attack Position and equip it with this card.]
Both of the last two cards in Amano's hand had now been used up.
Opening a rift to another dimension, Amano pulled a monster back from banishment.
"I Special Summon Dark Magician Girl in Attack Position!"
Crossing through the dimensional barrier, Dark Magician Girl arrived riding down on her staff, locked onto by Slifer's ability before she'd even touched the ground.
Atem said, "Dark Magician Girl's at 2000 ATK. Even Summoned, Slifer's ability will destroy her!"
The god's thunder detonated against Dark Magician Girl's body, but she wasn't destroyed the way Atem had declared.
"The card I discarded as the cost for Different Dimension Reincarnation was Dark Magician, so Dark Magician Girl's ATK is 2300, and she survives Slifer's ability!"
[Dark Magician Girl] [ATK: 2300 to 300]
Mokuba said anxiously, "But even with a 300-ATK Dark Magician Girl on the field, the Tormentor still can't activate its effect."
"Dark Magician Girl isn't the only extra I've got!"
Amano had watched Yugi Muto demonstrate this exact trick more times than he could count over the course of this duel. It was about time he got to use it himself.
"I'm activating the Field Spell The Magician's Rescue's effect!"
Under DM-era rules, Field Spell Cards applied to both sides of the field, which meant a Field Spell Yugi Muto had activated could be used by Amano as his own as well.
"By the Field Spell's effect, when Dark Magician Girl is Special Summoned to my field, I can Special Summon Dark Magician from the Graveyard as well!"
Amano, fighting by any means necessary, had pulled together the combined strength of all three duelists in this free-for-all.
In that moment, Atem could almost see two more figures standing beside Amano, silhouetted in the soul-touching glow of the new Duel Disk.
"Kaiba. Partner..."
On this final turn, with nothing but his last three cards, Amano had revived the Tormentor and Summoned master and apprentice of dark magic both, gathering the wills of the strongest duelists in this entire free-for-all back together on his own field.
"Obelisk the Tormentor's effect, activate!"
This was the second time Amano had activated the Tormentor's effect.
"I tribute Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl, raising Obelisk the Tormentor's ATK to infinity!"
"Soul Energy MAX!"
[Obelisk the Tormentor] [ATK: 2000 to Infinity]
"Now the Tormentor can finally surpass the Sky Dragon!"
At the same instant, on Amano's field, the Wicked Avatar, which had been mimicking the Sky Dragon's shape this whole time, shifted its appearance in a blur.
"And that makes the Wicked Avatar's ATK infinity plus 1!"
[Wicked Avatar] [ATK: Infinity+1]
Double infinity: one deep blue, one pitch black, two Tormentors stood side by side on Amano's field, carrying enough presence between them to annihilate heaven and earth.
"We won this, Atem!"
Amano wasn't arrogant enough to say "I won this."
On his own, there was no way he could have won.
"We, huh..." Kaiba Seto stared at the two infinite-ATK Obelisk the Tormentors standing on the field, the sheer spectacle of it leaving him deeply moved.
Beating Atem with his own Tormentor. An ending like that didn't seem so bad after all.
The power of a fully-returned Pharaoh from the afterlife had gone beyond anything imaginable, but just as Kaiba Seto had said at the very start, this was the Ceremonial Duel of the three strongest duelists this world had to offer.
"Take this, the strongest power of all three of us living duelists combined, Pharaoh!"
The two infinite-ATK Tormentors took aim at Slifer the Sky Dragon, bound to the Pharaoh's soul via Soul Relay hanging in the sky above, and unleashed a double-infinity attack powerful enough to shatter dimensions themselves.
Even if Shield of Conspiracy could block one instance of battle destruction, there was no way it could hold back two consecutive attacks with infinite ATK.
"Double Soul Energy MAX: Divine Fist Dimension-Shattering Wave!!"
Two fists as one, the shockwave of infinity stacked on infinity punched straight through the Sky Dragon's long body from head to tail, tearing on from the sky of ancient Egypt through to Domino City three thousand years later, and further still, all the way to Eden six thousand years beyond that.
Looking up, the people of Eden all saw, in that very instant, a streak of divine light cross the sky overhead like a shooting star.
[Slifer the Sky Dragon, destroyed]
[By the effect of "Soul Relay," Atem has lost the duel.]
[Winner: Amano Rei]
[Chronicle Clear Condition: ??? Description unlocked]
[Chronicle Clear Condition: Defeat Kaiba Seto, achieved - S]
[Chronicle Clear Condition: Awaken the Pharaoh, achieved - S]
[Chronicle Clear Condition: Defeat the Pharaoh, achieved - S]
[Ultra-High Clear Rating: SSS]
[Ultra-High Rating Hidden Reward: Slifer the Sky Dragon]
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