Chapter 301: Locked at 1 LP! A Riding Duel Clash of Link Summons and Egyptian Gods
"A Link Summon! That guy just pulled off a Link Summon!"
"Isn't that a Summoning method that's supposed to be lost to history?"
"To think someone in this day and age still commands the power of the Link!"
This wasn't actually the first time Amano had performed a Link Summon inside Eden. But that very first time had been done as a spirit possessing Nanki'in Sakuya's body from behind.
And since that Farewell Banquet duel had been a hidden, private affair between two crime families, not a single word of it had ever leaked to the outside world.
So this Link Summon of Star Chalice Sacred Dance - Eve was, as far as the whole of Eden knew, likely the first Link Summon to reappear in public view in fifty years, ever since the technique had vanished from sight.
"A Link Summon!" Kaiba Chiaki's brow furrowed tight.
Amano Rei, who'd lived in bottom-tier District 32 for eighteen years, had a marriage contract with the Upper District's tomb-keeper clan, and now he was pulling out a Link Summon, a technique only Top Layer duelists were supposed to have.
Ordering Kurosaki to investigate had clearly been the right call.
Rin Seiya marveled, "This Link Summon thing is actually more convenient than Synchro."
Synchro needed you to add up Levels exactly, and you needed both a Tuner and a non-Tuner.
But Amano's Link Summon only needed 2 monsters sent to the Graveyard from the field to meet the condition.
Link Material condition: [2 monsters with different Types and Attributes]
Actually matching both the Type and Attribute of the Winged Dragon of Ra would have been the harder condition to meet, if anything.
Link Arrows: Left/Right
Amano: "Come to think of it, why are even the Link Arrows this flat?"
Eve: "\(O_O)/ Watch what you say. I'm currently packing Axe King-tier ATK, you know!"
Axe King-tier ATK, well, honestly, purely in terms of raw card strength, this reappearance of the Link after fifty years out of Eden's public eye really was nothing special.
The biggest impact this Link Summon actually had on the match was letting Amano use the Link method to send that otherwise-unremovable Winged Dragon of Ra - Sphere Mode to the Graveyard as Link Material.
"Oh, a Link Summon? Now that's beyond what I expected, Amano boy. You really are my man!"
Celestia's plan to wait for Sphere Mode to return next turn and Special Summon a 4000-ATK Winged Dragon of Ra outright had been thoroughly foiled.
"What do you mean, your man? Celestia, you haven't beaten me yet!"
"Still, I'd much rather you call me Tia."
"Battle!" Amano twisted his D-Wheel's throttle hard, riding the Link's wind toward the future, and accelerated straight into this turn's Battle Phase.
"I attack you directly with Star Chalice Sacred Dance - Eve!"
Raising her staff high to gather the Star Chalice's magic, Eve's resolute gaze locked onto the two remaining "Winged Dragon orbs" on the other side.
Eve: "I'm handing down judgment on a Big Thunder that shouldn't even exist!"
"Star Chalice Blast!"
A burst of Link magic, unmistakably tinged with personal feelings, surged across the Speed World track toward Celestia.
"An attack at that level isn't going to cut it."
Celestia calmly flipped up her set card.
"Trap Card, Gate of Counterattack, activate! After negating your attack, I draw 1 card from my Deck, and if it's a monster that can be Normal Summoned, I Normal Summon it."
A gate materializing across the Speed World track absorbed Eve's burst of magic, converting it into the power to draw.
"Draw!"
Celestia drew her card, her golden eyes sweeping across its face, and beneath her helmet, the corner of her mouth curled into a faint smile.
"The card I drew is the monster card Ra's Disciple! By Gate of Counterattack's effect, I can Normal Summon it right onto my field!"
[Ra's Disciple] [Level 4 / LIGHT]
[Fairy / Effect]
[ATK: 1100] [DEF: 600]
An apostle draped in the Sun God's golden vestments, cape billowing, materialized and hovered alongside Celestia's D-Wheel.
"When Ra's Disciple is successfully Normal Summoned, I can Special Summon up to 2 more copies of Ra's Disciple from my Deck!"
The single hovering golden apostle split into three across the high-speed track.
Amano's brow creased slightly. "Gate of Counterattack drawing straight into the Apostle. Is that the bond between a Sun God heir and their Deck?"
Celestia's smile grew even wilder and more vibrant, carrying more than a little of the true tomb-keeper spirit. "The real duel in the realm of gods is only just getting started, Amano boy!"
It seemed that even having dealt with Sphere Mode, stopping the god from descending against a Sun God-specialized Deck like Celestia's just wasn't realistic.
There was nothing left but to settle this head-on!
"I set one more card. Turn end!"
Amano set down yet another card, and together with the one he'd set earlier in the turn but hadn't used, two set cards now sat side by side, flanking his silver-white D-Wheel.
"My turn, draw!"
Celestia, riding the high-speed wind of the fourth turn, drew her card.
Celestia - Speed Counters: 2 to 3
Amano Rei - Speed Counters: 3 to 4
"Then this turn, let's Summon the true sun!"
Celestia lifted the card she'd been waiting to play, out of the hand slot on her D-Wheel.
In an instant, divine flames even fiercer and hotter than before erupted from Celestia's deep-brown fingertips, surging toward the sun hanging in the sky.
"I offer up the 3 copies of Ra's Disciple on my field as Tributes for the god's Summon!"
Celestia raised the card in her hand high overhead and, in the middle of riding at full speed, actually closed her golden eyes, her lips murmuring what sounded like a chant in another language altogether.
"The spirits sing, and the power of eternity governs all creation!"
"Its life, its soul, down to its very bones. When heaven and earth converge, let the ritual to Summon the Sun God begin!"
On the Speed World track, all three apostles draped in the Sun God's golden vestments dissolved into light, surging toward the golden sun taking shape overhead.
Until the golden sun, as if driven by machinery, began unfolding and extending out of its spherical shape, revealing the true form of a god within the raging divine flame.
"Camino Summon! Descend, Winged Dragon of Ra!"
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [Level 10 / Divine]
[Phantom Divine-Beast / Effect]
[ATK: ?] [DEF: ?]
A piercing cry that tore through the arena and up into the sky exploded outward, and the Winged Dragon of Ra, holder of the highest divine status among the three Egyptian Gods, bathed in burning divine flame, descended and took flight above Celestia's D-Wheel.
"Winged Dragon of Ra's ATK is equal to the combined ATK of the three Tributes!"
Each Ra's Disciple had 1100 ATK, so the combined total of all three came to:
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [ATK: ? to 3300]
Rin Seiya: "That's ATK a tenth higher than Blue-Eyes White Dragon's own ATK!"
Nanami Misaki: "What kind of bizarre way of doing math is that?"
The instant the Sun God descended, the arena's roaring atmosphere matched, blow for blow, the walls of flame burning along both sides of the track.
"To think I'd live to see a god descend with my own eyes!"
"Seeing a Link Summon and a god's descent in the very same duel, I could die happy right now!"
"I can't die yet, though. I still need to keep watching."
If Winged Dragon of Ra's ATK were only ever the combined total of its three Tributes on Summon, then Celestia wouldn't have one-shot her professional opponents every single time she Summoned it, in every recording Nanami Misaki had gathered.
This woman had an even more insane play up her sleeve.
Letting the scorching flames surge back toward herself, Celestia shouted up at the Winged Dragon overhead. "Winged Dragon of Ra's effect, activate!"
[During your Main Phase or your opponent's, you can activate this effect by paying your Life Points down to 1. This card's ATK/DEF increases by the amount paid.]
"Burn my boiling soul! Let my very life become the ATK of Winged Dragon of Ra, right here and now!"
Celestia LP: 4000 to 1
Even sitting at full Life Points, she'd forced Ra's effect through anyway, locking herself down to 1 LP, all to buy the Winged Dragon enough ATK to end the duel in a single blow.
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [ATK: 3300 to 7299]
A style of fighting like that was wild and unhinged enough to stand out anywhere in Eden.
Of course, compared to Marik, at least Celestia hadn't gone crazy enough to Fusion-ride on top of the Winged Dragon's head.
This state could really only be described as a shared-Life-Points condition.
Eve: "Huh, does Big Thunder look like it shrank a little?"
Amano: "You're imagining things."
Sacrificing Life Points isn't the same as sacrificing your own body. Honestly, Eve, sounds like sour grapes because you can't get your hands on Big Thunder.
The flames burning around the golden D-Wheel seemed to blaze even fiercer, and as Celestia charged forward at full speed, the flickering fire around her D-Wheel gradually took the shape of a roaring dragon.
"Let's battle!" Celestia, wreathed in flame, swept a hand toward Amano, some distance ahead of her, and declared the start of this turn's Battle Phase.
"Winged Dragon of Ra, attack Star Chalice Sacred Dance - Eve!"
Within its opened, mechanical jaws, the Winged Dragon gathered flames that burned with the very soul of its duelist, locking onto Eve in the Extra Monster Zone.
"Burn away to nothing in the flames of a god!"
"Divine Might Blazing Cannon!"
A pillar of cannon fire that tore through the entire Riding Duel track blasted down out of the sky toward Eve, sitting at 1800 ATK.
With an ATK gap of 5499, if Amano took this hit head-on, he'd be instantly one-shot by the Sun God too.
"Set Trap Card, activate!" Amano flipped up his set card.
"Trap Cards don't work on gods, Amano boy!"
"Yeah, obviously I know that!"
If it came to duelists in Eden with the most experience fighting God Cards, Amano was hands-down at the top of that list.
For anyone else, flipping up whatever mainstream disruption Trap they ran in the pro circuit against a god's immunity and sky-high ATK would basically spell defeat.
But Amano's Traps were, for the most part, cute little gadgets.
"Trap Card, Half Damage Unbreakable, activate!"
[Half Damage Unbreakable] [Trap Card: Target 1 monster on the field to activate this card. This turn, the targeted monster cannot be destroyed by battle, and any battle damage you take involving that monster is halved.]
"By Half Damage Unbreakable's effect, I halve the damage Eve deals me, and she can't be destroyed by battle!"
Eve used the Star Chalice's light as a shield, gritting through the one-shot destructive force of the god's flame. 5499 points of battle damage, halved and rounded, came out to 2750.
Amano Rei LP: 4000 to 1250
After the god's flames swept past, Amano could swear Eve had tanned a few shades darker.
It made Amano wonder whether Celestia's dark skin was actually just a tan she'd picked up from using the Sun God so often.
"Oh, surviving a hit from the Sun God, are we? Honestly, if you'd gotten one-shot by a god like everyone else, I'd have been disappointed in my fiance."
Having ended her Battle Phase, Celestia slammed two cards down into her D-Wheel's back row, then activated a Speed Spell from her hand.
"I set two cards, then activate Speed Spell - Speed Recovery, raising my Life Points by 400 for each of my Speed Counters."
Celestia LP: 1 to 1201
Sure, Life Points were the most useless resource right up until they hit zero, but staying locked at rock bottom in a Riding Duel wasn't exactly safe either.
The Field Spell Speed World 2's own effect carried a built-in 800-point kill line, so staying at 1 LP the whole time would still have been dangerous for Celestia.
"My turn ends."
But more than the fact that Amano had survived a hit from her god, what really caught Celestia's attention was that he'd also forced his Link Monster to survive.
Across all of Eden, Link Summoning was the single most unusual Summoning method there was.
A god's immunity covered anything with a Level or Rank lower than its own, but a Link Monster's LINK rating wasn't included in that at all.
Link-2 Star Chalice Sacred Dance - Eve looked unimpressive in raw combat power, but she could be used together with other monsters to Link Summon an even higher-rated Link Monster.
For instance, a LINK-2 monster combined with another monster in a Link Summon could produce a LINK-3 monster.
Even though this era knew barely anything about Link Summoning, as a legendary Summoning method that Eva herself had reportedly cut off, Celestia obviously wasn't about to let her guard down around it.
"My turn, draw!" Amano drew his card for the turn.
Amano Rei - Speed Counters: 4 to 5
Celestia - Speed Counters: 3 to 4
Celestia immediately flipped up a card. "During your Standby Phase, I activate the Trap Card Equal Exchange!"
[Equal Exchange] [Trap Card: Target 1 monster in your Graveyard and 1 face-up monster you control to activate this card. Special Summon the targeted Graveyard monster to your opponent's field in Defense Position; until the End Phase, the targeted monster you control gains Levels equal to the Level of the Special Summoned monster.]
Equal Exchange, paying the cost of Special Summoning a monster onto her opponent's field in exchange for boosting the Level of one of her own.
"I Special Summon Ra's Disciple from my Graveyard onto your field, and raise my own Winged Dragon of Ra's Level by 4!"
Watching from the stands, the Emperor murmured quietly. "Oh, breaking out the Sun God's lockdown strategy already? Looks like Celestia's taking this seriously too."
As a fellow member of the Chosen of the Gods Alliance, the Emperor naturally knew exactly how terrifying this Sun God lockdown could be.
Raising Winged Dragon of Ra's Level to 14 made it essentially immune to every other monster's effects.
But the real key to the lockdown was Ra's Disciple itself.
Ra's Disciple's effect: as long as this card exists in a Monster Zone, its controller cannot Special Summon monsters except by Ra's Disciple's own effect.
As long as Ra's Disciple stayed on the field, Amano wouldn't be able to Special Summon at all, similar to the lockdown from Ivaliss, Phantom Rupture, only even stronger.
Ivaliss's lockdown could still be broken through an Advance Summon Tribute. But Ra's Disciple could only be Tributed for an Advance Summon of one of the three Egyptian Gods; no other monster could Tribute it away.
Celestia smiled. "With this, it's not just Link Summoning. You won't be able to Synchro, Xyz, Fusion, or even Advance Summon anymore!"
Amano flipped up his own set card too. "I chain to Equal Exchange's effect, activating my set Trap Card, Legitimate Bloodline!"
[Legitimate Bloodline] [Trap Card: Target 1 Normal Monster in your Graveyard to activate this card. Special Summon that monster in Attack Position. If this card leaves the field, destroy that monster. If that monster leaves the field, destroy this card.]
Since it was chained onto Equal Exchange, it resolved first, letting Amano squeeze in one more Special Summon in the instant before Ra's Disciple actually landed on his field.
"I Special Summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my Graveyard!"
[Blue-Eyes White Dragon] [ATK: 3000]
Wings spread wide over the Speed World track, the white dragon appeared above Amano's D-Wheel with a proud roar.
"Is that your last Special Summon, then?" Celestia said. "Just a plain old Blue-Eyes White Dragon, it's never going to top the Sun God's ATK!"
[Ra's Disciple] [DEF: 600]
[Winged Dragon of Ra] [Level 10 to 14]
Locking down both Amano's Special Summons and his Advance Summons, on top of granting the Winged Dragon immunity to every Level of monster.
Celestia, heir to the Sun God, was showing off exactly the kind of terrifying, god-level dominance she carried into a Riding Duel.
"Speed Spell - Angel's Scepter, activate! Draw 2 cards from my Deck, then discard 1. I'll discard the Polymerization I searched last turn."
Celestia threw her head back and laughed. "Ha ha ha ha, giving up on Polymerization outright since you can't Fusion Summon anymore? My fiance sure is decisive. I like you even more now!"
"There it is!"
"Hm? What's there?"
Amano hadn't dug through his Deck to give up on Fusion. He'd been digging for one exact card.
"Celestia, Ra's Disciple's lockdown effect doesn't work on me!"
Amano, still riding at full speed, raised the card in his hand, the one that would break through the god's seal, high overhead into the rushing wind.
"I release Star Chalice Sacred Dance - Eve, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and Ra's Disciple on my field as Tributes!"
A Tribute effect of roiling, thundering lightning swept across Amano's entire field in an instant, wrapping all three monsters in flashing light.
Celestia's golden eyes trembled violently. "Impossible. Ra's Disciple got Tributed?"
Amano's Deck did have the Wicked Avatar in it, so Tributing three monsters for an Advance Summon was technically possible.
But the Wicked Avatar couldn't Tribute Ra's Disciple. Ra's Disciple's effect read:
[This card cannot be Tributed except for the Advance Summon of "Slifer the Sky Dragon," "Obelisk the Tormentor," or "Winged Dragon of Ra."]
The only thing capable of Tributing away Ra's Disciple for an Advance Summon and breaking through the Sun God's seal was another God Card, one of the same three Egyptian Gods as the Winged Dragon itself.
"When chaos thunders across the sky, gather the ancient grimoire bound in chains, and let its power reach the infinite!"
"When good and evil converge, begin the ritual to Summon the judge of hell!"
Racing at full speed along the track, Amano chanted the incantation he'd learned from the Pharaoh himself, up at the roiling thunderclouds overhead.
"Camino Summon!"
"Descend! Slifer the Sky Dragon!"
[Slifer the Sky Dragon] [Level 10 / Divine]
[Phantom Divine-Beast / Effect]
[ATK: X000] [DEF: X000]
Slifer the Sky Dragon descended out of the churning thunderclouds above the Speed World, its absurdly massive crimson body seeming to coil around and cover the entire track.
Celestia's golden pupils contracted, staring in disbelief at the sky, gone pitch-black with the god's descent. "You have one of the three Egyptian Gods too?"
Up until this moment, nobody had known Amano had gotten an Egyptian God as a hidden Chronicle reward.
Even Kaiba Chiaki, who'd come out of the Chronicle right alongside him, had been kept in the dark.
So the very Ra's Disciple Celestia had believed would seal Amano down instead ended up becoming the Tribute material that let him Advance Summon Slifer the Sky Dragon.
And from this day forward, Amano would go down in Eden's historical records as a legendary duelist who owned one of the three Egyptian Gods.
"Slifer the Sky Dragon's ATK and DEF become 1000 for every card in its controller's hand! I've got three cards in hand right now, so the Sky Dragon's ATK is 3000!"
[Slifer the Sky Dragon] [ATK: X000 to 3000]
Above the track of the New Riding Duel Invitational, the massive Winged Dragon of Ra and Slifer the Sky Dragon seemed to split the sky in half between them, roaring at one another in a standoff.
Even the bloodthirsty audience, well used to Riding Duels inside this arena, couldn't help but voice their confusion. "I-is this even still a Riding Duel?"
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