"Setooo!"
That final scream sounded like a wailing soul. Bathed in the blinding white light, Gozaburo exerted every ounce of his strength to lunge toward Kaiba, reaching out one last time as if to touch him. But in the end, he fell short.
The radiance of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon swept over him like an endless torrent, and his virtual body disintegrated rapidly under the wash of white light. Massive amounts of data were swept away like water by the Burst Stream of Destruction, vanishing into an infinite river of annihilation.
From start to finish, Kaiba stood with his arms crossed, watching with cold indifference as the figure in the red suit faded away.
"A dead man should just stay dead," Kaiba said. "There was never a place for you in this world to begin with."
The white light receded, and the last traces of the shadow vanished completely from the stream. The pitch-black space returned to tranquility, leaving only a profound silence.
A few seconds later, Kaiba spoke.
"Have you seen enough?"
After a brief pause, Yugen stepped out from the nearby shadows with a light chuckle. "President Kaiba is as sharp as ever. Even in a virtual space, your vigilance hasn't dimmed a bit."
Privately, Yugen thought to himself: President, you love watching me play cards every day, and when you can't watch in person, you have your little brother record it. What's wrong with me peeking at your skills for a bit?
Yugen was in a rather good mood.
Because of his experience navigating the Link System, he had quickly become familiar with the methods of movement and exploration within this similar virtual world. Consequently, he had learned to traverse the area freely.
During his trek, he had encountered several of Gozaburo's other AI children and engaged in "friendly exchanges" through dueling. As it turned out, Delta had not been exaggerating; he was indeed the strongest among Gozaburo's brood. Even Alpha, whom Yugen had faced first, was considered a top tier elite among those AIs.
The rest could truly be described as "small fry," and Yugen handled them with ease. While securing quick victories, he managed to share the "joy of dueling" with the AIs; by the time the matches ended, every one of them seemed remarkably... emotional.
At this moment, Kaiba seemed to recall the footage Gozaburo had shown him of Yugen's duels. The corner of his mouth quirked upward slightly. It was hard to tell if the smile represented approval or if he simply found the process of the duels amusing.
In this particular instance, the opposing faction held a personal grudge against Kaiba, and Delta was Gozaburo's most valued AI general.
Watching Delta devolve from calm and collected to a complete mental breakdownonly to be finished off by his own monster that had been "NTR-ed" (taken over)left the President feeling quite satisfied.
One should show no mercy to enemies. Using the most brutal means to crush them both mentally and physicallythat was the path of a hegemon.
Suddenly, a storm of data surged once more within the dark space. Clouds churned in the enclosed area as the converging data formed a towering vortex, from which the image of a blood-red demon manifested.
It was an abstract, distorted, and massive entity with sharp claws and fangs, its true form blurred to the point of being nearly unidentifiable. It let out a deafening roar that carried both infinite sorrow and boundless rage. Data constantly leaked from its body as if it were on the verge of fading away.
"Seto!!!" the demon shrieked in fury.
Kaiba frowned. "Gozaburo?"
"I... lost. But I won't go on this journey alone..."
The vortex of data gathered toward its body, and the demon's shell expanded tenfold in an instant! A sharp claw slammed down, carrying a piercing whistle as it tore through the air!
"I'm taking you with me!"
Kaiba leaped backward, nimbly dodging the strike. The corridor where he had been standing was instantly pulverized by the demon's claw, triggering an explosion of data.
"Seto!!!"
Gozaburo's demon continued to roar, attempting to pursue him.
"Tch, you old fossil that refuses to pass on... Blue-Eyes!"
A brilliant, incandescent light erupted from Kaiba, shining like a lighthouse in the darkness. The light seemed to move with a will of its own, transforming into a barrier to block the demon's impact before spiraling upward into the form of a spirit.
The Blue-Eyes White Dragon!
"Burst Stream of Destruction!" Kaiba shouted. "Die once more, Gozaburo!"
With a high-pitched dragon roar, a beam of devastating white light erupted from the dragon's maw. The entire virtual space seemed to be pierced by the beam, dispelling the infinite darkness as a wave of destruction swept through everything.
It was proof that the power of spirits was equally effective within virtual spaceespecially a god level spirit like the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which three thousand years ago in Ancient Egypt could even clash with the Three Egyptian Gods.
Gozaburo's digital ghost paled in comparison to such transcendent divine power. The silhouette of the once-arrogant blood demon was ruthlessly impaled.
He let out one final roar before being swallowed by the dragon's cry. The body he had struggled to maintain finally disintegrated in the white light, turning into a stream of data that vanished completely.
It was over.
A minute later, a flood of data rolled past them. The surrounding darkness receded, as if truly dispelled by the strike of the Dragon of Light.
Everything built from virtual datathe very space they occupiedvanished into thin air.
As the virtual scenes faded and the system shut down, they were greeted by the scent of electronic components and cooling systems.
The scenery changed abruptly. Metal racks were lined up neatly against the walls like silver fortresses guarding server clusters. Each rack was packed with servers of varying sizes, their indicator lights blinking. A faint humming filled the airthe low melody of servers in operation.
They had returned to reality.
The digital ghost of Gozaburo Kaiba had been defeated once again, and the entire company's data was swiftly taken over by KaibaCorp. Within the server logs, they found records proving that every hacking operation against KaibaCorp and Industrial Illusions to date had been the work of Gozaburo and his controlled AIs.
But now, it was all over.
It wasn't just their research data and records being seized; all the cards stored within the building were also taken into custody.
This time, Gozaburo seemed to have finally realized that weapons and warships were obsolete in this worldcard games were the true path to power. Thus, to deal with Kaiba, he had collected and even independently developed many new cards.
Naturally, these now belonged to KaibaCorp.
Yugen, meanwhile, had also obtained what he wanted from this trip.
First was that "god tier" card, Future Fusionan old forbidden card that had been banned for years due to its ability to violently dump massive amounts of materials into the Graveyard before its effect text was errata-ed.
With the expansion of the card pool and the increasing number of Fusion Monsters with flexible material requirements, the value of this card in modern Yu-Gi-Oh would only rise. If it hadn't been neutered and weakened, it likely would never have seen the light of day again.
In addition to that, there were many other good finds. After the items were logged into KaibaCorp's inventory, Yugen was granted the authority to take his pick. He didn't stand on ceremony with Kaiba and selected several cards that interested him.
To his surprise, however, the Destruction Sword deck Gozaburo had usedwhich was designed to counter the Dragon-Type to the point of certain deathhad also been tossed into the inventory.
Yugen had no reason not to take it. That deck was practically the ultimate weapon against Dragons.
The surprising part was that the President didn't seem to mind at all.
Yugen could more or less guess the President's thoughts.
He simply didn't care.
Whether it was a counter-deck, or a disadvantage in Type or AttributeKaiba didn't care about any of it. No matter who the opponent was or what tactics they used, as long as it was a duel, he would accept the challenge without fear.
That was the path of Seto Kaiba.
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