"The trinity of Sacred Beasts!?"
Chazz looked at the towering monster in the sky, a being between god and demon.
"So strong—too strong!"
Jaden couldn't help but exclaim.
"Kira, without anyone noticing, has gained such ridiculous power again."
He felt a little regret—seeing the gap between them growing.
But the feeling passed quickly. Jaden was not the jealous type; he was happy for his friends to get stronger. If he fell behind, he'd just work harder to catch up.
"Dealing 10,000 battle damage directly..."
Misawa, now a full-on researcher, looked complicated.
From a researcher's perspective, such unusual effects were headache-inducing.
In the official card game, Armityle's effect had to be changed. Instead of dealing battle damage directly, its effect became: "This card's ATK becomes 10,000 during your turn." That's similar to the anime, but loses a lot of its uniqueness.
"Damn... Damn it... What a joke..."
Defeated, Principal Mackenzie dropped to his knees, head bowed.
He tried to get up, struggling. His fingers twitched, his body trembled. But it was as if hundreds of times gravity pressed him down; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't rise.
Suddenly, he looked up and roared. Surging darkness erupted from his mouth, shooting skyward.
What a joke.
Tragoedia, enduring for ages, finally revived, held out until now—wasn't to be ended like this.
Such a humiliating duel—bragging and then losing a whole bar of LP to Hamon's thunder, The Supremacy Sun countered by Macro Cosmos, 6,000 LP burnt by Ring of Destruction, and finally destroyed by an absurd Armityle effect.
Worse, his true form was still in his hand—never even got to appear.
If only he'd taken some battle damage, he could have appeared and turned things around. But the opponent used a "-10,000" card from nowhere.
A card that deals 10,000 battle damage—did you print this yourself!?
If only, when The Supremacy Sun revived the last time, he'd put it in defense mode—he could have survived that turn.
No, if he'd known there'd be Sacred Beasts, and that they were immune to traps, he should have just passed turn one.
For some reason, the situation felt familiar.
He suddenly thought of 3,000 years ago, showing off before the priests, only to get his heart taken by Winged Kuriboh after screwing up...
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
"Roarrrrrr!!!"
It was as if all the venom and resentment of the monster exploded from Principal Mackenzie's eyes, mouth, and nose.
This was not ordinary darkness—darker than the night. It was as if the abyss had grown tentacles, writhing and twisting, carrying destruction and hate across 3,000 years.
The air felt solid, time stopped. A twisted monster formed from pure shadow, with evil red glows, claws like knives, fangs bared, maw like the abyss—ready to devour the world.
Tragoedia's true form—revealed!
Kira faced the sweeping storm, looking up at the titanic creature, letting the wind whip his coat.
Many students and teachers had never seen such a scene—they turned pale with fear.
"Mama mia!" Professor Crowler grabbed his head. "It's the end of the world—noné!"
But Kira was calm—or even smiled lightly.
"Looks like you're about to breathe your last," he said.
"I lost—lost in this era, this world—impossible!" Tragoedia roared. "This is not my fate! I will devour you all!"
The endless darkness spread out. Kira looked around; the environment vanished—the sea, dock, warehouse, island, and sky disappeared, leaving only darkness.
And in the darkness, he began to see chains.
Yes—chains, stretching across the space, reaching to the ends of the world.
As things grew clearer, he noticed the chains were binding people.
A quick glance showed hundreds or thousands, mostly strangers, but soon he spotted a familiar figure.
Kyoko Hibiki.
The former World Champion, famed for his HERO deck, now hung unconscious, arms suspended by chains like a drained puppet.
"I see," Kira understood. "These are all the people you devoured?"
Roars echoed in the darkness.
"KILL YOU!"
"KILL YOU!"
"Duel King! Stay here forever with me!!!"
Kira turned, calmly facing the twisted face in the darkness.
"Sorry, I've got a lot to do," Kira said flatly. "So I pass."
He paused, then called out.
"Armityle."
The darkness was instantly sliced apart.
Chaos Phantasm Armityle—though the duel was over, Kira's duel disk was still active, and Armityle's card sat quietly there.
In the next moment, the dark space was pierced through.
All the chains shattered at once. The demon's flames clashed with the darkness, two opposing rules colliding. Tragoedia lunged, but was consumed by Armityle's flames, dissolving like foam.
Its body faded with a wail, finally vanishing, leaving only unending resentment echoing through the void.