"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"
[Pandora, LP 2150 → LP 0]
The Ghouls Hunter, Pandora, defeated!
"Wow... awesome!" Yue Hua, the gaming girl watching from the sidelines, had her eyes sparkling, "Ten thousand attack power... that's so strong, huh?"
The streamer girl was clearly a newbie and hadn't seen much yet. Seeing five-digit attack power made her eyes light up with wonder, feeling her whole body was filled with excitement, and she couldn't help but feel that the back of Youyu, who was controlling the Magician on the field, seemed infinitely elevated, looking incredibly cool...
But Youyu didn't feel like he was showing off. To him, he was just ordinarily commanding an Elemental Hero Airman with ten thousand attack power, and ordinarily blasting the opponent into smithereens.
When you've encountered the Sect Leader's 200,000 attack power Utopia, seeing any usual high attack power just feels like a drizzle...
(In the climax of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, the protagonist Tsukumo Yuma summoned a NO.39 Utopia with 204,000 attack power.)
But of course, that was already in the era of exceed summoning. In the DM era, the Five-Headed Dragon with 5000 attack power was already a super big monster, akin to a BOSS monster in the anime. In that environment, piling up ten thousand attack power was quite strong.
Moreover, due to it being a Dark Duel, the visualized damage from blasting down with over nine thousand attack power was quite astonishing. Such a blast practically tore Pandora's soul into fragments.
The Magician, at this point, was lying on the ground with his mouth open, twitching occasionally to show that there was still a bit of life, but his eyes were already empty. He looked like someone who had been through several days and nights of intense activity, completely drained of soul, on the verge of death at any moment...
The chat in the live stream started scrolling again.
"Is this a Dark Duel?"
"This Pandora bro is pretty pitiful, isn't he blasted into a mosaic by now?"
"LP-9999999 Warning."
Youyu's task panel indicated the task was completed. Moreover, since this was a Dark Duel—apparently of a not low level—the soul of the loser would be devoured by eternal darkness, indicating that this should be a once and for all solution to the initial BOSS.
Thinking this, it seemed to have some commemorative value. After all, it was the first mini-BOSS Youyu encountered after being reborn, and from another perspective, it could be seen as his first pot of gold...
When a soul is devoured through a Darkness Game, there's a ninety percent chance it's genuinely hopeless.
After all, there was only one Jonouchi in the world—the man who fell in a dark game and faced the flames of the Winged Dragon of Ra head-on. And he could jump out of his hospital bed the next day full of energy, as if there were no aftereffects, and maybe even taunt the Winged Dragon: "Is this it? Is this the divine wrath?"
Years later, when Duel King Muto Yugi talked to his juniors about the first Duel City, he might describe it like this: "Back then, the final four were us four.
I possessed the Slifer the Sky Dragon; Kaiba, with three Blue-Eyes White Dragons and Obelisk the Tormentor; and Marik, with the Winged Dragon of Ra, repeatedly winning through Darkness Games...
...and Jonouchi, always rolling dice or flipping coins."
"..."
Jonouchi was incredibly strong, wasn't he?
It's no wonder later Pegasus included Jonouchi among the world's top Legendary Duelists; the God of Gamblers truly lived up to his name.
Seeing Pandora twitching "uncontrollably and then looking utterly dull," he went limp. Youyu thought this was finally the end of him, but then he suddenly shot back up straight like an inflatable clown, forcing his eyelids open and staring straight over, nearly scaring Youyu.
What's the situation here? A last gasp?
Seems not...
Youyu soon realized, although it looked like a resurrection, the person in front of him was no longer Pandora.
At that moment, his eyes turned white, his limbs hung limply, like a marionette being pulled by invisible strings. The golden eye on his forehead shone even brighter, and someone else had taken over his body.
Youyu squinted his eyes, "Marik Ishtar."
"Indeed." Pandora's mouth mechanically produced the sound.
The soul known as Pandora was no longer in this body; only an empty shell remained. It was now Marik, occupying the magpie's nest, speaking with Youyu.
"Youyu, the rising star of the Nightwalker World?" Marik said with interest, "I've been hearing a lot about you lately. As a newcomer, you're quite well-known in the Underworld."
"Likewise," Youyu smiled, "In terms of experience in the Underworld, you're certainly my senior, but not by much. If anything, we could be considered peers."
Marik let out a dry laugh, the sound coming through the hollow shell of his throat with an eerie quality.
"You're an unexpected variable," Marik said. "I'm quite interested in you, but we don't necessarily have to be enemies."
"I understand." Youyu held out a hand to stop him from continuing, "Now it's time for you to offer me a condition I can't refuse, trying to recruit me into your Ghouls, right?"
After all, most villains lack fresh ideas. Nine out of ten villains have similar lines, and the remaining one probably forgot his lines.
"Oh? Seems like you know the drill."
Marik was a bit gratified. He originally approached Youyu with a mindset of giving it a shot, not expecting this person to be unexpectedly agreeable?
As long as Youyu was willing to join his rogue boat, everything would be negotiable. In any case, aside from his only true confidant, Rishid, everyone else in the Ghouls was under Marik's brain control using the Millennium Rod.
Just throw him a hollow promise, show him some advantages to coax him in, then brainwash him and arrange everything by force. Wouldn't it be easy to pose him however he wanted?
So here Marik decided to show off as a magnate: "Well, name your condition! You might already know, our Ghouls' replica card technology is second to none. Name any Rare Card, and as long as you speak it, our Ghouls can absolutely get it for you!"
With that, he smiled smugly.
"Hehe, even the replica cards of the Dark Magician 'Exodia,' or even the Three Egyptian God cards, are a piece of cake for us to replicate."
Youyu couldn't help but roll his eyes.
Ha, like I don't know your little schemes?
Marik's words weren't false. The Ghouls indeed had a bunch of replica Egyptian God cards. However, whether they could handle them was another story.
By now, those who dared to attempt using the replica Egyptian God cards, their ashes have long cooled...
Marik had ill-intentions, deliberately using the huge temptation of the Egyptian God cards, which most duelists couldn't resist, to lure him while not telling about the potential risks, openly setting a trap for Youyu.
However, Youyu wasn't bothered. Instead, he feigned a serious contemplative look: "Forget the Egyptian God cards, but I do need a card. If you can get it, joining the Ghouls isn't out of the question."
Marik felt a glimmer of hope, thinking it might work.
He had high regard for Youyu's abilities. Not to mention, Youyu single-handedly defeated many of their top Ghouls members. Such talent was worth recruiting.
Not to mention that the Underworld was abuzz with rumors recently. They said that during a duel with Kaiba Seto, Youyu dominated the whole match, even forcing out Obelisk the Tormentor in the end!
Because many spectators were members of the Nightwalker World, the rumors inevitably became exaggerated as they spread.
Some guys even depicted the situation as completely one-sided, portraying Kaiba as having no chance against Youyu's aggressive attacks, and even summoning a god couldn't save him. If Kaiba hadn't pulled out screws fast enough, he would have surely lost!
While Marik estimated these rumors were exaggerated, where there's smoke, there's fire. The rumors must have some basis.
If he could enlist Youyu, then his Gravekeeper Race's revenge plan would surely come to fruition!
Marik had already made up his mind to satisfy Youyu's request no matter what card he wanted. So he waved his hand: "Speak up, what do you want? Any card will do, even a replica of the legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon. I can make it happen."
No wonder the Ghouls are badass, they could even get a knock-off of President Haima's wife.
However, Youyu waved his hand generously: "No need for such expensive Rare Cards. My requirements aren't that high. Let me think... Just get me an Airman."
Marik reflexively wanted to brag: "Sure, no problem! With our Ghouls tech..."
Then he realized something was off.
"...Uh, wait, what did you just say you wanted?"
"Airman,"
Youyu repeated, with a look of suspicion as if saying "Come on, you can't possibly have never heard of the famous Airman, right?"
"Elemental Hero Airman," he added.
Marik: "?"
What the heck is that?