The airship continued its journey over the boundless sea, and finally, their destination came into view.
It was an artificial island entirely cast in steel. On the island stood a towering iron tower, standing amidst the wreckage and ruins of steel, like a solitary giant.
Demon Island, this was their decisive battleground for this journey.
As mentioned before, Kaiba Company was originally a military manufacturing enterprise. The previous chairman, Kaiba Gozaburo, even harbored a grand ambition of "ruling the world through military technology."
The island before them was the manifestation of Kaiba Gozaburo's ambition. It gathered the most advanced technological weapons developed by Kaiba Company, and it was rumored that the weapons mounted there could destroy all of humanity countless times over.
Of course, that was already a thing of the past.
Ever since Kaiba Seto took over the company, the remaining parts of this once great island were now nothing but ruins.
Every warhead left by Kaiba Gozaburo had been unilaterally dismantled by Kaiba Seto. After Kaiba Company completely transformed, the Demon Island that represented Gozaburo's ambition also became a relic of the past.
Now Kaiba chooses to play cards on this island to prove that he has surpassed everything Gozaburo left behind.
He intends to gather the Three Egyptian Gods on this island, ascend to the Duel King throne, and then, starting from there, create the world's most advanced and top-notch...
...large-scale card game center.
But of course, his plan is not going to be that smooth.
Youyu looked out of the Duel Boat's window, seeing the outline of Demon Island in the distance, already mentally prepared.
After all this time, Youyu had some guesses about this world.
He no longer felt like he had traveled into a world completely composed of 0s and 1s.
Not only because this world is unbelievably realistic for a game, but also because the game official announcement up to the very late version of Linked World was exactly as they stated——
——even the official could not interfere with or predict any development in this world.
Youyu speculated that this is more likely a parallel world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the game officials were only building a bridge between reality and this parallel world, nothing more.
In the previous life version 1.0 of Linked World, no player had the power to reach the top eight in Duel City, so Youyu was not entirely clear about the task line moving forward.
But if this truly is a parallel world of Yu-Gi-Oh!, then Youyu speculated that the developing storyline was already predetermined, regardless of player participation...
...as expected.
The entire airship trembled without warning, as if a bus on a high-speed road had suddenly been accelerated; many unprepared passengers were thrown harshly to the ground due to inertia.
Youyu remembered that six-year-old Marik was probably on the open deck above, striking a pose and enjoying the wind.
If Marik were tossed directly off the ship into the sea, it would indeed be quite the spectacle...
"What's happening?" President Haima quickly arrived at the control room.
"I don't... know!" said the sweating man in the black suit operating the ship. "Someone is hacking into our system!"
"Hacking into our system? Impossible!" Kaiba waved a hand, "Then operate manually!"
"...The system isn't responding!" the man in the black suit said. "There's no inducing signal from the island. We can't approach Demon Island!"
"What?"
With a usually calm demeanor, Kaiba frowned, unable to stop dark thoughts from popping into his mind——
——Could it be that Gozaburo's spirit is preventing us from landing on that island?
The calmest ones on the ship seemed to be Youyu and the two players who had watched the anime.
As expected, the major plot points that should exist in the anime were indeed unavoidable.
The huge screen suspended on the airship was hijacked, displaying...
...President Haima?
Well, to be accurate, it was a younger version of President Haima, looking exactly like him, with the same hairstyle but with a very healthy and pure green hair color.
The child seemed to be only about ten years old, displaying an old-fashioned cunning demeanor with a sly grin, "I've been waiting for you, Seto."
Meanwhile, Yugi and the other passengers had all gathered in the control room to inquire about the situation. However, to Youyu, the next part was nothing more than a cutscene, as he already knew all the necessary information.
The child appearing on the screen was named Kaiba Noah, the real son of Kaiba Gozaburo.
Kaiba Noah received elite education from a young age and was the designated heir to Kaiba Company. However, during his childhood, he was involved in a car accident, and Gozaburo found ways to preserve his consciousness and download it into Kaiba Company's military-computer system.
So technically, the being present before everyone was no longer the real Kaiba Noah, but an AI preserving Noah's complete consciousness and memories.
Nonetheless, the AI living in the Virtual World firmly believed it was Noah himself. This time it appeared to challenge Kaiba Seto, who had usurped their family business, to prove himself more outstanding, and to seize a body capable of acting in the real world, to take back Kaiba Company from Kaiba Seto.
Of course, that's the goal stated above.
As for the means to achieve the goal...
...Of course, it's through playing cards.
What else could you expect in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! if not settling things through card games?
As everyone knows, in this world, whether it's gods or demons, humans or ghosts, even computer AIs resolve problems by playing cards.
Since problems can be solved through card games, there's nothing much to panic about. Moreover, Youyu already had a rough idea of what Noah was planning next.
Next, Noah would hijack the Duel Boat and take it to an underwater hidden military base, using an automatic Gatling gun designed especially for marking targets, forcing everyone off the boat.
In short, Noah, having stayed too long in the Virtual World and craving card games, went through so much trouble to hijack the world's best card players to play cards with him.
If anyone dared refuse to play cards, he'd simply shoot them (though this tactic might not work on many of them)...
Then he'd stealthily drag everyone's consciousness who got off the ship into his Virtual World, and send out his only subordinates, "The Big Five," to attack them.
The Big Five were all senior executives of Kaiba Company, including the head of acquisitions, head of human resources, chief lawyer, weapons factory director, and Kaiba Seto's initial assistant.
These five were originally the generals assisting Kaiba Seto to gain power. But later, Kaiba stole Yugi's grandfather's treasured Blue-Eyes White Dragon, which triggered Dark Yugi's wrath.
So, Dark Yugi started a Darkness Game, defeated Kaiba Seto, and imposed a punishment. After that, Kaiba fell into a coma for a long time, and the company's stocks began a nosedive drop.
The Big Five decided to betray Kaiba at that time, seeking to seize Kaiba Company themselves. After failing, they tricked Kaiba into accepting their challenge in the Virtual Game, attempting to trap Kaiba's consciousness in the Virtual World.
The plan was succeeding, but Yugi unexpectedly charged into the Virtual World, saved Kaiba, and reversed the situation by trapping the Big Five in the computer world to wander endlessly...
...until they met Noah, who also lived in the Virtual World.
So, the previous head of human resources, chief lawyer, weapons factory director among others of Kaiba Company decided to seize this opportunity and make full use of their expertise in each of their fields...
...to play cards with the President.