Chapter 186: Obelisk's Unlimited Refills
The infinite-ATK kick landed. It shattered Shiyue's body and sent black waves churning across the ground.
Shiyue Yi's LP count leaped from 16,100 to zero, then plunged straight into negative infinity.
There was no question about it. In this Dark Game, the mightiest and most unbeatable Wicked God had lost.
The Wicked Avatar, which had taken the form of a black Obelisk just moments before, could no longer hold its shape. The black divine figure dissolved and collapsed, shrinking and curling in on itself until it condensed once more into a black sphere, hanging in the sky above the mid-level district exactly as it had appeared at the start, like a dark sun.
"AAAAUGH!"
A piercing wail burst outward from inside the sphere, spreading in all directions. The unearthly sound echoed through every corner of Eden Tower.
So the mightiest and most invincible Wicked God had started howling in despair.
Even before Masked HERO Anki had landed that infinite kick, Kaiba Chiaki could not have believed the invincible god that had tormented her for years would actually be brought down by the Wein family's heroes working together.
It was not as though Chiaki had never considered a damage-drain strategy. But as Shiyue's Wicked God deck had demonstrated, a recovery-specialized Wicked God deck could push LP to grotesquely high numbers. Pure damage racing was never going to close the gap. Unless you could do what Finesse had done: shatter Soul Barrier while ignoring the Avatar's unchainable ATK superiority entirely, and land a single infinite kick against 16,000 LP.
"Obelisk the Tormentor..."
Watching from her armed helicopter as that colossal god nearly touched the ceiling of the sky, Kaiba Chiaki felt two things at once: the excitement wired into her by blood and inheritance, and an unavoidable melancholy she could not push aside.
The legendary Obelisk that Kaiba Seto had once wielded, three thousand years into the future, had not been summoned by her.
"Amano Rei and Finesse Wein, then."
If her memory served, this was the second time Finesse had summoned a god. The first had been against the Soul Binder, when she called up an Earthbound God. This time it was an Egyptian God against a Wicked God.
Both times, the god had been summoned by Finesse. But Chiaki's instincts told her Amano Rei was connected to both occasions. Otherwise, why would Shiyue have screamed his name during the duel?
"AAAAUGH!!"
The wailing from the sphere continued for dozens of seconds.
Amano had a bad feeling. A premonition, cold and clear, that something awful was about to happen if the sound kept going.
"Stop it, Obelisk."
Even across the distance between them, Obelisk seemed to hear. The duel was over, but the god had not yet disappeared. It slowly raised one massive arm and drove a fist into the sphere overhead.
The explosive crack of that punch swallowed the eerie wailing whole.
Then silence. The Wicked Avatar, already fighting on nothing but its last reserves, finally shattered in the sky above.
From the fractures spreading across the black sphere's surface, more black sludge began pouring toward the ground.
"Even in death it can't stay quiet." His premonition had been right. If Obelisk had not landed that punch to contain it, the sludge would not have leaked from cracks. It would have exploded outward in every direction. The sheer volume of residual black sludge packed inside the Wicked God, if left to flow freely, would have swallowed every remaining foothold in the mid-level district.
But as the disaster began to spread, three new forces of divine power appeared across the mid-level district.
To the true north, the southeast diagonal, and the southwest diagonal, three enormous divine phantoms materialized in a triangular formation:
Thor, Lord of the Aesir.
Loki, Lord of the Aesir.
Odin, Father of the Aesir.
Positioned at three points around the district, the three Aesir gods deployed a vivid emerald Polar Star Barrier, using the combined positive energy of all three divine cards to counter and purify the negative disaster left behind by the Wicked God's fall.
"The three Aesir!" Amano looked toward the edges of the mid-level district, staring at those vast and familiar divine silhouettes. "Is this the Emperor's work?"
D-Wheel. Beneath the phantom of Odin to the true north of the mid-level district, the Riding Emperor finally brought his white D-Wheel to a stop. The high-temperature white smoke curling up from the engine's friction told the whole story of how far and how fast he had ridden. The Aesir God cards could only be placed by him personally. To prevent the mid-level district from being swallowed by black sludge, the Emperor had raced his D-Wheel at maximum speed around the entire outer perimeter of the district to set all three gods in position.
The barrier was now active.
"Fellow user of divine cards," the Emperor's meaning came through without a word passing between them. "Deliver the final blow to a dying god that still refuses to lie down."
"Shatter it completely, Obelisk!"
Even without being able to communicate directly, something passed between Amano and the Emperor the instant the three Aesir barrier activated. As fellow users of divine cards, they shared a wordless understanding. Amano felt it clearly: the moment for the final strike had arrived.
Obelisk shifted from a single punch to a two-handed charge. Both colossal divine fists hammered forward simultaneously, driving into the black sun teetering on the edge of total collapse.
"God Hand Impact!!"
Both fists plunged into the fractured body of the Wicked Avatar. Obelisk let out a low roar and tore the black sun apart from the inside.
From the completely shattered Wicked God, black sludge poured in every direction. Part of it was purified by the three Aesir barrier. The rest fell directly onto Obelisk and was absorbed into the god's deep-blue colossal body.
Having absorbed the power of a higher god, Obelisk completed a True Ancestor-level evolution in that final moment.
[True Ancestor Obelisk]
At the same time, Amano's Eva Terminal flashed with a new card notification.
Spell Card: Divine Evolution
This card's activation and effects cannot be negated. (1): Target 1 monster you control that is originally Divine-Beast-Type, or originally named "The Wicked Avatar," "The Wicked Dreadroot," or "The Wicked Eraser" (a monster already affected by Divine Evolution's effect cannot be targeted again). That monster gains 1000 ATK and 1000 DEF, the activation of its own effects and the resolution of those activations cannot be negated, and it gains the following effect. This effect can only be activated when an attack is declared: your opponent must send 1 monster they control to the Graveyard.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga, Obelisk the Tormentor had used this exact card to evolve into its True Ancestor form and gain the power to destroy the Wicked Avatar.
The catch was that Divine Evolution could only be used alongside a true Divine-attribute card.
Amano's one-time Obelisk the Tormentor authorization had just been spent. All he had left were the two Wicked God cards. Though calling them two was generous. They were really two forms of a single card: sometimes The Wicked Dreadroot, sometimes The Wicked Eraser, but never both at once. One card, two faces.
With only one Divine card to his name, would adding Divine Evolution to the deck just guarantee dead draws?
He was still thinking it over when he opened the Chronicle system on his Eva Terminal to check.
And there, in the Chronicle's reward list, was a line that should not have been there.
[Hidden Reward: "Obelisk the Tormentor" One-Time Authorization]
Why was the hidden reward still active?
Did Obelisk come with unlimited refills?
If the authorization was genuinely permanent, why label it "one-time" in the first place?
After thinking it through, Amano concluded it probably had something to do with the mid-duel soul separation from Finesse's body. Because his soul had been forcibly ejected from the duel partway through, the system had determined that a complete one-time use of Obelisk had never actually been executed in full. So it retained the hidden reward.
Which meant he currently had roughly half of a one-time Obelisk the Tormentor authorization remaining?
Under the purifying effect of the three Aesir barrier, the foul black sludge contaminating the mid-level district's earth was quickly neutralized. Combined with rapid response from the major families, what had appeared to be a catastrophe covering the entire mid-level district caused far less damage than it should have.
The survivors of the mid-level district, relieved to have made it through another day, all landed on the same conclusion.
Heroes had saved the world.
First a Synchro had saved the world. Now heroes had taken up that banner.
The residents did not even feel their luck had been terrible. They felt it had been worth nearly dying for.
"We... we actually won!"
Finesse dropped straight onto the ground, looked up at the sky, and bumped fists with Latir and Karl standing behind her.
She had actually done it.
Fused Destiny HERO Destroy Phoenix Enforcer, carried the will of the god and everyone who had given her what they had, saved the world in the name of heroes. And finally avenged her mother.
So why did this strange feeling not match what she had expected?
For decades, revenge against the Puppeteer had been the obsession she carried every single day without exception.
But now that she had carried it out with her own hands, now that she had judged and shattered her mother's killer with an infinite-ATK kick, Finesse realized she was not as overwhelmed as she had imagined she would be.
What filled her heart right now was something else entirely.
A desperate desire to pour it all out and share it with someone. An impulse she could not hold back.
Mom. It turns out that on the road to revenge, I found something more important than the revenge itself.
Finesse smiled and picked up her Eva Terminal.
A few seconds later, Amano's Eva Terminal chimed with a VSN message from her.
[Amano Rei, I want to see you so badly right now. There has never been a moment like this one. I want to stay with you forever.]
What was she suddenly saying?
Why was she sending something this embarrassing out of nowhere.
The thought barely had time to form before his system notification chimed.
[Finesse Wein] [Affection +5] [Affection: 94]
The 90-point wall, the hardest barrier to break, had been cleared in this moment.
It seemed the final decisive battle against the Puppeteer had breached the young miss's last psychological barrier.
And now that Finesse's affection had finally crossed 90 points, did that mean...
[ULTIMATE ROMANCE SKILL UNLOCKED: "UNION OF KINDRED SPIRITS"]
[Union of Kindred Spirits: After a successful union, unlock the corresponding Legendary Duelist.]
The 90-point ultimate skill that had been waiting all this time was now successfully unlocked. But because the description was so bare, Amano could not figure out the actual effect just from reading it.
What counted as a "successful union"? What kind of union?
And who was the "corresponding Legendary Duelist"?
This was supposed to be the ultimate skill, and the system's write-up was this lazily brief?
He truly did not know what irresponsible person had designed this system.
Beyond the affection increase and new skill notification, Amano noticed another alert that had been flashing in the background since the duel ended, one he had missed because the Wicked God was still hanging in the sky at that moment.
The system notification from the instant the duel concluded:
[Professional identity detected. Recording now.]
[Professional identity: God Tamer]
[A mysterious power sleeping since thousands of years ago has awakened in this era. When it stirs, someone capable of commanding that power must emerge.]
["To earn the favor of the mightiest Wicked God, place your own soul on the scale as a wager. This is not courage. It is desire for the unconquerable."]
Shiyue Yi's professional identity: God Tamer.
From the description, this profession appeared to be bound specifically to The Wicked Avatar.
But unlike every other professional identity he had recorded before, his Eva Terminal had produced no corresponding card this time.
Which made sense. The Wicked Avatar was in a category entirely its own.
And since Shiyue's professional identity had been recorded, did that confirm she had died in the Dark Game?
The same way the Soul Binder from the Riding Duel and Sakuraba Nao the Diviner had both been recorded after their deaths.
But then again, the very first identity he had ever recorded was also Shiyue's: the Soulswindler.
Unlike anyone else in the organization, this person appeared exceptionally hard to kill.
Hard enough that even after taking a kick of infinite ATK, Amano had a nagging feeling she might still be alive.
Still alive?
Sort of. But not exactly.
In the data world, Shiyue had reconstructed her shattered body from whatever fragments she could still find and returned to physical reality. She was weaker than she had ever been in her life.
"Severely injured" did not begin to cover it. The infinite divine kick had shattered her core data stored within the Eva Network itself.
What she was now was the last shell assembled from the broken data fragments she could still pull together. That was all.
A shell. Not even a body in any real sense.
Because her core data had shattered so completely, the damage showed not just in her physical form but in visible cracks running across her face as well. Calling this condition human was already a significant stretch.
"I'm not ready to die. I have to survive."
Driven by a raw, desperate will to live, Shiyue limped toward the network hub building in the mid-level district. If she could absorb more data, she might be able to patch this shell back together.
But in the next instant, a notification from her Eva Terminal erased what little will to live she had left.
[Overkill debt detected. Please repay the outstanding debt within one week. Failure to repay the outstanding debt within one week will result in forced expulsion from Eden.]
[Current Overkill debt: infinity]
"What is this?!"
Staring at her infinite debt figure, Shiyue finally, truly despaired.
Eva mainframe, was she genuinely being asked to earn an infinite amount of money within one week?
How was this any different from a forced expulsion order?
Shiyue finally stopped limping forward.
Not only because she realized that even if she repaired her data body, she only had one week left regardless.
But because a familiar face had appeared, stepping directly into her path.
"Shio... Amano Shio?"
"Shiyue. Have you been freed from the dark duelist's control?"
Ocean-blue magical energy flowed around Amano Shio's body, framing the quiet anger beginning to surface through the girl's delicate features.