“Come, boy.
Wager your soul, and let me see what you’re truly made of!” Grapha raised its arm high, and dark violet mist boiled up from all around it, swiftly condensing in front of it into an enormous Duel Disk woven from pure shadow.
“As you wish!” Nate caught the deck as it flew to him, and the instant his fingers touched it, the long-silent voice of the System sounded once more in his mind.
[Ding!
Red Dragon Archfiend deck detected.
Time-limited quest issued!] [Quest name: The Crimson God!] [Quest objective: Defeat all Signers!] [Quest reward: the Crimson Dragon!] [Red Dragon Archfiend deck, Extra Deck components, temporary supplement complete.
Mark of the Dragon’s Wing temporarily generated!] The instant the System fell silent, Nate felt a sudden burning sensation flare across his right wrist.
He glanced down at it.
Beneath his cuff, a crimson pattern was spreading along the bones of his wrist.
The Mark of the Dragon’s Wing?
Defeat all Signers?
While he was still turning it over, the voice across from him came through.
“What, having second thoughts?” Hearing this, he tugged his sleeve down and lifted his head.
There was no time to dwell on it now.
Nate raised his eyes and gave Grapha a flat, sweeping glance.
“Regret?
That’s a word for the weak.” With that, he unfolded his Duel Disk and slotted the deck into place, the crimson pattern spreading out across its surface.
“Come on.
Give me everything you have.
If you try to feel me out this match the way you did the last one…” Nate slowly lifted his head, his gaze landing squarely on Grapha.
“…you won’t get the chance.” At those words, a hush fell over the chamber for an instant.
“After all, the true power of Dark World runs far deeper than what you’ve shown.” Nate paused, the curve of his mouth deepening.
“Am I right…
Grapha, Dragon King of Dark World?” “Dragon King?” “Wasn’t it Dragon Lord?” The crowd burst into noise at once, everyone exchanging baffled looks.
But in the next moment, the dragon across from Nate broke into laughter.
“Hahahaha…” Grapha threw its head back and laughed long and loud, the sound setting the whole tomb humming.
“I find myself liking you more and more, boy!” The instant the words landed, the dark violet mist around it surged violently.
In that moment, everyone felt it.
An invisible pressure, like an unseen wall, slammed outward in every direction.
The few students standing closest felt their chests tighten, their breath catching, and instinctively stumbled back a couple of steps.
Grapha’s body slowly expanded within the black flame, the patterns of its scales growing deeper, its bone spikes more savage, the dark power gathering between its two horns condensing without dispersing, like a black stellar core on the verge of detonation.
It lowered its great head, its crimson eyes fixed on Nate, its voice sinking as if welling up from beneath the earth.
“Boy, speak your name!” “Nate!” “Nate, is it.
It seems you really are ready.” “Then come.
Let me see what you’re made of!” As the words fell, the dark violet mist blew apart.
A dragon a full size larger than before stood atop the stone dais, its scale-armor black as the abyss, its edges shimmering with a dark violet halo.
Three pairs of crimson eyes, set across its massive head, all locked onto Nate at once.
In that instant, the chamber erupted.
After a moment, someone finally spoke, voice trembling.
“He…
when he dueled the vice president just now, he really wasn’t going all out?!” “A one-turn kill and that still wasn’t all out?!
A monster like that, can a person even beat it?!” The murmuring tangled into chaos, everyone staring in disbelief at Grapha and at the Nate standing opposite it.
In the crowd, Kujo stood frozen in place, utterly still.
He stared hard at the colossal thing before him, its presence wholly transformed, and his throat bobbed slowly.
A field wiped in one turn, three Dragon Lords, 8,100 points of direct damage.
He’d had no chance even to strike back.
And that…
hadn’t even been its full strength.
A little further back in the crowd, Rio Kastle drew her gaze away from Grapha and turned her head.
“Was he always like this?” Beside her, Kai gave a start, then shook his head hard.
“No, never…” He scratched the back of his head, his expression just as bewildered.
“Nate took a nap at noon today, and after he woke up…
it was like he’d become a different person.” At that, Rio Kastle paused.
Took a nap, woke up a different person?
She was silent for a moment, her gaze settling back on Nate, watching him quietly for a long while.
Never mind what he’d been before.
Just at this moment, that composure, standing before a Dragon King of Dark World without a flicker of panic, was absolutely not something an ordinary student should possess.
And for a student from the bottom-ranked class, he knew an unusual amount.
A couple of moves in, and he already knew what his opponent’s next play would be.
Her eyes flickered faintly.
This Nate…
she found she couldn’t quite read him anymore.
After a while, she let the corner of her mouth curve up softly.
“Duel Academy…
is about to get a lot more interesting from here on.” In the next moment, two voices pierced the air at once.
The Duel Disks unfurled their light-screens with a hum, pale blue streams of data flowing across their surfaces as both players’ starting Life Points rose clearly into view.
“Duel!” “Duel!” [Nate, LP: 8000] [Grapha, LP: 8000] The first-player marker flashed past like a bolt of lightning and finally locked onto Nate’s Duel Disk.
“First move.
I’ll take it.” Nate said it lightly, his fingers sliding across the card slot, and with a crisp rasp he drew his opening hand of five cards.
His gaze swept across them, and the curve of his mouth deepened a touch.
“My turn…” His finger landed on the first card and drew it cleanly.
“First, I activate the Continuous Spell Card…
Miracle of the Coming Light.” The card slapped onto the Spell and Trap zone, golden light spilling out across the disk’s surface.
“This card’s effect.
When activated, choose one Level 1 Dragon-Type monster from the deck and place it on top of the deck.” Nate’s fingers flicked quickly through the deck, drew one out, gave it a brief flash in Grapha’s direction, then pressed it back onto the top of the deck.
“I choose to place Spirit-Gathering Dragon on top of my deck.” Spirit-Gathering Dragon?
Hearing Nate’s words, Kujo frowned slightly.
He remembered that card, because an old professor had once mentioned it.
Spirit-Gathering Dragon was a necessary condition for the descent of a certain legendary monster in the Red Dragon Archfiend deck.
But he’d combed through every scrap of material on Red Dragon Archfiend in the library and found no record of any such thing.
He’d kept the card only because its second effect was somewhat useful, able to Special Summon a Level 1 Dragon as a bit of extra material.
Normally he hardly ever used it.
So why would this guy, on his very first play, place it on top without a second’s hesitation?
Compared to Spirit-Gathering Dragon, Specter-Waking Dragon, also a Level 1 Dragon with a Special Summon effect, was clearly the more flexible choice.
A rookie after all, it seemed.
He didn’t understand where this guy got the nerve to think he could pilot a Red Dragon Archfiend deck.