Oga Ryo was rattled too, but he immediately gritted his teeth and snapped back to his senses, his face turning savage.
“Nate, your skill really did catch me off guard!
But my [Transcendosaurus Gigantozowler] isn’t just about high attack!” “[Transcendosaurus Gigantozowler]’s effect activates!
When this card is destroyed, I can return one Normal Monster from my Graveyard to the Deck and Special Summon this card again!
And I get to destroy one of your cards too!” “I told you, there’s no need to save your last words for next turn.” Nate’s eyes were ice-cold, and the instant Oga Ryo opened his mouth, he cut him off with a wave of his hand without hesitation.
“The moment you activate your effect, I chain the effect of [Millennium-Eyes Restrict]!” “Once per turn, I target one monster on your field or in your Graveyard and equip it to this card as an Equip card!” Nate pointed a finger.
“My target, of course, is that ace of yours in the air.
[Millennium-Eyes Restrict], swallow the [Transcendosaurus Gigantozowler] in his Graveyard for me!” The instant the words landed, the eerie giant eye on Restrict’s body erupted with an intense suction.
A purple-black tendril stabbed straight into Oga Ryo’s Graveyard, dragging the dinosaur out by force just as it prepared to revive, and forcibly suturing it onto its own grotesque mass of flesh!
“Since your monster is no longer in the Graveyard, its Special Summon fails, and the destruction effect that follows doesn’t resolve either!” Watching the ace he took such pride in become an accessory on his opponent’s 0-attack monster, Oga Ryo’s eyes nearly split with rage, cold sweat soaking through the back of his shirt.
He stared hard at Nate’s field and, still forcing himself, roared.
“S-so what!
Even if it can’t be Summoned, it’s no big deal!
Your [Restrict] was brought out by Instant Fusion, so it can’t even attack!
With the monsters left on your field, there’s no way you can clear my full 8,000 Life Points!
I still have a chance next turn!” “Is that so?” Nate sneered.
The next second, he threw his hand up, and countless dazzling golden particles appeared out of thin air, swimming and weaving at high speed in the air, forming a galactic vortex that soared to the heavens!
Seeing this terrifying display, Oga Ryo’s pupils shrank.
“Xy…
Xyz?!” “That’s right!
Xyz Summon it is!” Nate swept his hand wide.
“I overlay my Level 4 [Sparkman] and Level 4 [Clayman] on the field!
With these two monsters, I construct the Overlay Network!” “Interloper who transcends time and space, set the second hand of fate turning now!
Xyz Summon, Rank 4, [Number 60: Dugares the Timeless]!” A demon draped in a splendid robe, wielding an illusory clock, descended with elegance, two orbs of light slowly circling at its side.
[Number 60: Dugares the Timeless] [Rank 4 / Fiend / Effect] [ATK: 1200] “Before the Battle Phase, I activate the Quick-Play Spell I just drew off Chimera’s effect, [Concentrating Current]!” “This card’s effect lets me target one face-up monster on my field.
That monster’s attack rises by its DEF value until the end of the turn.” Nate slotted the card into his Duel Disk.
“I target [Guardian Chimera], and until the end of the turn, its attack rises by its DEF (2,300)!” [Guardian Chimera ATK: 3300 + 2300 = 5600] “Fifty-six hundred?!” The whole crowd of students sucked in a sharp breath, and many couldn’t help rubbing their eyes furiously.
“And not just 5,600.” Nate pronounced sentence like a god of death.
“I activate the effect of [Number 60: Dugares the Timeless]!
I detach two Xyz materials, choose one monster on my field, and until the end of the turn, its attack becomes double!” Vmmm!
A massive phantom clockface spun backward wildly beneath Chimera, and Chimera’s aura surged up exponentially in a way that defied all logic, the violent energy actually warping the holographic projections around them!
[Guardian Chimera ATK: 5600 × 2 = 11200!!!] Staring at the blood-red figure that had broken through the eleven-thousand mark, every mind around them went blank.
Old Hiroshi was even more dumbstruck, not even noticing his glasses sliding to the tip of his nose, his lips trembling faintly.
“Over ten thousand…
in one turn, attack over ten thousand?!” He found it hard to believe.
This was a student he’d brought up!
In a single turn, the monster’s attack had skyrocketed over threefold!
“It’s over!” Nate pointed straight ahead.
“[Guardian Chimera], attack [Sabersaurus]!” The massive Chimera spread its wings and lunged at the poor dinosaur with the momentum to destroy everything.
“Hahahaha!
Kid, you walked right into it!
Everything I showed just now was an act, all to make you cocky and not Set your backrow, and sure enough you didn’t!” Facing his doom, Oga Ryo suddenly burst into deranged laughter.
“However high your monster’s attack is, it’ll end up destroyed by my Trap card all the same!
Open Set card, [Drowning Mirror Force]…
no…
[Shrink]…
no…
[Sakuretsu Armor]!
This card’s effect destroys the attacking monster when your monster declares an attack!” But…
half a second passed.
A second passed.
The Trap card at Oga Ryo’s feet seemed to have crashed, refusing to stand up no matter how long he waited.
“Wh-what’s going on?
Activate!
Blow it up for me!!” The wild grin on Oga Ryo’s face froze in an instant as he hammered frantically at his Duel Disk.
“Don’t bother trying.” Nate’s cold voice shattered his last sliver of hope completely.
“[Guardian Chimera]’s continuous effect: as long as [Polymerization] exists in my Graveyard, the opponent cannot target this card with card effects.” “Your [Sakuretsu Armor] is a targeting effect, and [Polymerization] is in my Graveyard, so your Trap card can’t affect my [Guardian Chimera]!
Which means your Sakuretsu Armor can’t be activated!” “No…
impossible!!!” In the instant Oga Ryo’s pupils quaked violently and his face twisted completely, the ultimate strike at a full 11,200 attack came crashing down!
Boom!!!
A force that crushed all in its path vaporized that 2,200-attack Sabersaurus in an instant!
A terrifying 9,000 points of overflow damage turned into a physical gale and slammed brutally into Oga Ryo’s body!
[Oga Ryo, LP: 8000 → 0] “Aaaaaahhh!!!” Amid a piercing scream, the lingering shockwave lost none of its force, blasting Oga Ryo’s entire body flying several meters and slamming him hard onto the ground.
As the smoke cleared, Nate stood calmly in the center of the field.
Dead silence across the whole scene.
A full ten seconds passed before the field, still as stagnant water, suddenly erupted with a wave of sound that seemed to overturn the sky!
“He…
he one-shot him?!!” The students from Class 5 on down felt their scalps go numb, every one of them looking at Nate as if they were looking at a monster.
“Oga Ryo, ranked 397 in the year, opens with a 4,100 monster pinning the board, and gets reverse-killed in a single turn by an OTK?!” “This has to be fake…
how could a bottom-dwelling tail-dragger from Class 10 pull off a textbook-level godlike combo?!
Is this really a student from a bottom-feeder class?!” “11,200 attack!
I’ve been dueling this long and I’ve never even seen a five-digit attack!” The very top students who had been mocking Nate moments ago were now flushed red, every one of them feeling as if an invisible hand had slapped their faces swollen.
Over on the Class 10 side, after a brief stunned moment, they erupted into a frenzy of ecstatic cheers!
“Holy crap!
Nate, you absolute legend!!” Kai was so worked up he started jumping in place, the very fat on his body jiggling with excitement.
“One-turn kill, just like that!” The students of Class 10 were all flushed red, trembling all over with excitement.
The pent-up grievance of all this time, oppressed and mocked by the top students, had been utterly blasted to pieces in this one Duel!
Who said our Class 10 is trash?!
See that?
An expert ranked 397 in the year couldn’t even last a single turn in front of our class’s Nate!
Old Hiroshi let out a long, heavy breath, looking at Nate’s back with a light of utter disbelief in his eyes.
From searching and Fusing, to dodging the pitfall, to the Xyz explosion, every single timing had been hit flawlessly, without the slightest flaw.
This kid’s dueling level was simply unfathomable!
Under the gaze of over a hundred pairs of eyes filled with shock and awe, Nate dispelled the light of his Duel Disk and started walking.
The crowd from the other classes instinctively parted to both sides, opening a path for him.
Nate walked straight up to where Oga Ryo lay sprawled on the ground.
He looked down at him from on high, then curved the corner of his mouth into a cold, haughty arc, and returned Oga Ryo’s opening provocation word for word, exactly as it had been given.
“When we go into the Ruins in a bit, the teleport scatters everyone at random.
I’m warning you, if you’re lucky enough to run into someone from our Class 10…” Nate’s gaze swept over Oga Ryo and the gaggle of flunkies behind him, long since frightened witless.
His voice was not loud, yet it made everyone’s heart shudder.
“You’d better roll far away on your own like good little dogs!” With that, Nate didn’t even bother sparing this crowd another glance.
He turned and strode off, walking calmly toward the entrance to the Ruins.
“Let’s go!” Hearing Nate’s call, Kai was the first to react.
Head held high and chest thrown out, he bellowed, “Class 10, follow Brother Nate!” “Coming!” “Keep up, keep up!” The students of Class 10 were all fired up as if injected with adrenaline, straightening their backs, and under the shocked and complicated gazes of the surrounding students from other classes, they followed behind Nate in a grand, wildly excited procession, striding head-high into the Ruins.
Until the last of Class 10 vanished into the light screen, the crowd from the other classes remained dead silent, as if even their breathing had frozen.
Not far off, several of the teachers who had been leading their groups, the ones who had been all set to watch Class 10 make fools of themselves, now came to as if waking from a dream.
No gasps, no loud discussion.
The Class 5 homeroom teacher opened and closed his mouth, as if wanting to say something, but in the end it only turned into a dry, parched swallow.
The teachers of the other elite classes exchanged glances.
They’d guessed the beginning, but never the ending.
Never imagining the one to lose would be Oga Ryo, ranked 397 in the school.
As teachers, they understood the true worth of that Duel even better than the ordinary students.
The masterful searching and board setup, the perfect command of timing, the flawless calculation…
was this really a play a student from a perennial bottom class could pull off?
This kind of cold, precise dueling didn’t look like a bottom-class student at all.
It looked more like a battle-hardened professional player.
But a student like this, why would he be in a bottom-feeder class?
With this kind of ability, getting into Classes 1, 2, or 3 should have been effortless!
Sensing the shaken looks of his peers around him, Hiroshi standing off to the side was stunned for a good long while.
Having led Class 10 for so many years, as the homeroom teacher of the school’s universally acknowledged “trash class,” he had always walked with his head down in front of these elite-class teachers, and at meetings he’d endured every manner of veiled jab and sneer.
But today…
Watching this crowd of normally arrogant peers, now struck speechless as if collectively seized by the throat, Hiroshi instinctively cleared his throat, the smile at the corner of his mouth harder to hold down than a firing AK.
He said nothing, just silently pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose, then straightened his back with immense pride and thrust his chest out high.
Looked down on for all these years, today, thanks to his own student, he’d landed an out-of-nowhere face-slap on this pack of snobbish people.
Hiroshi punched the air hard in his heart, so worked up his fingertips were faintly tingling.
He had to admit, this feeling of vindication…
felt incredible!!!