The moment the Dark Ritual Priest finished speaking, dark crimson energy became visibly drawn from his body and poured into the pale girl standing beneath her parasol.
The hooded man immediately looked more exhausted, as though a portion of his vitality had been stripped away.
At the same time, bloody energy surged around Vampire Fraulein, growing so dense that it almost seemed to spill from her body as a physical substance.
It truly looked as though the duelist’s life itself were being transferred into his monster.
“Vampire Fraulein’s effect activates when one of my Zombie monsters battles an opponent’s monster!” the Dark Ritual Priest declared.
“I can pay Life Points in multiples of 100, and my battling monster gains ATK and DEF equal to the amount I paid!” He thrust out an arm.
“I pay 1000 Life Points and convert that life force into power for Zombie Werewolf!” [Dark Ritual Priest — LP: 4000 → 3000] [Zombie Werewolf — ATK: 1200 → 2200] Empowered by Fraulein’s effect, Zombie Werewolf instantly surpassed Assault Wyvern.
It lunged forward, dragged the dragon back down as it tried to take flight, and savagely tore it apart.
[Yusuke — LP: 4000 → 3600] The impact from the battle swept through Yusuke, but strangely, part of the lingering shockwave continued past him and struck one of the remaining cards in his hand.
The card immediately dissolved into golden particles and vanished.
Yusuke glanced at his hand.
“A Trap effect?” “Precisely.” The Dark Ritual Priest smugly pointed toward his back row.
“I activated it when my monster attacked.
Continuous Trap—Robbin’ Goblin!” His face-down card was now standing face-up behind his monsters.
“Whenever a monster I control inflicts battle damage to you, Robbin’ Goblin forces you to discard one random card from your hand!” Yu-Gi-Oh!
was a game where card advantage mattered enormously.
A difference of even one card could completely change the direction of a Duel, which was why strategies built around stripping cards from the opponent’s hand had remained among the most obnoxious tactics in the game since its earliest days.
“Heh.
As long as Vampire Fraulein remains on my field, my monsters are practically unbeatable,” the Dark Ritual Priest said with a sneer.
“I end my turn.” ‘That’s it?’ Yusuke raised an eyebrow.
Vampire Fraulein was still in Defense Position.
The priest hadn’t switched her to Attack Position to join the assault, probably because her ATK was only 600.
Putting such a weak monster in Attack Position would make her an obvious target on Yusuke’s next turn.
There was another issue as well.
Vampire Fraulein could only boost a Zombie monster when it was actually battling an opponent’s monster.
If she attacked Yusuke directly, she could only deal her ordinary 600 damage.
Apparently, the Dark Ritual Priest had decided that squeezing out another 600 damage wasn’t worth exposing Fraulein as an easy opening.
Yusuke would have made the opposite choice.
The reason was simple.
Another successful attack would have triggered Robbin’ Goblin again and stripped another card from his opponent’s hand.
That extra discard was worth far more than the relatively minor Life Point damage.
It was another small detail that highlighted the difference between how Yusuke understood the game and how duelists in this world approached it.
Throughout the various Yu-Gi-Oh!
anime, duelists had never seemed nearly as obsessed with card advantage as competitive players from the real world.
That was particularly true of ordinary duelists in Satellite, who often valued Life Points far more highly than hand resources.
Then again, the environment itself explained part of that difference.
In competitive play from Yusuke’s old world, a single additional card could sometimes generate an entire chain of resources by itself.
Being up or down by one card could mean an enormous difference in what a player was capable of doing.
Satellite was a much slower environment.
Duelists regularly opened with several cards that had no immediate use and could sit uselessly in their hands for multiple turns.
From the perspective of people accustomed to that kind of game, losing a random card might genuinely feel less important than protecting their Life Points.
Take what had just happened, for example.
The Dark Ritual Priest probably thought Robbin’ Goblin had taken a valuable resource from Yusuke.
In reality, he’d done Yusuke a favor by discarding a card that had been stuck uselessly in his hand since the opening turn.
“My turn—draw.” Yusuke drew his card, then immediately pressed a button on his Duel Disk.
“I activate my Set card—Continuous Trap, Birthright!” The Trap flipped face-up.
“Birthright lets me target a Normal Monster in my Graveyard and Special Summon it in Attack Position!” The Dark Ritual Priest frowned.
“A Normal Monster?
But when did you get one into your Graveyard—” “I’ve got one.” A smile appeared on Yusuke’s face.
“It’s the card your Robbin’ Goblin randomly discarded from my hand just now.” Lightning began crackling across the field.
“Come back, my beloved—” Yusuke caught himself.
“…I mean, my ace!” A thunderbolt split the darkness.
“Summoned Skull!” The skeletal archfiend descended beneath a storm of golden lightning.
[Summoned Skull — ATK: 2500] The Dark Ritual Priest shot an angry glare toward his own Robbin’ Goblin.
“It just happened to discard that card…?” Then he quickly recovered and gave Yusuke a cold smile.
“You may have summoned a powerful monster, but with Vampire Fraulein on my field, do you really dare attack?” Fraulein could convert Life Points into additional ATK for any Zombie monster involved in battle.
If Yusuke sent Summoned Skull after Zombie Werewolf, the Dark Ritual Priest only needed to pay 1400 Life Points to push the Werewolf high enough to destroy Yusuke’s freshly revived ace instead.
Yusuke already had an answer.
“I activate the Spell Card Murmur of the Forest.
It lets me change one face-up monster you control to face-down Defense Position.” The Dark Ritual Priest’s expression changed.
“What?!” “I choose Vampire Fraulein.” The pale vampire lowered her eyelids as though suddenly overcome by sleepiness.
She dipped the brim of her parasol, bowed her head, and dissolved back into a face-down card, seemingly drifting into a deep slumber.
Yusuke smiled.
“A face-down monster can’t activate its monster effects.” “Tch…” The Dark Ritual Priest clicked his tongue.
“You actually found a way around Fraulein.
But the moment you activated a Spell Card, my Continuous Spell Spell Absorption also applied.
I gain 500 Life Points!” [Dark Ritual Priest — LP: 3000 → 3500] Yusuke pointed forward.
“Summoned Skull, attack Zombie Werewolf!
Lightning Strike!” Electricity gathered around the skeletal fiend before erupting downward as a massive bolt of thunder.
Zombie Werewolf was blasted apart.
[Dark Ritual Priest — LP: 3500 → 2200] The pain of the Shadow Duel tore through the Dark Ritual Priest along with the impact.
He clenched his teeth and endured it before immediately continuing.
“But a werewolf like mine doesn’t stay dead!
When Zombie Werewolf is destroyed by battle, I can Special Summon another Zombie Werewolf from my Deck, and that new monster gains 500 ATK!” A card shot from his Deck in a streak of golden light.
Another Zombie Werewolf materialized on the field, stronger than the first.
[Zombie Werewolf — ATK: 1200 → 1700] A smug look returned to the Dark Ritual Priest’s face.
“Undead monsters are tenacious.
If you fail to destroy them completely, they only come back stronger.” Yusuke calmly placed one more card into his back row.
“I Set one card and end my turn.”