Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

Chapter 1688 The Destroyer of the World, What He Sees in His Eyes—

The light before my eyes gradually faded, and I stood atop the sand dune.

Hayato Kobayashi, the destroyer of the world, sees what he experiences during his journey through time—

"It really is all sand." Hayato loosely gripped his right hand, as if holding a camera to take a picture. "Is this the world of Duel Monsters?"

"W-Why are you still so calm, Annie?!" [Disruption·Yellow] jumped out in a panic. "I don't know why, but this place gives me a super dangerous feeling!"

"No, to be honest, the fact that we suddenly appeared in this place was dangerous enough!"

After saying that, [Disruption Green] immediately pointed at Hayato and said, "It's all because Annie was too slow that that guy was able to sneak up on us!"

"Pfft!" "Squeak!" "Smack!"

Hayato casually flicked the heads of the three "Disruption" brothers three times, then looked down at them with a stern face and said, "Useless most of the time, but when something goes wrong you start blaming me? You guys really deserve a beating."

"Ugh, that really real pain." [Disruption Yellow], slammed onto the sand by Hayato's mid-air attack, stuck its rear end out, shook its head off, and instinctively looked down at its hands. Then, it exclaimed in surprise, "Huh? Could our current state be..."

"It's materialization! It's materialization!" [Disruption·Green] struck a bodybuilding pose. "Unbelievable, we were able to materialize independently without Ani's help?"

"And it doesn't feel like I've used up much energy at all!" [Disruption Black] raised both hands to the sky, as if "praising the sun," "I feel like I could go on like this all day!"

"Could it be that...could it be that we broke through our own limitations and achieved a 'limit break' at the critical moment of Anigee's crisis?" [Disruption Yellow] laughed arrogantly. "I have felt Anigee's domineering spirit, I have felt Anigee's determination! The current [Yellow] me is already an ultimate life form that surpasses ordinary Duel Monsters!"

"Curry? (What are you mumbling about?)"

Rainbow Kuriboh climbed onto Hayato's shoulder, glanced at its brothers, Disruptor, who were now hopping around on the sand despite being just beaten by Hayato, tilted its head, utterly unable to comprehend their thought process, and finally sighed helplessly, "Curry~ (Sigh, hysteria.)"

"Way!?" Having accidentally fallen asleep during Hayato's duel, Ran woke up to find herself in a desert. Even she was startled and blurted out in Onduru, "It's actually materialized!? Everyone?!"

"Doesn't that mean I haven't been able to wash twice as many clothes as the little blue washing machine that came with it?!"

"Is that the point? Then you're invincible." Hayato complained, though he had a melancholy expression. "Ah, I actually got ambushed by Yubel, and she used her ultimate teleportation technique to send me to this other world. Now I can never go back. It's so sad."

However, on the other side, [Sanctuary's Mizuki], who had gone through the entire crossing process with Hayato, created a water ball for Hayato to wash his hands and absorb the sand off his body, and said in confusion, "Huh? Didn't you say that we shouldn't have to defend against Yubel's teleportation ability, and that we should just record and learn the relevant abilities as much as possible?"

"Idiot, who told you to expose Master!" Remembering how [Temple's Water Servants] had called him a fool earlier, Alai immediately retorted, while simultaneously drawing a magic circle on the sand. "And since you know you also have things to do, come and help me!"

"No way! I serve the Hero, not you, a scumbag mage!" Glancing at Alai, [Temple's Water Spirit] protested, "Recording location coordinates is something you can do alone, isn't it? Or is your [Summoning Magic] unable to even reach a fixed, designated plane?"

"I already told you I'm not a jerk, okay? Fine, anyway, I've almost finished." Alai sighed and looked at Hayato. "Anyway, I've saved the spatial coordinates we came from, Master. But let's make it clear beforehand how to get back. My [Summoning Magic] has a somewhat distorting effect on the summoned object. Reverse-summoning you back like last time would be difficult without the support of a powerful being, and it would be hard to do so without leaving any aftereffects."

"My summoning ritual does not cause irreversible damage to the summoned object, but the problem is that the [Alamisaiah Ritual] also has the flaw of instability. Otherwise, the hero's summoning would not need to be restarted again and again."

Above the magic circle that Alai had carved in the sand, [Temple Water Dispatch] tapped with his staff and unleashed a water column. Several water spheres that displayed the scenery of the other side of the world appeared beside the water column. Although the image of Duel Academy did appear, it immediately turned into an underwater world in the next moment. In addition, scenery from many different worlds such as hell, snow mountains, and forests also appeared.

Although it was carved into the sand, the summoning circle left by Alai had its own magic to keep the carving from disappearing. It was not wetted or deformed by the swirling water column, nor was it covered by the blown sand.

"As for reversing Yubel's teleportation, I think it's not some kind of 'magic' that can be imitated, but rather closer to a special talent of hers?"

In the past, with the help of the [Scripture of Law], Alai mastered spells from many other systems besides [Summoning Magic]. Although he was not as proficient as his two classmates, [The Great Sage of Crystallization] and [The Great Sage of Holy Magic], in alchemy and astrology, nor as accomplished as he was in [Summoning Magic], which represents divine communication, even a genius's superficial understanding is a height that mediocre people can hardly reach in their entire lives. Moreover, Alai is even more talented than a genius.
(It's absurd that Alai could cast the Divine Judgment with one hand, a feat that was barely achieved by two archmages working together.)
The sage's name, "Codex," refers to two things: firstly, he does indeed possess a magic book called "The Holy Codex of Law"; secondly, it refers to Alai's ability to compile numerous magical scriptures, making him a revitalizer, maintainer, founder, and inheritor of many magical systems. You could say his spellcasting ability is insufficient, but in terms of the breadth of his magical knowledge, no one can rival him.

However, his analysis of Yubel's teleportation ability revealed that it was not an effect that could be restored by magic, but rather a part of Yubel's own ability, or at least an ability that could not be restored by conventional magic.

"The Light of Annihilation?" Hayato's first thought was of the now-silent Light Wave. Although his clone had claimed that the power it represented was "The Light of Evolution," Hayato never imagined that it could actually enable Yubel to undergo ultimate evolution, just like Gullmon.

No, we can't blame it on the Light Wave. After all, Yubel's "teleportation" ability isn't unique to the timeline where Hayato shut up the Light Wave. He has demonstrated the ability to traverse space many times. Hayato thought that the two mages specializing in "interdimensional summoning," [Summoner Aleister] and [Sanctuary's Mizuki], would be able to figure out Yubel's ability, but now it seems they can't?

"Fw Alai!"

"Huh? That's why I've emphasized to you, Master, many times from the beginning that while my [Summoning Magic] does appear to be an interdimensional summoning, it's actually always been the divine magic 'Theurgy,' okay?" Arai retorted, hearing Hayato shift the blame to her instead of the woman beside him. In the past, Arai, known as [Magistus of the Codex], was called one of the "Three Great Sages" along with two classmates. Their Duel Monster cards at that time shared the common term [Magistus], a creative term combining "Magic" and "Hermes-Trismegistus."

The word that sounds like a tongue twister—Hermes Trismegistes—is a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. It appeared in Egypt, which had been ravaged and Hellenized by Alexander the Great. The Greeks discovered that their god Hermes was almost identical to the Egyptian god Thoth, and the two gods were subsequently worshipped as one.

During the Renaissance, this fundamental piety developed into "Hermesism," which broke away from religion and rose to the level of philosophy. It held that the universe existed only in the imagination of God, which is similar to the later "I think, therefore I am." Hermesist stone tablets were inscribed with the three mysteries of cosmic wisdom as believed in by this philosophy: alchemy, astrology, and divine communication.

Whether it was the reflection of reality in the world of card monsters or the information from Duel Monsters flowing into reality, the "Magistus" [伟贤], which is a combination of "Three Great Hermes" and "Magic", happens to be three people;
Furthermore, the three—[Sage of Crystallization - Sandriyon], who specializes in alchemy and is skilled in gem magic; [Sage of Holy Magic - Endymion], who studies astrology and has mastered celestial magic; and [Sage of the Codex - Crowley], who has plundered the strengths of many schools of thought and finally pushed forward summoning magic based on divine communication, perfectly correspond to the three great mysteries of Hermeticism.

"The so-called 'Theurgy' originally meant 'to make the gods appear and communicate with the ritualist through a ritual,' but the 'Summoning Magic' is actually more of an incomplete 'Evocation' that summons lower-level spirits than the 'Invocation' that makes the gods appear."

Alai explained, "That's why I've always thought that anyone who would lazily translate my [Summoning Magic] into 'Invocation' is just full of shit!"

"—Unless it's another [Summoning Magic]," Hayato added, referring to an alternate version of Alai's [Summoning Magic].

The usual version of the card where Arai is summoning a spirit through water—the [Summoning Magic] of [Summoned Beast - Cokutos]—is clearly what he calls "spirit summoning." But the other version, where Arai places himself within a magic circle to allow a higher being to possess him, is the true "spirit summoning."

“If you’re willing, Master, it wouldn’t be impossible to use [Summoning Magic] to summon you back in reverse,” Alai said, shrugging. “But I think it’s about time, isn’t it?”

"Yeah, I think so too." Hayato took out his phone and looked at the time on it. About three minutes had passed since he traveled through time. Just as the number on the screen jumped to the next minute, Hayato's call was suddenly connected.

"That's amazing! I don't see any cell towers around here. How did you manage that, Seth?" Hayato said in surprise after answering the phone.

"Is that all you wanted to say, Hayato?" On the phone screen, Kaiba frowned, looking annoyed. "I'm about to start testing that so-called 'Dyne Ore,' why is your location signal disappearing from the world?"

"Eh~ I thought you only had that kind of thing on my Duel Disk. Oh, I see, you have it on my phone too?" Hayato looked startled. "Wow, this gravity is amazing. Seth, have you been staring at me the whole time?"

"You're not going to say something like, 'When I cover you with the blanket, you'd better say 'thank you' instead of 'Damn how you got in here,' which is incredibly ungrateful,' are you?"

The seahorse on the other end of the screen gradually darkened: "So you, give me a proper answer to other people's questions. Did your teacher teach you to answer other people's questions with questions?"

"Why are you asking me this? Aren't we in the same class?" Hayato retorted, then shrugged. "Anyway, it's pretty much the same situation as the 'Pyramid of Light' incident, right? I'm in the world of Duel Monsters again now."

"Hmph, you bastard, did you plan this all along?" Kaiba was extremely perceptive and read something from Hayato's words. After all, he also had some New-Type abilities, and even over a phone call, he could sense some of Hayato's emotions. "You knew about the place where there was a channel to travel between worlds and went there on purpose, didn't you?"

"Hmph! I already said it, Hayato Kobayashi, before I defeat you, I will not allow you to weaken, injure, or leave this world on your own. Without my permission, you will have to fight me as a Duel Monster for the rest of your life. And now you dare to—"

"Moshi moshi? Why is the signal so bad? Hello? Hello beep—" Hayato decisively hung up the phone before Kaiba could say anything more serious, wiping the cold sweat from his brow and saying, "What's wrong with this guy? Why does it feel like gravity is getting stronger and stronger? Is this still the world of the card players?"

"Is it alright to hang up the phone like that?" Before Hayato could even organize his cards after finishing his game, Yubel had forcibly teleported him here. [Albus's Fallen Heir] and [Saintess of Guidance - Exeria], who hadn't even had a chance to properly organize their cards, were all taking advantage of this world of card spirits where they could passively materialize without expending much effort to get some fresh air. [Knight of Guidance - Friedris], standing beside Hayato, watched him finish his call and asked him this question.

"Don't worry, if Kaiba wanted to, traveling between worlds wouldn't be a problem for him anymore. If I weren't in the mortal world and if Atum didn't occasionally come back to 'visit relatives,' he might have already been flying his shuttle to the underworld to play cards with Atum." Hayato waved his hand. "The fact that he can even call me shows how advanced his technology is."

"To be honest, it's true. Even I have to specifically record the coordinates of the original world to maintain contact. Is that Seto Kaiba a monster?" Alai also complained from the side.

"But his intuition is pretty accurate. He guessed that I was deliberately sent to this world by Yubel after just a few words." Looking at the black shadows of several "birds" gradually enlarging in the distant sky, Hayato curled his lips. "Anyway, he already has my signal. He will probably be able to capture the location information of this world soon. If I don't die soon, it's not impossible for him to pull me back through the screen."

"I don't want that kind of thing. I haven't had enough fun in this world yet—no, I haven't even started playing yet." Hayato said with a smile, glancing back at the three Disruptors brothers who were having an in-depth discussion with Ran about the academic problem of "how to build a sandcastle so that it won't collapse."

The three brothers, who were causing the disturbance, also shuddered involuntarily, not knowing where this chilling feeling came from.

"Ah! You bunch of idiots, you've destroyed the castle I built!" Little Blue said angrily when she saw [Disruption Yellow]'s hand tremble and break the castle's spire.

　Why is the update at 5 PM instead of 0:00?
　　Because I saw Gqux get kicked away by Shuji's giant-sized Origin's elbow (lol)

　　Because I was playing Deadpool 2, Sam knocked me unconscious with a frying pan (lol).
　　Because I forgot to update it during setup (correct answer)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)