Is this the poker world?Ada thief!

Chapter 1862 Do I look like a cunning person?

"Kobayashi Hayato!?"

John, or rather, Yubel, who was possessing John, was startled.

From her perspective, what kind of person is Hayato?
This guy is incredibly powerful, has numerous guardian spirits, and even after being transported to another world, he still manages to reappear, impossible to defeat or get rid of. Now, he's thinking of temporarily yielding and avoiding a direct confrontation, focusing on creating a new world for himself and Jaden. Yet, this guy still manages to find him and won't leave.
Yubel felt a sense of déjà vu similar to Dio discovering that Jotaro's Stand was faster and more destructive than his own, even able to continue moving after he activated Time Stop and had even learned it—was this even human? He'd really outmaneuvered them!

Nearly slipping and falling from the top of the tower, Yubel turned around to look at Jaden, forcing a smile: "You're really persistent, aren't you? Did you have to chase me all the way to this world?"

"Don't make it sound like I'm pushing my luck. Oh, come on, look at me, do I look like the kind of greedy person?" Hayato spread his hands, putting on an innocent expression like a medieval honest lad. "I'm just trying to get back what you stole."

"So don't make me repeat myself a second time—get out of this world, Yubel, and give John Anderson's body back."

“That won’t do. This body is essential so that Judai’s gaze stays on me and doesn’t look away,” Yubel refused without hesitation. “If you want it, you should come and get it yourself. You know the rules.”

"In other words, a duel—"

Just as Hayato was about to begin his dark game and capture Yubel, Yubel suddenly took a big step back as if startled, almost jumping off the top of the tower: "Don't come any closer! I don't want to duel with you!"

Although Yubel, who had fought Hayato once before, now possessed the power of "Synchro Summoning" thanks to Hayato's legacy from that duel, her overly immature Synchro Summoning ability barely managed to handle the combination of Jaden and John, let alone defeat Hayato.
Unlike other mindless villains, she has a clear self-awareness and understands that she is no match for Hayato with her strength. If she were to fight Hayato, the only possible outcome would be her defeat. Therefore, her solution is obvious: never fight Hayato.

However, Hayato's actions did not stop at all because of Yubel's words: "That's strange, why should I listen to you and stop?"

The radiance of the Millennium Wisdom Wheel was revealed, and Hayato used it to launch a dark game in an attempt to capture Yubel and force her to duel him, betting Johan's body on it. However, Yubel was not an ordinary person without supernatural abilities, and she immediately released her own magic to resist the power of the dark game.

—If the Dark Game had already been formed and dragged into the absolute rules of dueling, she might not have been able to resist and could only try her best to resist the rules unilaterally set by Hayato, at most making some modifications to them. But now the Dark Game is not yet complete, so she naturally has room to resist.

Seeing Yubel resist and break the Dark Game, Hayato sneered, "What, are you so scared of me that you don't dare to fight me head-on?"

"Provocation won't work on me. I'm just not stupid enough to fight you in your area of ​​expertise."

“My specialty? That’s hard to say.” Seeing that Yubel refused to accept the duel, Hayato started from another direction—the fire of the sun overflowed from the top card of his deck, and Hayato directly summoned his strongest spirit, [Ra's Winged Dragon of Ra]!

This is the truth behind how this card player always uses card games to save the world: if you refuse to play cards properly with your opponent, don't blame them for "directly attacking the duelist."

However, Yubel was not intimidated by the threat of Ra's Winged Dragon of Ra. Instead, he confidently said, "It's just the 'Three Egyptian Gods'. Do you think you can defeat me just by having monsters like that? I also have cards that are comparable to your 'Three Egyptian Gods,' and more than one of them!"

"Come forth, [Thunder Emperor - Hamon], [Divine Flame Emperor - Uria], and [Phantom Demon Emperor - Rabiel]!"

As Hayato summoned [Ra's Winged Dragon of Ra], Yubel, controlling John's body, drew three cards from his deck and slapped them onto the rather novel "folded-wing Duel Disk" on his wrist. Behind him, the massive three-body phantom demon also materialized, fueled by his abundant duel energy.

However, setting aside the fact that [Divine Flame Emperor - Uria] and [Phantom Demon Emperor - Rabiel] dared not move at all in the face of Hayato's [Ra's Winged Dragon], [Thunder Emperor - Hamon], having received duel energy from Yubel, launched an attack on Yubel, who had summoned him, at the very first moment!?
"Roar!"

Although he hadn't expected [Thunder Emperor Hamon] to hold such a grudge and betray him on the spot, Yubel was clearly on a higher level of power than the "Three Phantom Demons." [Thunder Emperor Hamon], who had attacked him, was killed by Yubel in the first instance and returned to the card to recuperate. [Phantom Demon Emperor Rabiel] and [Divine Flame Emperor Uria] exchanged a glance, their helplessness unspoken.

They simply didn't have the guts to confront Hayato's Winged Dragon Ra head-on. After all, before the Duel Academy was established, the "Three Phantom Demons" were all directly under Hayato's control and had already experienced firsthand how terrifying the Winged Dragon Ra's power was.

Although the "Gate of the Illusions" recorded in the "Millennium Magic Book" is the original text of the "Three Illusions," and the three Illusions of red, yellow, and blue became the prototype of the "Three Egyptian Gods" in ancient Egypt three thousand years ago, there is no reason why the original is necessarily stronger than the later one. There is a possibility that the counterfeit may also surpass the original.

In particular, while Duel Monsters will certainly exert different powers due to their different levels, even the same Duel Monster will show different characteristics in the hands of different people. The best example is the Red-Eyes Black Dragon in the hands of Ryuzaki Dinosaur and the Red-Eyes Black Dragon in the hands of Jonouchi.

When others use Ra's Winged Dragon of Ra, at most they can only get Ra to take notice and use a little of their power; but Malik goes a step further, and Ra can take a few more glances at him and learn more about how he uses his power.

But Hayato? The Winged Dragon of Ra were all eager to offer their power to him, and even the ancient priests' incantations, which were originally a fixed ritual, were completely at Hayato's whim whether or not they recited them!

If the Winged Dragon of Ra in the hands of a qualified person is barely considered a spark that has been ignited, then the Winged Dragon of Ra in Malik's hands would qualify as a raging fire. But the Winged Dragon of Ra in Hayato's hands is a genuine "sun god"!
—However, even if they don't go against Hayato, Yubel, who has now summoned the two of them, is not someone to be trifled with. Don't let her lack of occult background fool you; her battle record is terrifying. She completely outclasses the "Three Phantom Demons." Not to mention that [Thunder Emperor - Hamon] tried to rebel against her, even if all three of them attacked her together, they wouldn't be able to defeat her.

Neither advancing nor retreating was an option; this single-minded approach had backfired, leaving [Divine Flame Emperor - Uria] speechless and feigning deafness, not uttering a single roar upon entering the scene. [Phantom Demon Emperor - Rabiel] followed suit.

However, their feigned indifference didn't mean Yubel wouldn't let them off the hook. Having just threatened Hayato, Yubel, seeing how useless his summoned monster was, didn't hesitate to add another card: "Tsk, useless things, utterly unreliable—in that case, I'll just combine you two into one!" "[Dimensional Fusion Kill]! Attack in the form of [Chaos Phantom Demon - Amitel]!"

The problem is that Hayato didn't stay still after Yubel summoned the "Three Phantoms"—after all, it was Yubel who chose not to duel, so why should Hayato follow the "turn-based battle" rule?

Just as Yubel was about to unleash her card, a large curtain of sharp threads suddenly shot out from the shadow beneath her feet. Although Yubel managed to retreat in time, the [Dimensional Fusion Kill] card in her hand was torn to shreds by those threads.

Not long ago, "Rice"—[Shadowdome Mystic Evil], which had recently acquired a new form and had maintained it ever since, angrily retracted its attack threads and retreated to Hayato's side to await orders. It was clear that it was unhappy that although it had successfully stopped Yubel's actions, it had failed to kill him directly.

She was dissatisfied that Yubel was such an overly perceptive guy, why couldn't he just honestly let her kill him and then use it to report to Hayato?

"Master!"

Although they arrived at the entrance to Vera's mansion a little later than Hayato, Alai and the others still managed to get there. After all, Hayato and the Winged Dragon of Ra, along with Yubel's "Three Phantoms," were all enormous beings. Even the most directionally challenged person wouldn't be unable to find their way around such obvious targets, especially since Alai and Vera both knew teleportation magic.

In reality, Hayato and Yubel's duel only lasted a few seconds. Both of them were quite proficient in summoning monsters and activating cards. Hayato, with his hand on his deck, said, "This feels just like a duel between cowboys in the West, doesn't it, Yubel?"

“If you pull out the card, I’ll break your hand; if you try to escape, I’ll break your leg; if you try to take other people hostage, I’ll crush your bones so you can’t move.”

"No matter what you do, don't even think about escaping from me."

Although Yubel did not invade this world from the magical city of Endymion as planned, but instead invaded the magical trading city of Pantameron, is going against the plan necessarily a bad thing?
Not necessarily. After all, Hayato's plan was very simple from the beginning—to ambush Yubel and then defeat her head-on!

Looking into Hayato's eyes, Yubel knew that Hayato was serious. She really didn't dare to move even a little bit, but because the Winged Dragon of Ra had already spread her divine fire while Hayato was speaking, if she really didn't resist, in a few more seconds, she was afraid that she would have no chance to escape!

"You bastard, are you really going to harm your own student's body? I'm using your student's body right now. Even if you destroy this body, I won't be hurt. Don't you realize that?!"

“That’s not necessarily true. Do you want to try touching the flames of [Ra]? That’s the fire of the sun that burns body, spirit, and soul to ashes.” Hayato was unmoved by Yubel’s words and instead started walking forward.

Yubel had already jumped off the tower during his retreat and was now standing on the "unmoving" body of [Phantom Emperor - Rabiel]. In the air in front of Hayato, the "burning" solar fire had created tangible stages for Hayato to step on and move forward.

Hayato continued to approach, and Yubel gritted her teeth and pressed on, "So you can't control those fires to only burn me without harming your own students, right?"

Although she was restricted by Hayato and unable to create distance to grab other people on the ground as hostages, John, who was possessed by Yubel, was the biggest hostage she could use. She threatened, "Stop right there, Kobayashi Hayato! If you come any closer, your student won't be alive!"

Hayato scoffed, "That kind of method might work on Judai and the others, but you seem to have some misunderstanding about me? You want me to let you escape because of John's life or death?"

“No, I’ve figured it out, Hayato Kobayashi!” Yubel raised his voice a few decibels, glanced at the sky without making it obvious, and continued, “I haven’t achieved my goal yet. Although the human body of ‘John ​​Anderson’ is important, it’s not actually that important. If you let me leave, I promise I will return this body to you.”

"Not only that, I just took a quick look around, and this world seems to be a world of mages, right? At the very least, you have quite a few mage elves around you who have the ability to cast spells. You can have them make a contract with me, binding me so that I can never attack your students again—except for Judai, my target has always been only Judai!"

"And at the same time, I am the person who loves Jaden the most in the world. I love him more than anything else in the world!"

Pointing to himself, Yubel looked as if he had truly been driven to the brink and wanted to beg Hayato for mercy: "I can talk, I can help humanity!"

Hayato was unmoved by Yubel's words. Looking at her current posture, he only felt a sense of unease. But no matter how he looked at her, even after he opened his Rune Eyes, he couldn't see any means of resistance from Yubel.

'What is this guy waiting for? Is he stalling for time?'

Hayato's instincts as a "Newtype" gave him a warning the next moment. Without warning, he suddenly stopped in his tracks as he approached Yubel and jumped back!

Meanwhile, a heavy metal door fell from the rift in the sky that had remained open since Yubel appeared. It almost grazed Hayato's body as it fell, and Hayato was just a hair's breadth away from being sent into the open door!

Alai, Vera, and even the [Temple's Water Regiment] were all surprised and unfamiliar with this suddenly appearing door, but Hayato was deeply impressed by it.

Happy 2026 everyone!