Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

Unless he wants his soul sealed again, the soul in the main game will probably have to stay in the Millennium Puzzle until the "Orichalcos" is completely defeated.

After using the soul of the moth to complete "Defense Descent," Gaia handed the "Orichalcos Fragment" to Yugi. In the instant Yugi received the green stone, he also saw the message Hayato left in the stone to convey to him.

He was transported to another world from the "Pyramid of Light" due to Anubis's dying counterattack. In the world of the Card Spirits, he met the "Legendary Dragons" who were sealed away. When he returned to the real world, he appeared in front of Dartz. After discovering that Dartz was not someone that could be eliminated by ordinary dark games, he decided to infiltrate the Doma organization.

With the help of the card spirits around him, Hayato left a lot of information in the "Orichalcos Fragment" to inform Yugi, letting Yugi know that Hayato was indeed still the Hayato they knew, and that he joined Doma for the final victory.

However, Hayato also gave Yugi some instructions in the message left by the "Orichalcos Fragment". He told Yugi this message to put his mind at ease and to cooperate with Hayato when the time was right, but it was best to keep it a secret for the time being and not tell anyone else.

If they knew that Hayato, who was standing opposite them, was not an enemy but an ally, given Jonouchi and the others' personalities, they might not be able to bring themselves to do it.

Although Yugi felt it was a bit wrong for Hayato to keep it from Jonouchi and the others, he also felt that Hayato's words made some sense. After thinking it over, he decided to keep it from Yami Yugi, with whom he was currently having a conversation.

While the two gamers were communicating on a deeper level, because they hadn't explained this to the others in the castle, they all assumed that the gamers were currently submerged due to their own grief.

Even Kaiba, who had just caught Keipai, was somewhat affected by the atmosphere and watched the game in silence.

Although he has the dream or ambition to become the world's strongest duelist, it does not mean that Kaiba is someone who will do anything to defeat his opponent. For example, when he obtained the Pyramid of Light in order to counter Hayato's three Egyptian God cards, Kaiba had the ability to actively give up this power that did not belong to him.

He wanted to defeat Yugi and Hayato, the two duelists he recognized as stronger, and then stand rightfully in the position of "strongest." This was based on the premise that Hayato and Yugi were defeated by Kaiba at their peak. Defeating his opponents when they were at their lowest point would not be a victory for Kaiba.

At this moment, Kaiba was extremely displeased by Yugi's depressed state of mind. He did not believe in the concept of "soul" and did not believe Yugi's claim that "his soul was sealed." He felt that Yugi had only been defeated once by the Doma organization, and it was too embarrassing for him to become so depressed.

However, assuming that the "soul was sealed" is true, and if we put ourselves in Kaiba's shoes after losing Keihei, we could at least empathize with that kind of grief.

Of course, the premise of this assumption simply doesn't exist; how could something like sealing a soul possibly be real? (I'm certain of that).

However, although the duel between the game and Rafiru has ended, the group's purpose in coming to the Paradis Building has not yet been achieved.

It's not that the duel between Yugi and Rafael wasn't important, but compared to that, exposing Doma's true colors, finding his stronghold, and destroying the entire organization was far more important.

Although Rafiru had dispersed all the employees beforehand, leaving only Rafiru and a bunch of troublesome Orichalco soldiers in the Paradis Building and even the entire Paradis Industrial Park, they had no one to ask for information.

However, for the Hippodrome Brothers, who were skilled hackers, machines with limited access were far easier to deal with than people who lied and provided inaccurate information. Leaving the rooftop, and following the floor plan of the Paradis Building, the group took the elevator to the data center within the building.

It must be said that although they had already marveled at the gap between Paradis Group and Haima Group and International Illusion Society when they entered the lobby on the first floor, it was only when they arrived at the data center, a place that truly reflects the strength of a company, that they realized the true weight of Paradis Group, which is said to be the strongest group in the world.

The entire five-story building was combined into one floor to house servers and store data. Despite not being a group specializing in networks and electronics, the data center built by the Paradis Group was so impressive that even Haima couldn't help but stare in astonishment.

Following the corridor between the towering, wall-like servers, we arrived at the very center of the data center. Before us stood a central server with a huge display screen and hundreds of buttons and indicator lights below it, enough to make anyone dizzy. Even with the instruction manual, it would probably take most of the day just to find the buttons.

And that was indeed the case. Jonouchi, who was usually so brave in the face of life-or-death crises, was stunned when he saw the dense array of buttons: "With so many buttons, which one should we press to find the information about the Doma organization we're looking for?"

Upon hearing Jonouchi's words, Kaiba curled his lip in disdain: "You really manage to redefine my understanding of idiots time and time again, you mediocre fool. Do you think this is some kind of fully automatic washing machine?"

"Access to internal data first requires obtaining access privileges from Paradis Group staff, and the permissions must be elevated to the administrator level sufficient to access important data. Moreover, the Doma Organization's intelligence is definitely not publicly available; the data must be encrypted, and we must find a way to crack it."

After rambling on and on, Kaiba looked at Jonouchi, who he had successfully frightened, and gave him an arrogant smile. "However, I am Seto Kaiba. Keihei!"

After calling out to Kaiba, Kaiba walked over on his own, skillfully pressed a few buttons, and started typing rapidly on a pop-up keyboard. Although he had just experienced freefall, the thrill of jumping out of a plane was nothing to Kaiba, who had seen many storms. There was no need for him to even adjust his mindset. He followed Kaiba to the control panel to assist him.

Kaiba's pride was well-deserved. Although he had always been outshone by Hayato and Yugi in the Duel Monsters arena, he had always been dominant in other areas. Keihei was even slightly better than Kaiba in the hacking field. The two brothers launched a joint attack on the Paradis Group's data center. Just a few minutes later, a few lines of garbled text flashed on the lit screen, and a pop-up window appeared on the big screen.

The pop-up window prominently displayed a six-pointed star emblem with the words "Orichalcos Barrier," confirming that the Paradis Group indeed had clues about the Doma organization!

"Hmph, I've found your weakness, Dorma."

Looking at the changes on the screen, Kaiba coldly said that he was about to begin deciphering the information about the Doma organization that he had finally found from the vast ocean of data. But at this moment, Keiping noticed a very obscure piece of data, and his expression suddenly changed:

"Wait, Nissam, this is—"

However, Guiping's words came too late. Kaiba had already used his fabricated administrator identity after hacking into the Paradis Group's internal network to access the data in front of him. Even though he hadn't cracked the password yet, the file opened automatically the next moment, and a green-haired man in a purple suit appeared on the screen.

Jonouchi looked at the Kaiba brothers, who had taken their hands off the keyboard, and said, "You said it was difficult just now, but you cracked it so quickly? Kaiba, you're really amazing."

However, Kaiba did not accept Jonouchi's rare praise. Instead, he frowned and said, "Idiot, I didn't crack this video. My fictitious administrator identity was recognized by the file, and then it opened automatically."

“I recognize this guy. His name is Dartz, and he’s the chairman of the Paradis Group. If I’m not mistaken, he’s also a member of the Doma Organization, right?” Honda looked up at Dartz, who was sitting in a chair on the screen and seemed to be observing everyone through the screen. He couldn’t help but rub his arms. “It’s strange that the file unlocked itself. Being stared at like this by this guy is really creepy.”

Just as Honda finished speaking, Dartz, who appeared on the screen, revealed a strange smile: "First of all, let me correct you. I am not a member of the Doma Organization. The correct statement should be that I created the Doma Organization."

When Mai heard Dartz actually react to Honda's words, she couldn't help but show a surprised expression: "Isn't this a video? How can it talk to people?!"

However, the game and the others didn't react as strongly as the peacock dance. While using a pre-recorded video to talk to someone might be a good way to intimidate someone the first time, Pegasus had already used this trick to death, so it wasn't surprising to them.

The second sentence that Kedazi uttered made everyone present tense up instantly.

Dartz's gaze swept across everyone's faces, and his smile gradually turned cold: "It seems that Raferu sealed the wrong target and let you escape. Nameless Pharaoh, and Jonouchi Katsuya and Kaiba Seto, you two 'Legendary Dragon' users are indeed not easy to deal with."

"But it's rare that you've all gotten together, so let's all get blown up into the sky along with this building!"

Chapter 633 Rest in Peace

Dartz's words suddenly made everyone tense, fearing that the ground beneath their feet would explode as Dartz had said.

There are many such plots in movies and TV dramas: the main characters arrive at some important location, accidentally trigger some traps left by the villains, and barely manage to escape at the cost of someone's sacrifice.

However, after Jonouchi and Honda cautiously looked around, they found nothing. There were no impenetrable walls that seemed to descend from the sky to turn the place into a cage to prevent escape, nor were there any sudden red lights and alarms. All they heard was the buzzing of a server running.

Malik pried Ryuzaki's hand off his trouser leg, his expression strange: "It seems nothing happened?"

"Ha, isn't that obvious, Malik Ishdar? I just wanted to see what kind of funny expressions you'd make when a crisis comes." Dartz had just been wearing a cold expression, as if he really was going to press "2887" to make the Paradis Building self-destruct, but the next second a wicked smile appeared on his face. "The Paradis Group is an important asset of the Doma Organization. Why would I plant a bomb here?"

Hearing that no bomb would be detonated, although they were angry and annoyed at being tricked, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed a little. Dartz also observed everyone's reaction with great interest.

“You know me, Dartz.” Malik frowned as he looked at Dartz on the screen, who had an air of superiority about him and eyes like an entomologist observing the behavior of ants moving house in an ecosphere.

As the de facto ruler of the former international criminal organization Gurus, Malik's name was not a secret due to its spread among the organization's members. However, due to the mind control ability of the Millennium Scepter and Malik's tendency to stay at home since then, it was actually Lishid who acted as his proxy and appeared in public under the name "Malik".

On one hand, Malik felt that ordinary people were not qualified to make him, who possessed two God Cards at the time, take action. On the other hand, compared to Malik, who looked somewhat sickly and delicate, like a kept man, Lishid, a bald, burly man with tattoos resembling ancient Egyptian priest script on half of his body, had more of the aura of a criminal organization leader.

The result of having Rishid as his proxy was that Malik only discovered the international wanted poster for "Malik" was actually Rishid's image when he returned to his body, which had been ravaged by his dark personality, and was given a second life to start anew.

So much so that when Malik initially wanted to turn himself in, this happened—

Police officer (holding a photo of Lishid): "Is that you in the photo on this arrest warrant?"

Malik: "It's me."

Police officer: "Really?"

Malik: "Yes. Back then, I liked to wear cloaks."

Police officer: "This isn't you."

Malik (pointing to the photo): "You're saying he's not me?"

Police officer: "No."

Malik: "I said he's not me. This isn't me at all!"

—After much persuasion, Malik, dressed in a ridiculously lewd acrobatic shirt, was kicked out by Interpol as a hopeless otaku obsessed with anime and manga. He was warned that if he continued to obstruct official duties, he would be fined. This left Hayato, who had hoped to get Malik arrested and reform him in prison, quite disappointed.

Even though turning himself in and admitting that he was Malik was useless, Malik began to discover that everyone he encountered in the Doma organization could recognize him as himself and not Rishid after the organization's influence began to surface.

Although somewhat moved, Malik was still puzzled as to how the Doma organization possessed more intelligence than Interpol. Could it be that the Interpol agents were all slackers who were paid but could only solve cases with the help of elementary school students?

Darz twirled her slender fingers through her green hair and said casually, "Your information has never been a problem for Doma. Anyone who has the power to control a country's government can easily obtain your file, which, although well-protected by the tomb-keepers, is still within the Egyptian government."

"Malik Ishdar, who was capable of committing the heinous act of patricide, was actually under the watchful eyes of Doma all along, not just you, but everyone present here and every individual in the entire human civilization."

Upon hearing Dartz's words, Honda frowned and said, "What kind of nonsense is that? How could such an organization possibly exist in the world?"

Kaiba calmly said, "Although I don't like to recall the past, I remember that after I forced Kaiba Gosaburo to adopt me and Keihei through a bet, during the first lesson in order to train me into an elite, Kaiba Gosaburo mentioned it to me."

"Beneath the peaceful surface of human civilization, there has always been an invisible hand that manipulates the threads. Whether it is an ordinary person who lives a mundane life, a capitalist who dominates the business world, or a politician who holds power in a great country, they have always been controlled by that invisible hand in terms of life and death. At least, Gosaburo discovered that the shadow of that hand was behind Kennedy's case."

"After learning of the existence of this hand, Gosaburo, unwilling to be manipulated by others, had a crazy idea: he would plunge the world into war and disrupt the world stage, so as to force the hand to reveal its true form in order to become the world's ruler."

Kaiba's words made Dartz smile as if he had remembered something amusing, but the smile was full of contempt: "Kaiba Gosaburo, there are few people who have discovered the existence of Doma. I must say that his ambition is indeed quite crazy, and he certainly has the ability to carry it out. Unfortunately, I don't want his boring ambition to come true."

"so---"

"So, in my rebellion against Gosaburo, Doma really did get involved?" Kaiba's gaze toward Dartz became quite dangerous.

Although the virtual projection system that Kaiba invented for his dream of "Kaiba Paradise" was used for military purposes by Gosaburo, Kaiba's rebellion, which stemmed from his feeling that his dream had been tainted by Gosaburo's dirty ambition, was entirely of his own subjective will.

However, Doma actually dared to use him as a weapon against Gosaburo. If Dartz himself hadn't been away, Kaiba would have already turned on him and attacked. Instead, he would have patiently tried to extract information from Dartz.

The game looked up at Dartz on the screen: "I don't understand, how could Doma have such a great influence? How could an organization control a country?"

The game was just a casual remark that revealed his inner thoughts, but to his surprise, Dartz honestly replied, "Time, the answer is simply that I have an extremely abundant amount of time, more than any person or any civilization."

Just as Dartz in the video was describing to the gamers the tireless efforts of the Doma Organization over the past tens of thousands of years and the hardships they had endured in guiding the development of civilization, the helicopter carrying Hayato Rafiru and Amelda landed on the island where the Doma Organization headquarters was located.

Although Dartz seemed perfectly normal when he was "communicating" with the game, it was actually just a video file stored in the Paradis Group's database, which Dartz completely disregarded. Dartz himself was still waiting for Rafael and the others to return in front of his usual altar.

Dartz was somewhat dissatisfied that neither Amelda nor Rafael could defeat their respective opponents, Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto. After all, he had specifically sought out Rafael and the other two to train them into the "Three Musketeers of Doma" in order to deal with Yugi and the other "Legendary Dragon" users.

Although they failed to obtain a powerful soul, Raphiel's statement that the Eye of Timaeus had abandoned the nameless pharaoh as its user was undoubtedly good news. As long as they continue collecting souls, they can still awaken the Orichalcos, but the opportunity to defeat the legendary dragon isn't always available.

Ten thousand years ago, the "Legendary Dragon" changed from one to three. Dartz was unsure if the three "Legendary Dragons" would reunite under certain circumstances and surprise him. However, even if they were to merge, all three "Legendary Dragons" would have to be gathered in the present world. Now that the Nameless Pharaoh had been abandoned by one of the "Legendary Dragons," Dartz was no longer a threat.

After the three returned to the Doma headquarters, Dartz, showing great concern for his subordinates, told Hayato that they were not far from awakening "Orichalcos," and that with the addition of five or six more high-quality duelist souls, they would have enough power.

Therefore, Darz had prepared a video specifically to let the game team know where the headquarters of the Doma organization they had been longing for was, so that they would not run around the world anymore but would hurry up and come to them, so that Rafiru and the others could take action again and wipe them out in one fell swoop.

Since they were waiting for the game to come to them so they could relax and prepare, Raferu and Amelda didn't really relax during their rare rest time. Instead, they went back to their respective resting places to adjust their decks and prepare for the final battle. Hayato did the same.

Since joining the Doma organization, Hayato has been dueling frequently, which is due to his hunting of duelists' souls. After many duels, he has accumulated a lot of DP points that he hasn't used, especially after recently engaging in many high-quality duels.

Although Hayato is currently using a pure [Inferno] deck "as a member of the Doma Organization" and has gradually gotten used to the deck, the [Inferno] deck's potential is limited without the Link Summoning method that greatly enhances it. While it's sufficient for dealing with ordinary duelists, it's still a bit lacking against opponents like Dartz.

Just like when Hayato used pure [Dragon's Radiance] last time, he never expected Dartz to pull out a [Nuclear Demon] card in his hand. If he used [Inferno Machine] to deal with Dartz, who knows if Dartz would pull out a counter card like [Gale Barrier Statue].

Hayato has enough DP points to choose one or two powerful UR cards that he can use in the shop, such as the invincible [Crimson Beast - Tower Isa], the unstoppable [Thunder King], and the full-power [Surfing Inspector], making Hayato's deck even more likely to bring smiles to his opponents.

However, Hayato has a bad habit of having a strange confidence in his luck. It's like some unlucky players who, despite knowing their own luck, still stubbornly spend money to try and cheat their way into a gacha game. Hayato chose the affix gacha function in the shop, intending to draw some powerful cards to enhance his existing deck based on the affixes he had already unlocked.

Hayato spent DP points as quickly as he had accumulated them, turning tens of thousands of DP points into a mere 500 in the blink of an eye. In his place appeared a thick stack of unopened card packs. This time, Hayato chose his old friend's affix—[Gaia].

As the card packs were opened one by one, Hayato's face visibly darkened. Although he had drawn some useful cards, the cards in the packs were really not worth the DP points he had spent. In the blink of an eye, he had opened more than half of the packs, but he hadn't even gotten a single SR-level card. It looked like he was about to lose everything.

However, the system does have a pity system. When he opened the last pack, the guaranteed SR and UR cards from every hundred packs appeared together. What surprised Hayato was that it wasn't just one UR card, but two UR cards, making it worth the price of admission.

The five cards in the card pack were unfolded in front of Hayato one by one:

[Giant Axe Raider] (R), [Creation of Heaven and Earth] (R), [Chaos Form] (SR), [Ritual of the Super Warrior] (UR), [Legendary Gladiator - Chaos Soldier] (UR)

Despite choosing the "Gaia" affix, Hayato was surprised to find himself drawing a bunch of "Chaos Warrior" cards.

While it's true that there's a significant connection between [Dark Knight Gaia] (a Normal Monster) and [Chaos Warrior] (a Ritual Monster), their system compatibility isn't high. And frankly, I've always been a pure [Gaia] player, always playing a pure [Gaia] deck. Even though opening two UR cards is a small gain, I have absolutely no chance of using them.

[Ding~ New mission activated]

Side Quest: Ninety-Nine Cuts to Forge the Future