Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

Hayato glanced at the system panel displaying "Defeated 2/3 of the users of the 'Legendary Dragon'", and couldn't help but grin mischievously. He had previously defeated Yugi and Jonouchi, and he had also defeated Ameruda, Baron, and Raferal once each in Doma. Dartz had also been personally killed by him.

To complete this task, Kaiba will have to suffer a beating, but that guy who's always on a card-playing spree never resists anyway. It's also perfect timing; I haven't fully optimized the Shaddoll deck I got after the previous task, so I'll use Kaiba as my opponent to try out this "pure" Shaddoll deck.

With that thought in mind, Hayato got on his motorcycle and sped away.

—May this world, once again saved by playing cards, receive its blessings—

Even at night, the bustling city of San Francisco remains radiant, its ever-burning lights dispelling the darkness and making it seem like a city that never sleeps.

However, there are always places where light cannot reach, such as deserted alleys and dark, empty sewers.

"Tick-tock-"

Water droplets dripping from the pipe splashed onto the scales, and a long, black snake slowly crawled out of the water. After vomiting out the indigestible foreign objects in its stomach, it seemed to have exhausted all its strength and slid limply back into the water, dissipating into a wisp of black smoke that was diluted by the sewage.

What the strange snake spat out was a perfect sphere, which looked like a glass bead, and its verdigris color gave it the appearance of a beer bottle.

A beam of light shone from the sphere onto the wall beside the sewer, gradually forming a phantom figure—Dartz, who should have died in his duel with Hayato.

"Cough cough!" Where was the composure he had when he was the leader of Doma? Relying on the last bit of dark power he had cut off before the connection with the Orichalcos God was severed, he managed to activate a backup plan that he had casually left behind hundreds or thousands of years ago.

However, Dartz at this moment cannot be considered "resurrected," because it is simply an independent consciousness that separated from him at some unknown time. Although it inherited all the memories of his own death at Hayato's hands and had the same thoughts, Dartz himself was indeed dead.

Because she inherited Dartz's memories from the last moment when his thoughts changed, Dartz is still alive now, but he no longer has the idea of ​​destroying the world.

Because Hayato had already wrested the power to decide humanity's fate from Dartz's hands in that duel. A bleak future may await at the end of humanity's destiny, but humanity's fate will be changed by humanity itself.

"I don't know what to do with my 'resurrected' life," Dartz muttered to himself, leaning against the wall as he struggled to his feet. "Let me, a soul who survived the apocalypse, once again become an observer of human civilization. I truly look forward to seeing what kind of future you will lead humanity to, Hayato, my hero..."

As Dartz watched the Orichalcos stone, which carried his resurrected soul, slowly roll away into the distance due to its shape and the terrain, he went over to pick it up.

But just then, footsteps sounded in the sewers, which should have been deserted, approaching Dartz from the darkness.

A slender, fair hand picked up the Orichalcum stone from the ground and held it in his hand. A white-haired boy with East Asian features appeared in front of Dartz, with an intoxicated expression. He took a deep breath at the Orichalcum stone in his hand: "Mmm~~ The air is so sweet. Is this the darkness of humanity on that 'Orichalcum God'? It smells too good."

"I'm starting to get a little jealous of Hayato-kun. He can actually swallow so much dark power all by himself." A pair of rabbit-ear-like shapes stick up from the top of his messy hair. The boy's handsome face looked at Dartz, who was on guard, and a ferocious smile appeared on his face. "However, I'm really lucky. I actually managed to catch a fish that slipped through the net. It was worth hiding and watching the show from beginning to end."

"Although I haven't waited for the right time to enter the game, with your strength as a supplement, it might be enough for me to start an interesting game."

Dartz's gaze didn't linger on the boy who had suddenly appeared before her, but instead turned to the darkness behind him. In the churning darkness, like boiling water, Dartz sensed an extremely familiar presence, and her eyes widened in shock: "You are! From three thousand years ago—"

"Shh~, I want to keep a little mystery until the end, though there isn't much." The boy continued to smile, and in addition to the Orichalcum he had just picked up, he had somehow produced a golden eyeball. "Let me introduce myself, my name is Bakura now."

"Besides, compared to you who only noticed Hayato's uniqueness when you arrived at Pegasus's castle, I had my eye on Hayato from the very beginning. In other words, I was the one who arrived first."

Chapter 669 The Entry into Egypt

"Games are everything in my life."

"Games are the reason I live."

"So I will show the utmost respect to my game opponents. When I lose the game, I will wear a jumpsuit made of denim and wait to grow old as a penalty."

"Well, that's exactly what I thought when I was younger."

Holding a photo album in her hands, Muto Sugoroku, sitting behind the counter, said somewhat embarrassedly, casually tugging at the denim jumpsuit she was wearing, "Well, you've all seen the result."

“Even if you say that, Master Sugoroku,” Jonouchi said, holding a photograph in his hand with an incredulous expression, “how could we possibly believe that the super tough guy in the photo is actually you, Master Sugoroku!”

In the photo in Jonouchi's hand, a handsome middle-aged man in a black suit and a top hat, looking like he's about to propose, stands next to a camel, making a cool gun gesture towards the camera, as if saying something like "hit your heart."

The man's signature starfish hairstyle and the date of the photograph printed in the corner of the photo, 1960, confirm that the handsome man in the photo is none other than Muto Sogoku himself, who is standing in front of Jonouchi at this moment!

"Not only that, but what's with that height too?"

Honda also sidled up to the side of Jonouchi, looking down at the handsome uncle in the photo who could easily climb onto a camel, and then looking up at Muto Sugoroku, who was only showing his chest and above even when standing behind the counter. "It is true that people will become shorter as they get older due to muscle atrophy and bone aging, but the extent to which you, Grandpa Sugoroku, have become shorter is like a completely different persona!"

"Eh~ Is it really that bad?" Muto Soroku scratched his head, seeing that both Jonouchi and Honda didn't believe the photo was real, and helplessly spread his hands, "But back then there was no Photoshop or other forgery technology, this photo is indeed real, and the person in it is indeed me."

Since Grandpa Sugoroku has said so, although it's hard to believe that "Grandpa Sugoroku Muto, who looks like a terrible old man, was actually a super handsome and charismatic tall man in his youth," everyone can only accept this undeniable fact.

“I was thinking that Yugi’s current height might have reached its limit, after all, even Grandpa Sugoroku was only this tall at his age. It turns out that Grandpa Sugoroku was so much taller when he was young.” Kyoko said, glancing at Yugi who was smiling smugly beside her. “Congratulations, Yugi, you still have the potential to grow taller in the future.”

"To be honest, I'm not that short now, I don't think. Besides, I've grown a full centimeter since I was in Duel Kingdom!" Although Yugi was happy to learn from his grandfather's old photos that he still had the potential to grow taller, he genuinely felt that he wasn't that short, and argued.

However, Hayato, who was sitting to the side, was playing cards with the customer opposite him when he casually delivered a fatal blow to Yugi: "But Yugi, aren't you the same height as Rebecca, who is six years younger than you? The [Cyber ​​Terminator Dragon] with an attack power of 16000 has a defense penetration effect, yay, I win."

"Oh, she's crying."

The overconfident elementary school duelist was utterly defeated by Hayato in one turn. He ran out of the Kameji Card Shop crying with his deck in hand. Hayato, however, felt no remorse for bullying the elementary school student. Instead, he happily collected the 500 DP points from the system's settlement and casually sent the [Morphinfin] card that dropped from defeating the elementary school student to the shop for dismantling.

Hayato glanced at Yugi, who had fallen into a slump after his casual remark and was muttering to himself things like "Rebecca developed too early," and turned to Sugoroku, saying, "Grandpa Sugoroku, did you specifically bring out a photo from over forty years ago just to tell us that you were handsome back then too?"

"No, I'm not trying to brag about how handsome, charismatic, and popular I was when I was young. Well, that's about it." Muto Soroku said, holding up two fingers in a gesture that made him lose a Korean client.

Immediately, Muto Sugoroku coughed to clear his throat, put on a serious face, and said earnestly, "You guys are about to embark on a trip, aren't you?"

Seeing that Grandpa Shuangliu had gotten down to business, Yugi recovered from his disappointment and nodded seriously: "Because of the global ocean current fluctuations caused by Dartz, the International Illusion Society team accidentally salvaged a shipwreck from a thousand years ago. After research by the archaeological team, it was discovered that it was a ship from an ancient kingdom that believed in the power of gemstones."

"That kingdom seemed to believe that, unlike other minerals, naturally formed gems harbored powerful forces, so they regarded the seven gems as national treasures, and those gems just happened to be on that ship." After a pause, Yugi revealed a subtle smile, "However, the fact that the ship sank to the bottom of the sea tells us that the kingdom's final fate after losing the seven gems was destruction."

"However, that's not important. Pegasus said that after learning about the story of this kingdom, he was very inspired and wanted to design a brand new Duel Monsters series based on the seven gems he obtained. However, although he had some initial inspiration, he did not have the ability to realize it, so he thought of going to Egypt to try to find the inspiration to complete the series."

As he spoke, Yugi took out several sheets of paper from a backpack beside him. They depicted all sorts of monsters, some of which were warriors with jewels inlaid on their armor, and others were the Four Divine Beasts, such as the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise, with crystal structures on their bodies. However, without exception, all of these were rejected drafts that Pegasus had sent to Yugi and Hayato.

Designing Duel Monster cards isn't simply a matter of completing the design; it also requires the card to resonate with the spirits and receive their approval to be finalized. Although Pegasus's designs were highly polished, the lack of spirit resonance indicates that his designs weren't the most suitable for the gems.

This isn't the first time Bekas has encountered this situation. Over the years, he has frequently had the inspiration to design a card but hasn't yet completed it.

Unfortunately, inspiration isn't something you can force. Pegas racked his brains for a long time but couldn't come up with a solution, so he had no choice but to give up. He decided to go on a trip to relax, hoping that he might find inspiration to complete the card design during his travels.

However, Pegasus had another reason for deciding to embark on his journey: after experiencing the sealing of his soul and its immersion in the endless darkness within the body of the "Orichalcos" during the Doma incident, and then being resurrected, Pegasus discovered that the remaining power of the "Millennium Eye" residing within him had disappeared.

Normally, Pegasus could understand that the power remaining in his left eye had been exhausted over such a long period of time. However, the problem was that before that power completely disappeared, Pegasus saw a stone slab with the vision of his left eye, which he did not possess, and saw what appeared to be the figures of Yugi, Kaiba, and Hayato in front of the stone slab.

The reason for the uncertainty was that Pegasus could only vaguely see that the three people's faces were indeed very similar to the three people in his memory, but their height, skin color and even clothing were different.

Pegasus didn't know whether he should believe the "vision," but he knew at least one thing: he had seen the stone tablet in the "vision" before. It was the stone tablet he had found by chance in Egypt when he was traveling the world in search of a way to resurrect his lover, and it was at that time that Pegasus obtained the "Millennium Eye."

Since it doesn't matter where you go first when traveling the world, Pegasus decided to go to Egypt first. He thought that revisiting the place might give him some inspiration by experiencing how time has changed the landscape. He could also try to find that stone slab again and see what was going on with his hallucinations.

Meanwhile, Pegasus also extended an invitation to the three people who appeared in his vision, inviting them to go to Egypt to help him investigate the Ultimate Technique. And, unsurprisingly, Pegasus's invitation to Kaiba was ruthlessly rejected.

"If you dare waste my precious time with your superstitious talk of 'vision' and 'prophecy' again, just wait for my [Blue Eye] to punish you!"

Anyway, that's the general idea. It seems that Kaiba threatened Pegasus in this way. When talking to Hayato, Pegasus sounded quite helpless, as if he couldn't understand how Kaiba could maintain his "superstition" about science after experiencing so much.

Hayato and Yugi accepted Pegasus's invitation to travel to Egypt.

It has to be said that Pegasus's choice of timing couldn't be more perfect, because coincidentally, Domino City High School was currently on holiday. Yes, you heard right. Although he's a legendary duelist who can save the world with card games, Hayato and his friends still remember that they are students—how touching!

Well, to be honest, it's not really surprising. In fact, the timing of the major events in the past has basically all been during holidays. Since they don't have to go to school because of the games, it seems like they don't even have to go to school when they play cards.

Just yesterday, Jonouchi was punished by being made to stand for a whole class period for sleeping in class, talking in his sleep, and shouting "How can I lose when [Red-Eyes Black Dragon] is charging at me?"

In short, unlike the Dragon Cancer president who dropped out of school with only a junior high school diploma to go home and inherit the family business, Hayato and the other good students decided to take advantage of the winter break to go to Egypt to accompany Pegasus on a trip. Moreover, it's not just Hayato and Yugi; Jonouchi, Honda, and Kyoko will also be going along.

On one hand, there was just enough time to have fun during the holiday, and Pegasus took on the role of the big spender, covering all the expenses for everyone. After all, for Pegasus, money was just a number. His biggest pursuit in the future was simply to make Duel Monsters better and better and to design more interesting cards.

On the other hand, perhaps because he witnessed the return of the souls of the Atlanteans from ten thousand years ago to their homeland and the reappearance of the landscape in the ruined city of Atlantis, Yami Yugi made up his mind to set off to find his lost memories.

To this end, Yami Yugi borrowed the cards of the Egyptian God cards from Hayato and went to the Egyptian Antiquities Exhibition Hall to find the stone tablet that recorded his past self three thousand years ago and the person who looked like a seahorse, and used the power of the Egyptian God cards.

Before this, Jonouchi and the others thought that once the card was shown, Yami Yugi might have to part ways with them. They said goodbye solemnly for a long time. Honda and Jonouchi, two strong boys, were both a little teary-eyed, not to mention how sad the sentimental Kyoko was at that time.

However, after raising the cards of the three Egyptian God cards to the stone slab, what appeared before Yami Yugi was not his own memories, but rather a phantom of a stone slab. The stone slab seemed to have been placed in a palace, on which was drawn a human figure, but many parts of its body were missing.

What particularly caught Yami Yugi's attention was that the shape of the empty space on the stone slab seemed to correspond remarkably to several of the Millennium Artifacts he knew.

For example, the ring-shaped opening on the top of the humanoid head can hold the Millennium Jewelry, the opening on the forehead can hold the Millennium Eye, the opening on the right hand is shaped like the Millennium Scepter, the abdomen is shaped like the Millennium Wisdom Wheel, and there is a triangular opening at the location of the heart, which seems to be prepared for the Millennium Puzzle.

Aside from the two "scale"-shaped gaps and the one "Anka" symbol-shaped gap corresponding to the Millennium Treasures, Yami Yugi had no recollection of them. He could find the corresponding Millennium Treasures for most of the gaps on the stone slab from his memory and fill them in.

Although he didn't know what would happen if he filled in that stone slab, since the stone slab that recorded the king's memories had given him this guidance, Yami Yugi felt that he might need to find that stone slab and fill in the seven [Millennium Artifacts] in order to regain his memories.

Coincidentally, Pegasus said he had seen the stone tablet before and was also going to Egypt to find it. Although he hadn't collected all the Millennium Artifacts yet, the game thought it would be good to find the stone tablet first to complete one of the objectives.

"It's because you're all heading to Egypt that I wanted to tell you this," Muto Sugoroku said earnestly, taking a deep breath. "In Egypt, there's one thing you absolutely must pay attention to."

"Never randomly hire a tour guide on the street, you'll get ripped off!"

So that's all you wanted to say after all that!

Chapter 670 The Gray Tower

"Don't underestimate the experience I've accumulated over a lifetime!" Upon hearing Jonouchi's complaint, Grandpa Sogoku immediately retorted and began to recount his experiences from decades ago.

For Jonouchi and the others who were hearing this story for the first time, the story of how their young grandfather Sugoroku and two tomb raiders navigated through layers of traps in the tomb was certainly interesting. However, it was a pity that Yugi had heard his grandfather tell this story countless times since he was a child.

Whether it's "sticking out a cigarette butt to test the trap ahead," "ancient Egyptian writing that only Grandpa Sugoroku could understand appeared in the burning flames," or "moving forward with the left foot to avoid a stone statue that would attack people," these plots all sound rather absurd.

Especially in the last part of the story, the tomb raiders thought there were no more traps and shot at the old man Sugoroku in an attempt to steal the treasure after a series of levels. However, they activated the final trap and were swallowed whole by a monster sealed in a stone slab less than a meter away from the treasure. In an instant, the style changed from "Indiana Jones" to "The Mummy".

Even more outrageous is that when he was shot by the tomb raiders, the young Shuangliu Grandpa managed to hold on to the edge of the cliff so that he wouldn't fall into the abyss. However, because of his injury, he was too weak to climb up and was losing strength due to blood loss.

But just as Grandpa Shuangliu was about to let go of his fingers, he was pulled up from the edge of the cliff by a person dressed in gold and silver, whose face was obscured, in the tomb that should have been deserted. The person was saying something like, "We've been waiting for you, Simon."

When Sugoroku regained consciousness after falling into a coma, he found himself lying unharmed on the ground. The remains of the tomb raiders who had died tragically were nowhere to be found. He had come alone to the final treasure and brought the spoils back to Japan, which later became the "Millennium Puzzle" completed by his grandson Yugi.

However, because he didn't finish the game on his own, Sugoroku Muto stopped wearing suits after that and started wearing a jumpsuit made of denim, which he had specified. He buried his obsession with the game in his memories and named his grandson "Yugi" as a tribute.

"The first one can be explained by the fact that dueling monsters existed in ancient Egypt, but the second one is just a ghost story that you, Sugoroku-sensei, made up to scare us," Jonouchi said with his arms crossed.

Honda and Kyoko nodded in agreement.

"I would never make up stories in a place like this, these are all true!" Hearing that Jonouchi and the others didn't believe what he said, Mutou Sugoroku threw a tantrum like a child, and said excitedly, turning to Hayato, "Hey, Hayato, do you believe what I said?"

Hayato knew that what Sugoroku said was true, whether it was the way to solve the puzzle or the supernatural rescue at the end, but he deliberately said, "Even I, being simple-minded, don't believe everything, Sugoroku-san."

"How could this be..." Not even bothering to comment on Hayato's naiveté, Muto Sugoroku sighed in frustration and said helplessly, "Anyway, as Duel Monsters have become more and more popular in recent years, as the birthplace of Pegasus, there are more and more people in Egypt who dream of getting rich through tomb raiding. When you go to Egypt, don't do what I did and just find a random tour guide."

Upon hearing this, Honda gave Muto Sugoroku a mysterious smile: "Hehe, you don't need to worry about that, Grandpa Sugoroku. We have a tour guide who is extremely familiar with Egypt and absolutely trustworthy."

Half an hour later, at Domino City Airport.

"Lord Malik, please be careful on your journey." With a solemn expression, Lishid handed a large backpack to Malik, carefully instructing him, "Besides a change of clothes, I've also prepared a sand-proof tent and sunscreen. I've also packed bandages and anti-inflammatory medication..."

“There’s too much unnecessary stuff, Lishid, and stop nagging like a mother hen.” Taking the package from Lishid with one hand, Malik was almost bent over by the unexpectedly heavy weight. He quickly handed the package to the airport ground staff so they could put the luggage in the cabin, while his other hand covered his ear.

“Lishid has been preparing your luggage for this trip for a long time, Malik. Listen to me for a bit.” Isis stood next to Lishid and naturally noticed that Malik covered his ears the whole time, obviously not listening to Lishid.

Hearing Isis say this about him, Malik couldn't help but glance at Isis: "Before you talk about me, please put your hands down first, sister."

"..." Isis responded with silence, pretending not to hear Malik's words, and instructed him, "I have already spoken to the tomb-keepers. Although you have been expelled, you will not be too difficult to the clan because you traveled with the nameless pharaoh. It has been so many years since you returned to Egypt. Go to the clan."