Is this the world of card dealers? Yada thieves!

"I was right, wasn't I, Bakura!"

As Yami Yugi finished speaking, the soldiers surrounding the invaders were suddenly pushed aside by a powerful repulsive force, revealing Bakura's unharmed figure.

"Hahaha, it's me, Yugi, no, in this era, I should call you Pharaoh." Looking at the many fallen soldiers and the priests who were on high alert, Bakura's face showed a smug smile. "We've finally met. This ultimate dark game should officially begin. What excites me even more is that the Millennium Items are also here."

"Come, priests of the Pharaoh, if you are not short-sighted, then understand that the Pharaoh behind you cannot provide you with a sufficient future. You might as well pledge your allegiance to me and offer up the [Millennium Artifact], and I can bestow upon you many things!"

As he spoke, Bakura reached into his robes and pulled out something, tossing it out. It turned out to be countless gold and silver jewelry necklaces, pulled out from under his cloak and thrown to the priests.

However, the priests remained unmoved. Mere jewels were hardly enough to attract their attention. They weren't the kind of villains who came from the slums and were obsessed with getting rich, even to the point of harming the wealthy family that had adopted them. Besides, they soon noticed that the jewels thrown by Bakura were not ordinary jewels at all.

"Those are the Pharaoh's burial goods!" Simon, who had been in charge of these matters, was the first to recognize the source of the jewels. He glared at Bakura and said, "Where did you get them from—wait, white hair?!"

"You're the tomb raider who should have been caught before, the one who stole the pharaoh's tomb!"

"Hahaha, it's me, after all, white hair is quite rare in Egypt, isn't it?" Bakura didn't hide anything and openly admitted his identity. At the same time, he glanced at the priests and said, "What, not interested in my gifts? No problem, besides these jewels, I've brought an even bigger gift."

As he spoke, Bakura whistled, and a coffin was thrown out of the darkness. It slid along the ground for a distance before Bakura stopped it with a stomp. Simon, witnessing this and seeing the patterns on the coffin, was horrified and shouted, "That's the coffin of the former Pharaoh—King Aknamkanum!"

"The previous Pharaoh, wasn't that my father?!" Yami Yugi clenched his fists. "Bakura, you bastard!"

“Bringing the coffin of the previous pharaoh to our door to provoke us, not inflicting the most severe punishment on you would be the greatest humiliation on us priests!” Aknadi looked at the coffin of the previous pharaoh, his face full of anger, but in that anger, there was also a strange and indescribable look.

“Listen up, you tomb raider! These seven ‘Millennium Artifacts’ are precious treasures that our dynasty has obtained with great difficulty. They possess the divine power to maintain world order and are extremely valuable. Only we, the high officials who have undergone arduous training and been chosen by the ‘Millennium Artifacts,’ and the noble pharaohs who are the incarnations of gods on earth, can use them. You, a villain with an evil heart, are not even qualified to touch them. You will be burned to ashes along with your soul!”

While angrily rebuking Bakura, Aknade secretly used the power of the [Millennium Eye] to observe the darkness surrounding Bakura. However, after just one glance, he was speechless with astonishment. For he saw a terrifying monster that defied description!

"A hard-won treasure, even its soul will be burned away? What a ridiculous statement. It only makes me want to get my hands on them even more." Bakura's upturned lips turned into a sneer. "But it seems that bribery alone won't make you obediently hand over the Millennium Items."

"It's alright. Anyway, I never thought it would be so easy to achieve my goal from the very beginning. Before 'bribery,' there's also the word 'coercion.'"

As soon as Bakura finished speaking, Aknati sensed the evil power emanating from him and hurriedly warned everyone, "Be careful, everyone! This man is no ordinary person. The powerful darkness emanating from him is a terror I have never heard of in my life!"

“Even Lord Aknadi says so! My Millennium Key is the same. The demon in this man’s heart is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before; it’s as if it came from another world!” Priest Shada said as well.

"boom!"

To the astonishment of the priests, the darkness within Bakura's heart, despite not being controlled by the power of the [Millennium Item] they possessed, spontaneously emerged from Bakura's body and coalesced into a form behind him. It was a tall being, entirely white, with two pairs of wings like an angel on its back. However, its lower body, which was essentially that of a snake, and its hideous face proved that a demon was ultimately a demon.

"It actually released the demon within itself without the power of the [Millennium Item]!?" The last of the priests, the middle-aged man holding the [Millennium Scales]—Priest Kalim—looked at the constantly shaking scales in his hand, unable to regain their balance, and said in astonishment, "No, this kind of strength is something that the stone slab could not have sealed!"

"Hmph, I don't care what rules you use to measure it. How will you know if you don't try?" Despite Kalim's statement that he couldn't do it, Sett stubbornly waved the Millennium Scepter in his hand, declaring, "I will annihilate these ugly monsters. That's my rule!"

As he spoke, the Millennium Scepter suddenly burst into light. Fortunately, the stone slabs in the hall used to seal demons were not the only ones used to seal the demon in the assassin's heart. Under the restraint of the Millennium Scepter, the white half-human, half-snake demon behind Bakura turned into a wisp of black smoke and disappeared into a stone slab.

As the monster entered the stone slab, Seth's lips curled into a smile, but before he could laugh out loud, he heard a "click".

"Don't even think about sealing my Diaband with a stone slab of this caliber, Seto!" Bakura sneered, looking at the priest Seto who looked remarkably like Seto Kaiba, and snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, the stone slab that had just sealed Bakura's monster, Diaband, developed numerous cracks and then burst open. Diaband had not been successfully sealed by the Millennium Scepter at all; it had escaped the slab in the blink of an eye!

"No, this is bad! Such a powerful opponent!" Seeing that the six priests wielding the Millennium Items seemed unable to withstand Bakura and his monster Diaband, Priest Simon gritted his teeth and said to Yami Yugi beside him, "Please leave here quickly, Pharaoh. Let the seven of us priests deal with this villain. Don't let my appearance fool you; I, like Akhenate, was once a priest who used the Millennium Key."

"Yes, Pharaoh, your health is paramount, you must not get hurt." A soldier who had appeared beside Dark Game at some point also spoke up to advise, "Quickly move aside, we'll deal with this guy."

However, despite their attempts to dissuade him, Yami Yugi stubbornly declared, "No, Bakura is looking for me. I will be his opponent."

As he spoke, Yami Yugi took a step forward, then suddenly remembered something: the soldier's words seemed a bit off. What ancient Egyptian would refer to the pharaoh's body as a "dragon's body"?

"I can't stand it, you haven't changed at all. Even at a critical moment, you still don't put your own safety first," the strange soldier said, removing the white cloth from his head to reveal a face that was both familiar and unfamiliar to the Dark Game, with a confident smile on his lips. "In this ultimate Dark Game, your safety is clearly of utmost importance."

"Well, I'm not in a position to talk to you, so let's all come at each other, game!"

"You are—" Yami Yugi exclaimed in surprise, looking at the obviously young boy in front of him, dressed in loose clothes, "Hayato?!"

"Hayato Kobayashi!?" Bakura was equally surprised by Hayato's appearance. "What are you doing here?!"

"Could it be that they also sneaked in through that entrance that was inexplicably unguarded?"

"Huh? An unguarded entrance?" Hayato raised an eyebrow. "Wait a minute, you, you didn't sneak into the palace from the side where I took care of that guard, did you? Hey, pay me the toll, you bastard! And we're both here for the first time in an ancient Egyptian palace, right? Why are you faster than me? I circled around for ages before finally finding this place!"

"Can't you just go to the most exciting place, you idiot?" Bakura sized up Hayato and said disdainfully, "Haha, you've turned into a brat since you entered this world? What a lucky break! A great opportunity to take care of Yugi and you while you can't use those annoying Duel Monsters like before!"

"Go, Diaband! Slaughter everyone here and bring me the Millennium Artifact!"

Chapter 720 Are elves such inconvenient creatures?

"Go, Diaband!"

Following Bakura's command, the monsters behind him attacked the group. Seeing this, Seth, who had been standing at the front trying to seal Diaband, sneered, "I'll say it again, with us priests here, don't even think about harming the Pharaoh!"

"My slumbering spirit within the stone temple, descend here and become my power!" As he raised his left hand high, Yami Yugi and Hayato saw the golden duel disk on Set's left hand suddenly unfold and then burst into golden light, "[Monster Beast - Galest]!"

A beam of light shone into the palace from afar, falling straight down and imprinting itself on the golden duel disk in Set's hand, where a relief of a monster appeared on the once flat surface.

At the same time, as the light converged, a wingless four-legged dragon beast, the same size as Bakura's Diaband, appeared in front of Seth.

The scene before me was practically a re-enactment of the Duel Monsters game three thousand years in the future. No, perhaps the cause and effect were mistaken; the Duel Monsters game created by Pegasus was actually derived from this very scene of manipulating monsters to fight each other!

"Within the seven stone slab temples surrounding this palace are stored stone slabs left by the previous pharaohs and priests, which seal away demons. The one that can summon spirits from the stone slabs for battle is the pinnacle of our country's alchemy: the Gladiator's Disc!"

Standing beside Yami Yugi and Hayato, Simon glanced at Hayato. Although he didn't know who this person was, since he knew the Pharaoh, he could trust him for the time being. "It was by sealing the monsters with the Millennium Artifact and then summoning the spirits with the Gladiator's Disk that our country was able to resist foreign enemies, quell the wars in the surrounding areas, and bring peace and prosperity to the people."

"So what if there's a powerful monster? It's no match for the seven of us priests!" Simon said confidently, hands on his hips. As Simon finished speaking, the dragon beast [Monster Beast - Galest] summoned by Seth pounced on Bakura and [Diabund], successfully suppressing them for a moment, seemingly evenly matched.

Seeing this, Aknadi frowned and also revealed the gladiator's disk that each priest wore on his left wrist, as if to summon his own spirit to assist Seth.

Kessett noticed that the priests behind him seemed to be planning to join the battle, but he turned around and snorted coldly, saying, "Hmph, such an opponent is enough for me to handle alone. You don't need to join the battle."

Seth's gaze was focused on Mahad. Despite his pride and arrogance, Mahad's original background was not particularly distinguished. He had only managed to climb to his current position through his own efforts and an insatiable competitive spirit to become number one. Mahad, on the other hand, held the title of the strongest priest, so Seth had always regarded him as a rival.

To become the strongest and most powerful, one must surpass Mahad. Today's battle is the perfect opportunity. Despite Mahad's repeated failures, I was able to subdue the assassins who broke into the palace single-handedly, proving that I am stronger than Mahad!

Seth had a good plan, but he didn't expect that after seeing Seth summon the spirit, Bakura curled his lips and muttered to himself, "Does he like dragons that much? His taste hasn't improved even in three thousand years. But I have no interest in wasting time on monsters of this level."

As he spoke, Bakura pulled out a gladiator disc identical to the ones held by the priests from his robes, put it on his wrist, and raised his hand, shouting, "[Falcus]!"

A beam of light rose from the coffin beneath Bakura's feet, summoning a half-human, half-bird monster in the air to join the battle between Diaband and the monster-monster Garest. The other priests, whose summoning had just been interrupted by Seto, had no time to call upon the stone tablets to join the fight.

The battle, which was originally evenly matched, changed when one side received reinforcements. The dragon beast, which had just fought to a draw, was almost instantly destroyed by the combined efforts of Bakura's two monsters!

"What exactly is that gladiator compass?!" Aknadji frowned in confusion, staring at the compass in Bakura's hands. He couldn't understand why a gladiator compass, which should have been exclusively for the royal family, had ended up in the other's possession. However, considering that the other was a tomb raider who had just robbed a pharaoh's tomb, Aknadji's eyes widened with suspicion. "Could it be... from the tomb of the previous pharaoh—"

"Haha, that's right. As a tomb raider, I have a lot of professional ethics. I went all the way into the pharaoh's tomb, so of course I couldn't just come out carrying some jewelry and mummies. How could I miss out on such valuable and precious souvenirs?"

"Including these stone slab spirits, who told you to like the custom of burial with people? I'm used to being frugal, so I can't stand waste."

Bakura sneered smugly and waved his hand again, "Come on, all of you, come out! Monsters sealed in the stone slabs, let's wreak havoc together!"

Several beams of light appeared in succession, and one after another, the stone spirits that had been sealed away by the previous pharaohs and used by them to protect the country were summoned by Bakura. However, their appearance at this moment was to show their fangs to the current pharaoh and his priests.

Even though Seth had previously said that he could handle it, the current situation was clearly beyond what Seth alone could resolve. The priests began their summoning, and several magical beasts appeared one after another, engaging in battle with Bakura's monsters.

Seeing this, Yami Yugi glanced at the gladiator disk in his hand and wanted to join the battle. He imitated Seth's action and raised his hand, but after a long time, not a single monster appeared.

"What's going on, Simon?" Dark Game looked at Simon, the human Google who always answered questions, with a puzzled expression.

"Although one of the seven stone slab temples near the palace, corresponding to the seven [Millennium Artifacts], was indeed prepared for the current Pharaoh, which is you, since you only took office today, there are no stone slabs stored there at all." Simon scratched his head somewhat awkwardly and looked at a corner of the hall. "The only stone slab that was intended to be placed in your palace is still lying here."

Because of Bakura's sudden arrival, the soldiers had already scattered. The stone slab that had sealed the monster that had been separated from the assassin was left lying alone on the ground, and it might be shattered by a stray bullet at any moment.

That's why Simon had let Dark Game leave first. After all, compared to the other priests, the Pharaoh, who couldn't even summon a single elf, was practically powerless—although, it wasn't that he couldn't summon any elves at all.

It is said that a mythical beast bearing the title of God from the Trisolarans has been guarding the pharaohs throughout history, but the problem is that no one knows what the title of "God" is; only the chosen pharaoh has the ability to invoke its name. Rather than pinning our hopes on that vague legend that Simon, who has served two generations of pharaohs, has never even seen once, it would be more prudent to simply have the pharaohs temporarily retreat.

However, the new pharaoh wouldn't listen to advice, and Simon really had no way to deal with it.

Seeing that Mahad and his companions' Slate Spirits were being pushed back by Bakura's Slate Spirits, which were inherited from the previous Pharaoh, and that six against one were almost being overwhelmed, Yami Yugi could only shrink his defensive circle. He wanted to lend a helping hand with his top-level understanding of Duel Monsters, which he had learned from three thousand years in the future, but he was powerless to do so.

It was at this moment that Bakura seized an opportunity, commanding several monsters to work together to delay the priests' monsters, freeing up his [Diabund] to attack. The white snake on the lower half of the monster opened its mouth and frantically gathered its power before suddenly spitting it out!

"Spiral Impact!"

The powerful impact swept across the entire area in an instant. The stone tablet monsters summoned by the priests present—[Minotaur], [Baster], [Zerua], [Gardius], and [Illusion Magician]—could not even hold their own against [Diabund]'s full-force attack and were almost instantly annihilated!

"[Spiria]!" In the blink of an eye, Priestess Isis gritted her teeth and manipulated her stone tablet spirit to block everyone's path.

The fairy-like sprite erected a barrier, diverting the impact of the attack to everyone and taking the brunt of it herself. She successfully protected the stone monsters summoned by everyone, but at the cost of Speria herself being shattered, and Isis, who was controlling her, was also sent flying, her gladiator disk sliding to the side.

Hayato looked at the gladiator's disk that had come to his feet, bent down to pick it up, and put it on his wrist.

“Hey, kid over there, what you’re doing won’t work.” Simon couldn’t help but remind Hayato, “Without the power of the Millennium Item and without being a holy pharaoh, you can’t use that gladiator to summon monsters, because you can’t connect to any of the temples where the stone tablets are stored. Even that tomb raider was able to summon the spirits inside the stone tablets only by stealing the stone tablets that were buried with the previous pharaohs.”

"Even if you get the Gladiator's Disk now, you won't be able to summon anything."

"Now? No, I'm summoning the future, old man." Hayato looked at the unfolded gladiator disk, his empty right hand slowly raised above his head. "Only stone tablets can summon monsters? Spirits are not such inconvenient things."

With a sudden clench of his fist, a Duel Monster card appeared in Hayato's hand and turned into a speck of light before he slammed it onto the dueling disk!

"Though time may pass, the brilliant starry sky above remains unchanged. O shining Draco, descend, in the name of the North Star of a thousand years ago!"

"【Long Huiqiao - Right Pivot α】!"

Since arriving in the world of memories, neither Yami Yugi, who did not bring his own cards with him, nor Hayato, who had placed his cards in the system beforehand, have been able to summon the Duel Monsters they used in the modern world. Even when Hayato holds the cards directly in his hand, he can only sense that the spirits have fallen into an unawakenable slumber.

Just now, when Priestess Isis's gladiator disk was knocked down to Hayato's feet, he heard the call of the elves, not from the card or the stone tablet, but from higher in the sky, from the boundless sea of ​​stars!

With the help of the Gladiator's Disk and the card containing the sleeping spirit, Hayato drew down the power from the starry sky. The true identity of the spirit's call was the ultimate secret technique that Hayato obtained from the Electronic Flow Field three thousand years later, the incarnation of the Dragon Constellation, [Dragon Light Takumi]!

Such brilliant yet unfamiliar starlight, who are you?

The [Dragon Light Takumi - Right Pivot α] that appeared in front of Hayato spread its hollowed-out wings and scattered starlight. Instead of attacking Bakura and [Diarbond], it looked down at Hayato and a voice entered Hayato's ears.

Without waiting for Hayato's reply, just by looking at him, [Ryuki Takumi - Right Pivot Alpha] seemed to have already found the answer: 'So that's how it is. So you've gained the approval of our future selves? Time has no meaning for us. Therefore, let us ride that contract and use our power to our fullest, shining ones!'

As the words in his mind fell, the body of [Dragon Radiance Technique - Right Pivot Alpha], which had just appeared, suddenly shattered into countless glittering stardust, which startled Bakura, who had just been on high alert.

"I thought you'd pulled some trick to summon a spirit again, Hayato. Is that monster that just destroys itself without even needing to attack something?" Bakura said dismissively, a smirk playing on his lips. But Hayato shook his finger. "You know what, Bakura? Although stardust is eternal, its position in the sky isn't fixed."

"The rising and setting of the sun can alter the power of the sun god, and the constellation Draco was not the same three thousand years ago as it is now." Hayato pointed to the dome above his head, where a large hole had been punched in the royal palace hall, revealing a clear sky, because [Spiria] had diverted [Diabund]'s attack.

“4000 years ago, Alpha Diablos, the right pivot of Draco, was the North Star. Although its power has diminished over the past thousand years, it is still quite strong!”

Even though it was still daytime, several stars in the sky shone with unusual brightness, forming a long dragon-shaped constellation that cast its light upon the stardust in front of Hayato!

"A dazzling display! Like a shooting star! The strongest dragon among the stars!"

"【Long Yi Qiao - Tian Long Liu Xing = QUA】!"

"Descend, Wagha Tamashi!"

The Starry Sky Dragon, taller than Diaband, the largest of all the monsters present, and as tall as a palace, opened its eyes and looked down at Bakura and Diaband.

"No, impossible! How could you summon a monster from the future, Hayato Kobayashi?!" Bakura stared in disbelief at the monster that had descended before him, a monster far beyond the reach of its time.

"Impossible? Hahahaha! Nothing is impossible for me on this earth! All things and phenomena are in the palm of my hand!" Hayato casually flicked his bangs, his hair standing on end as if it had been sprayed with hair gel, looking quite excited. "Witness my divine power, hehe, hahahahahaha!"