"Hmph… so it completed at a time like this."
Adjusting his earpiece with a cold snort, Kaiba replied to Mokuba over the comms.
"Is now… a bad time, Big Brother?"
"No. Now is exactly the right time. System—activate, Mokuba!"
Seeing Kaiba suddenly shift the topic right after the duel concluded, Kaima protested in irritation: "We haven't even decided the real winner yet! Trying to run away, Seto Kaiba!?"
"Run? The word 'run' does not exist in my dictionary! There is only—Full Speed☆Ahead!"
The massive underground chamber shuddered violently.
Above Kaiba Entertainment Group, the Underworld Link System—which gathered energy from space—completed its descent along the satellite linkage towers and the ultra-long track connecting it to the subterranean core, dragging down overwhelming gravitational potential.
Bracing himself amidst the violent tremors and steadying Aisha beside him, Miles shouted, "What the hell is this guy planning!?"
Even without looking upward, everyone could feel the colossal energy mass plummeting from above.
"To sever a three‑thousand‑year obsession, Seto is forcefully opening the Gate to the Underworld beneath our feet! But two factors will cause… deviations in this experiment's final result."
"Deviations?"
"Deviation One: Although partially connected to the outside world, this place is still inside the Obelisk Tower's internal dimension."
"Deviation Two… is the Millennium Puzzle on you, Miles!"
The instant the Blue-Eyes Girl spoke, the Millennium Puzzle hanging on Miles's chest burst into radiant gold light—resonating with the enormous energy falling from the heavens, illuminating the entire underground space.
"The Gate… to the Underworld!"
Kaiba spread his arms wide, eyes widening as he welcomed the colossal mass of energy descending overhead.
"Open! Here and now!"
BOOOOM—!
A deafening explosion of sound burst forth as the descending white light intertwined with the Millennium Puzzle's golden glow, swallowing the entire underground chamber.
All vision vanished into a blinding swirl of gold and white.
When everyone's sight finally returned… everything had changed.
No longer did the scene resemble a futuristic underground facility. Instead—
An endless desert. Rolling dunes. Wind‑blown yellow sands stretch in every direction.
The Blue-Eyes Girl murmured, "This is… Egypt, three thousand years ago."
Aisha: "(?ロ?ノ)ノ Eh!? When did she show up!?"
Chi: "Whoa! She's like, super ultra‑rare beauty tier!"
With the environment transformed, everyone could suddenly see what previously only Miles had been able to see—the Blue-Eyes Girl.
"Heh heh… hahaha!"
Kaiba surveyed the surroundings, confirming that the system had successfully replaced the underground domain with ancient Egypt from three millennia past. His triumphant laughter grew even more exhilarated.
"At last! The experiment to continue our destined duel is complete! Appear now—come forth, Atem! End our three‑thousand‑year longing!!"
"No… you failed, Seto."
Barefoot, the Blue-Eyes Girl stepped into the warm desert sands, slowly walking forward.
"You're… Kisara?"
Like Aisha and Chi, Kaiba could now see her clearly after the shift in dimension.
The Blue-Eyes Girl explained, "Though this place resembles Egypt from three thousand years ago… within this special domain, the Pharaoh's soul does not exist."
"A special domain, huh. I think I've figured it out."
While everyone else remained stunned by the sudden transformation, only Miles looked deeper, studying his surroundings with sharper focus.
There, half-buried in the sands, lay an enormous mechanical corpse—its colossal upper frame still exposed.
Weathered by nearly ten thousand years of wind and sun, the gigantic machine supported itself with one decaying arm, refusing to collapse.
A prehistoric god‑slaying weapon. A titan of a forgotten civilization.
The Anti‑God Spear—Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder.
Miles whispered, "So the machine KaibaCorp excavated underground was the Skybreaker…?"
It appeared that Zeus, long buried beneath the surface, had also been transported here—drawn into the temporal shift alongside them.
"…Or is that really the case?"
Yet, upon seeing its ravaged form up close, Miles suddenly questioned his own assumption.
Rather than something that had traveled with them, the machine looked more like something that had always existed here.
It had endured millennia of erosion—only to intersect with them at this anomalous point in time.
However, no matter how one looked at it, Zeus was nearly destroyed: half‑scrapped, incapable of fighting again.
"So this is the god‑slaying weapon spoken of in prehistoric songs… sealed inside the Obelisk Tower?"
Even Kaima's voice carried disappointment upon seeing its broken form.
As one of their trump cards meant to break through the Tower's outer defenses, the god‑slayer Zeus was now useless.
This outcome effectively cut their chances of breaking through in half.
As for whether Obelisk the Tormentor, another God Card equal to the Winged Dragon of Ra, could surpass prehistoric technology and break the Spirit Continent's anti‑summoning seal…
That was nothing more than a faded and distant hope.
"Kisara, you said the Pharaoh's soul does not exist in this domain?"
"Seto, you should feel it yourself by now. Your three‑thousand‑year obsession has fully shackled your stride. It's time you finally look toward the future."
"Shackled? Don't be ridiculous!"
Kaiba swept his arm outward, and the force of his motion stirred even the yellow sands swirling around him.
"Facing the future at every moment, that is my creed! Even my obsession with our three‑thousand‑year fate is a battle I must personally conclude in order to keep advancing toward the future!"
"Seto, you…" Kisara's blue eyes flew wide softly.
Kaiba's fixation on the Pharaoh exceeded even what the Blue‑Eyes Girl had imagined.
Of course it did. Without such unyielding obsession, no one would devote their entire being to developing technology capable of transcending the boundaries of time itself, of crossing into the Underworld through science.
"If the Pharaoh's soul does not exist in this domain, then I'll break this domain as well. Until I stand before that man… Atem!"
Kaiba's conviction, far beyond that of ordinary men, made the very earth of ancient Egypt tremble. All around them, the yellow sands began to quake and rise.
As they swirled and converged, the Millennium Puzzle on Miles's chest once again shone with brilliant gold light.
From that gold, mingling with the sands of three‑thousand‑year‑old Egypt, an outline began to form.
The shape of the man spoken of in legend.
"The Pharaoh!"
Miles turned toward the golden glow, recognizing instantly the familiar silhouette forming beside him.
Without mistake—this was the same Pharaoh Atem who had appeared at the back mountain of Fusion Academy.
"Impossible…!" Kisara looked even more shocked than Miles. "In a domain where the Pharaoh's soul does not exist… Seto's obsession actually forced his form into being!"
"Atem…"
Brows tight, Kaiba stared at the figure composed of gold light and swirling sand.
He, like Miles, could feel it clearly.
This was not the complete, true Pharaoh Atem.
It was a miracle manifested only for a moment—a fragment of the soul lingering within the Millennium Puzzle, drawn forth by Seto's overwhelming fixation and the ancient sands resonating with it.
Atem did not speak. Wrapped in golden brilliance, he simply smiled, nodded once at Kaiba… then slowly turned toward Miles.
He lifted his arm and extended his palm toward Miles's Duel Disk.
Light flowed. Countless golden traces streamed from Atem's sand‑formed body into the Deck at Miles's wrist.
"This is…?"
Instinctively, Miles opened his Deck.
The top card was one that would never appear in either his or Dark Aisha's Deck—
The original Ritual form of [Black Luster Soldier].
"This… is your Deck, Pharaoh?"
The Pharaoh's silhouette only nodded.
To answer Seto Kaiba's obsession—one that crossed three thousand years—the Millennium Puzzle chose the form of granting its Deck. Within this special space inside the Obelisk Tower, it allowed Miles to temporarily use Pharaoh Atem's Deck.
Finally, Atem placed a gentle hand on Miles's shoulder—then his form dispersed, dissolving back into gold light and drifting sand.
"Atem! You…!"
No one understood the meaning of that miracle better than Kaiba.
The Millennium Puzzle's successor, Miles… had now inherited the Pharaoh's Deck as well.
The battle born of three thousand years of destiny had returned to the rightful shape Kaiba had always envisioned.
"So you weren't just a vessel after all!"
Atem's intention was simple: since he could not manifest fully in this domain, he entrusted Miles with the whole of his power to answer this destined duel in his place.
"Interesting!"
Throwing his arm upward, Kaiba ignited his AR Duel Disk, its blue lights flaring to life.
In the sands of ancient Egypt, Kaiba entered Duel Mode.
"You, who have inherited Atem's soul, can you shoulder the weight of this duel!? Show me, Mi↗les↘!"
"I've wanted this for a long time, Kaiba!"
Miles's Duel Disk roared to life as well. Bearing the Pharaoh's Deck, infused with the Pharaoh's fighting spirit, Miles felt himself drawn wholly into the maelstrom of a three‑thousand‑year oath.
The final duel within the Obelisk Tower—Seto Kaiba versus Miles, wielding the Pharaoh's Deck—unfolded beneath the silent witness of the broken god‑slaying spear, Divine Arsenal AA‑ZEUS – Sky Thunder.
...
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