"In the name of Dark Demon, Magic Guide Summon — Primordial Dragon Egg!"
When Dark began his summon, even the professors overseeing the other three arenas turned their eyes toward him without thinking.
Of course, they'd only meant to glance over and then look away again.
But once they looked, they couldn't tear their eyes away.
A massive dragon egg materialized from the light of the summon, standing quietly before the red side's Magic Sphere.
It had no limbs and clearly couldn't move — a special type of Magic Guide Spirit.
Egg-shaped Magic Guide Spirits like this weren't common, but they weren't exactly rare either — simply few people used them.
But the dragon egg Dark had summoned gave off a faint, primal aura — a sense of vast time that ordinary people could never perceive at all — and it made the three professors' expressions tighten.
Unlike the professors' sharp senses, Virt Gold felt an instinctive stirring of danger the moment he saw Dark summon an egg.
He pushed himself to summon faster, compressing his casting time to nearly five seconds!
Among the first-years, aside from Dark, the best students could only manage to compress a Normal Summon's casting time to about that level.
But that already met the standard for the second-year end-of-term assessment — an excellent result.
So before the dragon egg had even finished hatching, Virt's first Magic Guide Spirit had already appeared in the blue side's summoning zone.
And it, too, was a brand-new Magic Guide Spirit no one had seen before!
The students watching from outside the arena suddenly realized that both duelists had opened with Magic Guide Spirits neither had ever shown before!
It made them instinctively feel that both sides had already played their trump cards.
And on Virt's side, that was indeed true.
The Magic Guide Spirit he'd opened with had been forged under Tom Nixon's guidance: he'd collected and refined his own blood as a special auxiliary material, then combined it with another substance as its core.
The forging method itself held a certain subtlety, a special technique only a Magic Guide Master with a particular talent could employ.
Using this method, he had forged three Magic Guide Spirits in total, each of them formidable.
Take this Magic Guide Spirit before them now — it stood among the finest of three-star spirits, nearly replacing the Troll's place in his heart.
It was nothing less than a horrifying giant worm, thick as a barrel!
[Card Name: Blood Giant Worm]
[Type: Spirit Card]
[Level: ???]
[Race: Insect Species]
[Attribute: Insect]
[Magic Power: 1450]
[Attack: 1450]
[Defense: 1450]
[Ultimate Moves: Bloodthirst, Blood-Refined Insect Armor, Blood Source Self-Destruct]
Three Ultimate Moves gave this Blood Giant Worm the standing of three orange-tier cards.
Its three core stats formed a textbook "barrel waist," even though its Attack was 50 points lower than the Troll's.
But in actual combat among three-star Magic Guide Spirits, those 50 points of Attack barely mattered.
Beyond that, the Blood Giant Worm outclassed the Troll in every other respect.
Especially its three Ultimate Moves — Bloodthirst, which guaranteed sustained combat power; Blood-Refined Insect Armor, which boosted Attack and Defense; and Blood Source Self-Destruct, whose devastating explosion damage left behind a corresponding number of Blood Worms usable as tribute fodder — every one of them was extremely practical.
Virt Gold had watched the duel between Dark and Justin Wayne, and he knew Dark could effectively summon a full five-star Magic Guide Spirit in a mere nine seconds.
His Blood Giant Worm couldn't stand against a five-star Magic Guide Spirit either, but it could use Self-Destruct to gravely wound one, then use the Blood Worms left behind by the explosion as tribute to Special Summon — through what counted as a Normal Summon — an equally five-star Magic Guide Spirit: the Blood Demon!
The Blood Demon — summonable via Normal Summon as long as "specific conditions" were met — was the strongest trump card Virt had forged.
If even the Blood Demon couldn't win him that one sliver of a chance, then losing was losing — at least he'd have struggled for it.
After all, deep down Virt Gold didn't believe he could actually win. Just as Robert had said, holding out a few more rounds would count as a win in itself — at least he'd fare better than Justin Wayne had.
Yet even this last line, the one he saw as impossible to retreat from any further, still required the strength to hold it.
In two months, even as he'd taken a great stride forward, Dark's stride had only grown longer still!
…
Though hatching took some time, by the time Virt's Blood Giant Worm came writhing forward on its massive body, the Primordial Dragon Egg had already cracked into a dense web of fissures.
"Roarrr—"
Under everyone's watching eyes, a roar burst from within the shell — young and unpolished, perhaps, but unmistakably carrying the majesty of a true dragon.
The silver-white young dragon with eyes of cyan blue shattered the shell in an instant and hatched forth!
…
At the same moment, with his summoning cooldown finally reset, Dark casually began summoning Shuckle.
Just as Shuckle's summoning light fell into place, the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon took to the air.
Standing nearly three meters tall, the young dragon — its dragon might still somewhat green — surged toward the blue side's half of the field like the wind.
For a Dragon Breed, the arena was far too cramped, and it crossed the distance in the blink of an eye.
The Blood Giant Worm reared its upper body sharply upright, its blood-red folds rippling layer upon layer as it gave off a vivid crimson glow.
"Blood Giant Worm, Insect Armor!"
Virt Gold's voice rang out in a hurried shout, tinged with alarm.
The bloody light radiating from the Blood Giant Worm's body suddenly solidified, forming armor that flowed like liquid blood.
Under the effect of Blood-Refined Insect Armor, even the Blood Giant Worm's Self-Destruct power was boosted by twenty percent.
Alarm bells rang loud in Virt Gold's mind, and without hesitation he shouted another command: "Don't be afraid — make them pay for it! Blood Source Self-Destruct!"
"BOOM!"
The Blood Giant Worm's eyes flashed red, and it detonated with a thunderous blast before it even made contact with the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon!
It was, at least, a decisive move.
The wave of blood released by the Blood Giant Worm's explosion surged outward, right into the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon's charging path.
The dragon, charging in without a trace of fear, was swallowed by the blast in an instant.
But with a sudden, ringing cry, it burst through the wave of blood and sank its jaws straight into the blue side's Magic Sphere.
Virt Gold clutched the Blood Demon card tightly in his hand, but his five-second summoning chant was only halfway through when the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon's massive jaws had already closed around the blue side's Magic Sphere.
Gritting his teeth, he chose to keep summoning rather than break off to steer the Magic Sphere away.
He'd seen more than once how players who stopped to control their Magic Sphere lost the chance to summon and ended up hunted down and killed — so instinctively, he chose to gamble.
But just as the Blood Demon on the card in his hand had barely poked half its head out, the defenseless blue Magic Sphere was already crushed in a single bite from the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon!
Had it carried eight thousand points of health it might have held on a moment longer, but a Life Barrier with only two thousand points of magic power stood no chance against that single bite.
"Crack!"
As the Life Barrier shattered completely, motes of magic power scattered outward like starlight, and its magic value dropped to zero!
[2000 → 0]
…
Victory and defeat never wait politely for you to brace yourself.
Only then did the Blood Demon's summoning light finally settle over the blue side's summoning zone — the crimson-skinned Demon, driven by its Bloodthirst instinct, bit at the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon beside it.
But without activating an Ultimate Move, it couldn't so much as scratch the Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon's scales.
The Blue-Eyes Baby Dragon, its big eyes wide and adorable, pinned the Demon's head between its two claws once the outcome was settled and gave it a thorough rub — exactly the way one might scruff a dog's head.
…
That small, amusing interlude added no small charm to a match that had otherwise ended far too quickly.
…
Only now did the spectators outside the arena begin to snap out of their shock at Dark having Special Summoned a six-star Dragon Breed.
Between the young dragon's radiant, sacred aura and its awe-inspiring dragon might, and the sheer speed of Dark's summoning, everyone was left stunned.
Dark Demon's "off-the-charts" performance just kept getting more off the charts!
As for Virt Gold, who'd lost even one second faster than Justin Wayne had, he could hardly draw anyone's attention anymore.
After all, no matter who'd been in his place, the result would likely have been the same.
Losing itself wasn't frightening.
What was frightening was when others — or even you yourself — began to think losing was only natural.
Virt Gold, not overly discouraged by it all, felt only a mild, fleeting pang of disappointment as he raised his hand to recall the Blood Demon.
____
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