Atem stood at the cave mouth, the storm-scale warm against his chest. The cave smelled of wet stone and old thunder. He closed his eyes for a breath, feeling the new power settle like a second heartbeat under his ribs.
"Oracle," he said aloud, calm and crisp. "Scan for exits, and while you do, mark any monster concentrations near us. I need targets to practice these powers."
<
Atem nodded. "Show me the way."
Veldora's excited rumble filled his head like distant thunder: "Monsters! Fight them and tell me how it tickles!"
Atem let himself smile a fraction and led the way, Dark Magician materializing at his side and Kuriboh hovering nervously on his shoulder. He felt the newcomers in his Deck — small, confident sparks — and the old duelist's instinct woke: arrange, predict, strike.
They found the Armorsauruses grazing in a shallow wash, four hulks of plated hide and blunt horns. Their armor plates clinked when they shifted, and the ground itself seemed to brace for their steps. Atem's King of Games ran quick simulations — angles of charge, tail arcs, the most likely breakpoints in their plating.
He acted like a duelist laying a card down.
"Kuriboh, in front," Atem ordered quietly. "Dark Magician, you take the right flank and break the armor seam. Celtic Guardian, pin the rear."
Dark Magician answered with a slow, deliberate bow of his staff. He moved like a shadow come to life: robes twirling, a circle of black magic forming in the air. Kuriboh puffed, becoming a living cushion, and slotted between Atem and the nearest beast.
The first Armorsaurus noticed and charged — dumb, fierce, the way a heavy thing hits when surprised. Atem met it with his feet planted. The beast's horn slammed where a human should have been crushed, but Kuriboh bloomed like a soft, angry moon and took the brunt, the tiny guardian absorbing the impact and negating damage with a pop of light. Atem felt the shock through his legs, but it didn't throw him — Veldora's essence steadied his balance, and his body answered with raw power he'd never had before. He twisted, used the beast's own momentum, and clipped its flank so it stumbled.
Dark Magician raised the staff. Atem saw the seam where ancient armor overlapped and called the spell he wanted. The Dark Magician's hands wove shapes in the air and then unleashed a barrage — Thousand Knives — a storm of dark, razor-thin blades that struck the armored plates in dozens of tiny, precise points. Sparks flew. The armor, meant to shrug off blunt force, failed to shed a hundred fine cuts.
The second beast reared and lashed its tail. Atem felt the tail-arc predicted by King of Games and dove under it, muscles burning with Veldora-gifted strength. He extended a hand, and a concentrated Dark Burning Attack followed through the Dark Magician — a heat-sheen of black fire that ate at armor seams and sent steam and bitter smoke into the wash.
"Now!" Atem shouted. Celtic Guardian leapt forward, blade ringing; its sword hammered a joint in the plating where Dark Magician had weakened it. One Armorsaurus went down with a heavy, stunned thud.
Veldora's deep laugh filled his head. "Ha! Nice moves Pharaoh!"
Atem answered with a calculated grin and another move. He used Afterworld Warp — a shadowy teleport the Dark Magician summoned as an illusionary box — to slide one of his summoned forms behind a charging beast. The illusion confused its sensors; the beast turned wrong, exposing its underbelly to a coordinated strike. A triple black-magic volley from Dark Magician — a dense, layered burst — finished it off with a thunderous ripple.
The fight moved like a duel: summon, respond, counter. Atem called Kuriboh into the center to absorb a particularly nasty ricochet, and the little guardian expanded, taking a blow that would have cracked a human rib and returning nothing but a soft squeal.
When the last Armorsaurus stumbled, Atem stepped forward and placed a hand on its flank. Feelings of heavy earth and dull, stubborn life came through him; the Oracle's voice guided him.
<
He performed the rite the Oracle taught: a quiet incantation, a binding gesture, and the beasts' life-thread slid into him like warm rope. It did not taste like victory so much as fuel: solid, useful, a little bitter. He felt his muscles tighten with new tone. The Dark Magician's outline brightened; his attacks felt richer, heavier, more precise.
<
Atem exhaled, feeling satisfied and cautious. He had played his hand, tested his strength, and the Deck had answered.
The bats came as a roaring dark cloud from above, a winged rush that filled the upper cavern. This was the test Anat had asked for — spatial motion, three-dimensional combat, the feel of flight under his body.
"Oracle, initiate flight support calibration," Atem murmured. <
He stepped to the lip and felt the dragon in him stir. The first lift was clumsy: his center of gravity felt new and slippery; the air pulled at him in strange, satisfying ways. He forced himself to breathe slow, let the movement come from his torso, from the storm-blood in his chest.
Dark Magician launched a Mystical Box — a small, shimmering portal that swallowed a bat mid-dive and spat it harmlessly aside. Atem used that window to practice a midair reposition: he banked, felt his body respond with a tail of blue lightning under his skin, and unrolled into a tight turn that would have stunned him before.
They dove into the bats like a duel's sudden twist. Bats came in waves; Atem matched them with layered strategy. He called Kuriboh up as a soft buffer below him for a risky intercept; he used Dark Magician's Illusion tools to split a group's perception — a phantom swarm in one direction, the real strike in another.
At the apex of the battle Atem tested something new: a concentrated gust drawn from Veldora's stored will. He cupped air in his hands and pushed it out, a controlled pocket of wind that hit three bats and sent them spiraling like leaves. Dark Magician followed with a destroying spell — a single, disciplined Black Magic Bolt that severed a wing tendon on a hurtling bat, sending it down into the cave-mouth where Kuriboh and Celtic Guardian caught it.
He tried a daring maneuver. A cluster of bats came low in a tight spiral to overwhelm him. Atem twisted, angling his chest into the spin, and used Afterworld Warp to step a breath-length ahead — a trick that bought him clean shots as the bats overflew him. He felt the thrill of speed and the careful, duelist's calm as he executed the plan.
Veldora's voice cut through, delighted and loud. "Ha! You're flying like the wind itself! Catch one and spin me a tale!"
Atem laughed, answering with a crisp, quiet order. "Dark Magician, Thousand Knives — aerial formation. Kuriboh, stay mobile."
Dark Magician unleashed a raining volley of knife-like shadows that shredded through leathery wings. The bats, disoriented and wounded, fell into nets of wind and were snatched by Celtic Guardian. Atem felt the fight in three planes — combative and beautiful, like a duel where cards were replaced by wingbeats and spells.
When the last bat fell and silence returned to the high caves, Atem floated down and landed with the ease of a man who had learned a new limb. He was breathing hard but not exhausted; Veldora's essence steadied and cooled. He gathered the bat-essences the same way as before, binding them with the Millennium Soul rite.
<
Atem nodded. He felt the change in his hands and in his summons: Dark Magician's magic felt heavier and more destructive; Kuriboh's negation flickered more reliably under pressure; Celtic Guardian moved with a new sharpness. The creatures that had once been mere projections were now something closer to allies with presence.
After the Duel
The cave smelled of scorched fur and wet stone. Atem crouched, hands on his knees, smiling into the fatigue. Veldora's inside voice purred like warm rain. "That was fun! You're getting loud and useful, Pharaoh."
Dark Magician stood loyally at his side, staff planted. Kuriboh, a little singed, bounced and then nestled at Atem's shoulder as if nothing had happened.
Atem checked his spirit deck in his mind—names, strengths, the glow of new sigils. He had tested raw strength, new magic techniques, coordinated summons, and the precarious art of moving the battlefield in three dimensions. He'd fought like a duelist and like a warrior. He had won; he had learned.
He straightened and spoke aloud, calm and in command. "Oracle — update map and continue scan. Locate stronger, but controlled threats. Prepare escape routes. I want a route out of this cave, but I'll not leave until I can stand on my own."
<
Atem nodded to his spirits, to the cave, and to the storm sleeping in his chest. "Then we train," he said softly. "We grow. We'll be ready."
Dark Magician inclined his head, an unspoken agreement. Kuriboh made a tiny, muffled noise that sounded like approval. Veldora laughed, low and content, and the cave — for the first time since the seal buckled — felt like the place where something new and dangerous was being born.