"Elemental Hero, Vision Hero, Masked Hero!" Youyu shouted, "Attack Noah directly!"
The Earthman, Adoration, and Acid leaped forward simultaneously, and the three heroes launched their attacks together, striking Noah's body in this virtual world's simulation. The impact sent Noah's entire body flying like a rag doll, and his total LP of 8500 evaporated instantly.
Noah: "Ahhhhh!!!"
[Noah, LP 4000→ LP 0]
Of course, such a simulated impact couldn't possibly hurt Noah, who was essentially program code, but the fact indeed dealt him a tremendous blow.
Noah got up, kneeling on the ground, his face filled with shock.
"I... lost?"
Defeated in one turn?
Even using the Deck Commander rule he devised himself, even with the strongest Deck Commander and the most perfect tactics (referring to card transcription), he still lost so simply?
He was thinking about defeating Seto through the duel, wanting to crush Seto completely and reclaim the Kaiba Group... but he lost to someone else without even fighting him?
This is too lame!
The direction of the wind suddenly changed in the virtual space where the two were.
Youyu could clearly feel the simulated temperature of the space dropping by a few degrees. The sunlight disappeared, ominous dark clouds appeared in the sky, slowly rotating in the sky, at the center of the vortex appeared...
... a human face?
It was the face of an old man. Silver hair and beard, a stern face, imbued with an aura of authority even in the form of an apparition floating in the sky.
Noah's face changed dramatically: "Dad... Dad!?"
From his reaction, it was evident that the man was Kaiba Gozaburo, who adopted Seto Kaiba but was eventually ousted from the Kaiba Company and stripped of everything by Seto Kaiba.
But Noah was clearly kept in the dark: "Weren't you... already dead?"
The old man in mid-air rolled his eyes: "My body? Yes. But before that, I used the same device I used to save you.
I also backed up my own consciousness and uploaded it into the computer world. Now I am omnipotent just like you... no, even above you."
"Dad!" Noah's face lit up with joy, like a long-lost child reuniting with their parents, "You're... you're still here? You don't know, I've always been so alone, desperately trying to meet your expectations..."
"You're no longer needed, Noah," Gozaburo said coldly, with a monotone as if stating an inconsequential fact.
Noah's smile froze instantly.
"I once tried hard to preserve your life because you were the one I chose to inherit the Kaiba Group. It would have been slightly troubling if you simply died," Gozaburo said indifferently, "but that's in the past. Now I no longer need you."
Having said this, the old man turned his head, looking towards Youyu, studying him with an odd gaze.
"I do have a bit of interest in you," he said, "Come here, I have something to discuss with you."
As he spoke, a door appeared out of thin air next to Youyu.
Youyu raised an eyebrow.
He wanted to say, sorry, sir, but I'm not interested in such old things, and certainly not in dead ones...
... but then he decided to walk through.
After all, this person was the real mastermind behind this plot.
After Youyu walked through the door, it quickly disappeared. The face of Gozaburo in the sky vanished, the dark clouds dispersed, and the sky returned to a bright blue.
Noah remained kneeling on the ground like a dried salted fish, his entire worldview shattered.
"How... how could this be?" he muttered to himself, "Dad doesn't need me anymore? Then what was everything I have done up until now for?"
Even though his form had become AI, Noah was essentially still a dedicated father complex. Despite his father's death years ago, he had always been striving to meet his father's expectations, to defeat Seto Kaiba, to reclaim their family's group, to give his deceased father peace of mind from the afterlife.
Now he knew that his father wasn't truly gone, but he had become an abandoned pawn. Everything he had done so far was just self-entertainment, ultimately meaningless...
"No!" Noah shook his head, "If I can defeat Seto and prove I'm stronger, then Dad, Dad will surely regain his expectations of me!"
Noah gritted his teeth and got up, a newfound determination filled his eyes...
...
Youyu had just passed through the door when his surroundings instantly changed, and he found himself in the president's office of the Kaiba Company tower.
Kaiba Gozaburo was sitting behind the desk, fingers crossed under his chin.
"You've managed to catch my attention," Gozaburo said as he watched Youyu enter, "To be honest, there aren't many things on this Earth that can still surprise me... but you managed to do something."
"You mean...?"
"I don't think we need to play dumb," Gozaburo said, "The cards you used in the duel just now, those are not things available in the Kaiba Company database.
To introduce external data right under my nose and Noah's without being detected, that's not a technology an ordinary person could achieve."
Youyu understood.
It seemed that Gozaburo believed that during the duel, the "Hero" series of cards used by Youyu were somehow hacked into the virtual world's system by him and added without permission.
Of course, Gozaburo couldn't have detected or comprehended what Youyu's system card pool actually was. To him, Youyu might seem like a world-class technology savant, a supreme hacker, hence his interest in Youyu.
"You might be a rare talent, I'm willing to give you an opportunity."
Gozaburo said this, gesturing, and the door behind Youyu disappeared into thin air.
"You got entangled because of Seto and may have no clue about the current situation. So let me explain briefly..."
"I think I kind of get it," Youyu shrugged, "You're Kaiba Gozaburo, the former chairman of Kaiba Company who supposedly should have died. But you used some kind of black technology to back up your consciousness, living like a ghost in the computer world now."
"Oh, you're indeed smart, you quickly understand," Gozaburo nodded, "That's correct, but you may not yet understand what I'm capable of.
Me, entering the network world, my learning ability is beyond human imagination, freed from the shackles of the flesh, I am now absolutely invincible.
I can breach into any network or system, including the most advanced weapon systems, if I wanted to, I could easily destroy this world.
Everything in this world will be under my control, I'll start by reclaiming the Kaiba Group, and forge a new world..."
"... uh, hold on a minute," Youyu waved his hand to interrupt Gozaburo's monologue, "so, do you know how to play cards?"
This self-proclaimed omniscient AI paused: "Huh?"
"Playing cards, Duel Monsters," he gestured to the Duel Disc on his hand.
Gozaburo expressed disdain: "Hmph! Now that I excel in computation, there is no type of game that I cannot win if I choose to study it. My detestable son was once obsessed with this game, ridiculous! A grown man being addicted to such a pointless game all day, that's why I said Seto would accomplish nothing..."
"Oh, got it," Youyu nodded, "so you're not planning to play cards. Then you might as well wash up and call it a day, conquer the world or whatever, maybe try it in the next life."
Gozaburo frowned: "What did you say?"