"A Legendary Dragon card."
Judging from the flash of shadow earlier, it should be "The Claw of Hermos."
'Hmm…'
Hikaru rubbed the bridge of his nose.
This card, sothing even Super Polyrization never drew out for him, had now appeared in his deck in this strange form. It genuinely caught him off guard.
Still, even if it was an illusory card, Hikaru had to think about the source. How did this card co to be?
Could the appearance of the Legendary Dragon an that "The Great Leviathan"—the Orichalcos God—had returned to the world?
But... it didn't seem like that.
He hadn't heard of anyone suddenly appearing with "auto-loss Orichalcos seals".
He had asked Rex Raptor a few things during their earlier conversation.
Though Rex wasn't keen on discussing his past, especially the part before he ended up on the streets, he still spoke up, treating Hikaru like a younger version of himself, soone who needed warning.
He had experienced the Orichalcos incident, too. That said, back then, he was a background character among background characters. He quickly lost to Joey Wheeler, and everything after that was a blur.
Afterward, he started to feel weaker, physically and spiritually.
Only after years of hardship did he finally find himself again, thanks to support from Funglow Company, becoming a "respectable" duelist.
As for the last decade or so? He could only say Kaiba had beco scarier and scarier.
So, from this logic, it didn't seem to have anything to do with Doma or Orichalcos directly.
And it wasn't like that egg-headed had gotten so powerful he absorbed Doma and tried to replicate the Sacred Beasts and touch the Orichalcos God.
Not that it was impossible...
Still, from what Hikaru had seen, Leo Akaba's research was mostly focused on the Sacred Beasts he had inherited from Chancellor Kagemaru and his dark ambitions to create artificial Dark Magician spirits for recruiting into the Fusion Army.
Clearly still plotting interdinsional warfare.
So, this card probably had nothing to do with past events.
No matter how you looked at it, the card was most likely generated from the energy produced during the duel with Rex Raptor.
In other words, sothing about Rex triggered it.
Maybe it was his title: "Legendary Duelist."
Or maybe it was that strange "negative Spirit compatibility" state of his.
Either way, it had to be one of those two factors.
To confirm his theory, Hikaru asked Tierra for a more detailed analysis. Seeing how serious he was (from her perspective), she generously shared what she saw.
Rex Raptor's condition was indeed extrely fragnted. If he continued dueling with spirits, it wouldn't be long before he passed out.
It was a serious soul deficiency.
Not that his soul was eaten, per se—rather, his energy, his strength, had been drained.
To recover, he'd need to either regenerate through powerful duel energy or absorb soone else's force by dark ans.
"So if Rex is still like this, then clearly he hasn't done anything shady all these years," Hikaru concluded.
Tierra didn't care much for Rex as a human and lazily agreed. Then she explained:
Thanks to Hikaru's mastery of alchemy—and his construction of a dinsional gate—plus the energy of the card he now carried, the duel caused Rex to feel "hope" and "expectation" again, which in return, triggered a recovery in his spiritual energy.
And the impurities—unwanted fragnts—were alchemized by Hikaru, manifesting as the flickering, nearly intangible card now in his hand.
"So I need to duel Rex a few more tis?"
"Not enough. He alone won't cut it," Tierra said offhandedly. "But if it's those 'Legendary Duelists', then maybe."
She tilted her head, assessed it again, and gave a firm nod. "If they really are as legendary as claid, then yes. Anyone like that Rex guy should work."
So then—
Could it be?
He looked at the Claw of Hermos in his hand.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! ani, this was a card once held by Joey Wheeler—and Rex Raptor had been among those who dueled him.
So, reverse-engineering the logic: Maybe it wasn't Rex's duel energy creating the card.
Maybe it was because Rex was part of the legend.
If so, then dueling other Legendary Duelists might also grant him cards tied to the Legendary Dragons?
Hikaru slapped the table.
"What's wrong?" Tierra, bored and about to try Funglow's Easy Fusion prototype, was surprised by his sudden outburst.
Hikaru didn't tell her.
He was a bit regretful.
If only he'd crossed over sooner!
Only if he'd t Jaden earlier, maybe he could've dueled the Paradox Brothers. Maybe he could've earned the Gate Guardian Fusions. Maybe he could even have triggered the Legendary Dragons sooner, instead of wasting a year and a mountain of alchemy resources blindly experinting!
Still, that was just a passing grumble.
Not to ntion, the Paradox Brothers' "legendary" status was far from equivalent to Rex Raptor's.
And back when Hikaru first arrived in this world, his strategy was just to blend into the Fusion Club and get so clout. Dueling Jaden back then wasn't realistic.
Besides, Jaden hadn't gotten familiar with Hikaru through dinsion travel yet. He was obviously closer to his buddy Syrus. No way Hikaru would've had that chance.
"Mm—tastes okay," Tierra said, slurping the cup noodles. "Good enough. Once it hits the shelves, mortals will see what the gods choose."
Hikaru let out a laugh.
Then coughed twice, carefully pulled out the Claw of Hermos, and slipped it into a separate card case.
One way or another, he had a new path to follow. If Funglow could help arrange duels with more "Legendary Duelists", Fusion would give him his answer.
Next up: the final interdinsional journey of the sester!
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