Chapter 499: One Body, One Heart

"Impossible, it's just a mirror image."

"Clearly it's just..."

The Supreme King's golden pupils contracted.

He looked up, only to see that the infinite darkness surrounding him, like an abyss, seemed to be melting away.

It was as if a fire had been lit in that cold abyss; although it was so small, although it seemed insignificant compared to this darkness, it burned stubbornly, blooming in the darkness.

The boy in red walked slowly in that flame.

"... Why?"

The Supreme King asked in disbelief.

He was truly puzzled from the bottom of his heart.

His Evil HEROes were clearly a comprehensive enhanced version, just like the symbol of himself and this boy. He was the one who possessed power, power that existed only to win without redundant emotions; he should never lose to anyone again.

Why did he still lose to this person even so?

"Maybe you are indeed stronger than me," Judai said to him with a smile. "Through the duel, I can indeed feel that your strength is indeed power that I cannot match.

But even so, I still won. Because I also have something you don't have."

The Supreme King looked at him blankly.

"Just like I said," Judai pointed to his deck with a grin, "irreplaceable partners."

"In the past year, I have seen unprecedented possibilities in dueling. I realized that even the heroes I thought I knew like the back of my hand had possibilities I didn't know about."

"These were all taught to me by him."

"He was also the first to tell me that dueling is not always happy, and there will be many heavy times. As a duelist, one has to bear the cruelty of victory and defeat.

The fate of those we want to protect, who might be affected by our defeat.

The fate of those we have to defeat, who might be hurt by our victory."

Judai said softly.

"I only understood a little vaguely before, but today, after meeting you and dueling you, I feel I truly understand. It has always been you who bore my heaviest darkness; thank you."

"But just as I said, from now on, whether it's pain or the sins of fighting, we will bear all of this together."

"..."

Judai felt this was a pretty good speech.

He hadn't prepared a draft, but every word came from the bottom of his heart. He had already understood that the dark phantom before him was indeed a part of himself, the darkness in his heart that he had always been missing.

Everyone has darkness in their heart, and powerful duelists even more so. Even as strong as the Pharaoh was back then, he had huge shadows in his heart.

Light and shadow have always been mutually reinforcing and restraining; those without this darkness are incomplete.

So Judai had made up his mind to face the darkness in his heart. From now on, whether it was the darkness or the sins borne by the Supreme King, he would bear them together and continue to move forward.

He felt this should have been a rather moving scene.

Until the Supreme King heard this and, as if suddenly remembering something, glared at him with golden eyes that looked like they wanted to kill.

Suddenly, the Supreme King thought of the duel when he went to the other dimension.

That bird egg that suddenly ate his three strongest Evil HEROes, and that Kuriboh that slapped him to death as if it were an insult.

He was still savoring the humiliation of that slap.

And now, the dignified Elemental HERO was actually played into an autistic loop by his own sunny mirror image. The four-fold fusion Electrum, such a soulful Elemental HERO big brother, was forcibly broken into the infinite firepower of Catapult Turtle...

The art style connected all at once.

"The friend you mentioned," the Supreme King said stiffly, "is that guy from last time?"

"Eh?"

Judai was interrupted, and his emotions were no longer coherent.

Then he scratched his head sheepishly. "You mean Fujiki You Xuan? How did you know?"

Supreme King: "..."

Sure enough.

The culprit was still that guy.

"Are you sure you're okay now?"

Standing in the center of the Supreme King's castle, which had already been taken down, the three of them gathered together again, and Jonouchi couldn't help but ask.

The generals and soldiers of the Supreme King's army were lying all over the place around the hall. The two of them hadn't been idle while Judai was busy inside, knocking down one team of the Supreme King's guards after another outside.

Most of them were directly beaten up and packed away, with only a few small elites passing a few rounds of moves by playing cards. However, for both Fujiki You Xuan and Jonouchi, it was only warm-up level difficulty, and basically, it was an easy win throughout.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Judai nodded.

Then he looked back at the room behind him. The door to the Supreme King's room had been tightly closed, as if the demon had been sealed in the deepest part of this castle.

!. Read

"It's over," Judai said. "Although the process was a bit tortuous... but I won."

He paused as he said this and turned to Fujiki You Xuan: "I used 'that move'."

"Oh? You used 'that move', huh."

Fujiki You Xuan nodded slightly.

As if to say, not bad, teachable.

He couldn't help but start to imagine what the Supreme King's reaction would be during the process of being tortured by the autistic loop of the Electrum Cannon. Although that poker face would likely not have many expressions, that murderous look must be fun...

Huh?

Fujiki You Xuan, who was imagining, suddenly seemed to sense something and looked at Judai strangely.

"What's wrong?" Judai looked back at him.

"No, nothing..."

Fujiki You Xuan withdrew his gaze, feeling strange in his heart.

Eh, am I overthinking it?

Why did I really feel the Supreme King's murderous look just now...

"It's good that you're fine," Jonouchi stretched. "Well, it's finally over, and it's considered a wish fulfilled for me. This thing has really been tossing for a long time..."

He initially came to this twelve-dimensional world by chance because he was plotted against by a lobster. It was just that later, seeing the people living here in dire straits, as a hot-blooded young man with power, he couldn't ignore it.

Although it took a long time, it was finally successful anyway.

"But speaking of which, why do I feel like your temperament seems different?"

Jonouchi looked at Judai for a moment.

"Are you really okay?"

"No problem," Judai nodded. "I just merged with the Supreme King, and now he is basically inside me."

"Oh, so that's how it is."

Jonouchi nodded as if he understood.

But about half a minute after he turned around, his head turned back slowly.

"Wait, what did you say!?"

He widened his eyes and looked at Judai in disbelief.

"You mean, the dictatorial madman we've been looking for all the way here, the dueling machine with ultimate dark power..."

"Is now inside you."

"Uh, actually it's not that serious..." Judai scratched his head. "But it's about right."

Jonouchi: "..."

He suddenly wanted to say, is your definition of "fine" a bit different from ours...

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 500 =====