Chapter 208

Rowan had not quite guessed what Alexis wanted to say, given how she trailed off. But that did not stop him from giving her a nod to acknowledge her concern.

Then he walked to the center of the forest dueling ground and strapped Alexis’s Duel Disk onto his left wrist.

“Banner mentioned to me that a mysterious, powerful force seems to lie hidden within you as well. I do not yet know what it is, but there is one thing I can be sure of.”

As Rowan stepped into the arena, old Kagemaru’s aged voice rang out from the machine far across the field.

“You too possess the power to command Duel Spirits!”

“And after this Shadow Duel ritual, that power will become mine! It will be one of the sources I use to command the Sacred Beasts!”

The old man even “kindly” took the time to explain why he had chosen Rowan, or Jaden, as his opponent for this Shadow Duel.

“So this is the legendary first law of villains, huh. Spill a bit of your own secrets before the fight properly begins.”

Rowan pulled out a deck and looked across the field at the old man in the life-support tank, then spoke with a half-smile.

“I don’t know where you get your confidence, but against you, I think this new deck should do the job. It ought to bring a little ‘warmth’ to someone crippled in body yet still stubbornly playing cards.”

“Crippled in body, yet still stubbornly playing cards…”

Alexis, Jaden, Chazz, and the others watched the visibly irritated Chairman Kagemaru with strange expressions.

As expected, when it came to a venomous tongue and a scheming heart, there was no way to get the better of Rowan.

Even Chancellor Sheppard looked a little strange.

Truly the man who, since a while back, had been called Duel Academy’s “nightmare duelist.”

The duel had not even started, and he was already putting pressure on the heart monitor of the other side’s life-support machine…

Chancellor Sheppard suddenly had a feeling that Chairman Kagemaru, the mastermind behind the Seven Stars dark faction, might not be able to hold out in that aged body…

“Hmph. Until you have seen the power and despair of the Sacred Beasts, go ahead and talk tough all you like, boy.”

“Duel!”

“Duel!”

The old man gave a cold snort, and Rowan called out at the same moment. Red light instantly flared on the mechanical Duel Disk on the machine’s arm and on the one on Rowan’s left wrist, and both unfolded in an instant.

The small stone platform in the middle, where the Sacred Beasts’ cards had been kept, sank back into the ground.

It revealed the whole dueling field, a great pit-like arena.

Then, after both players drew their five starting cards, 4000 LP appeared beside each of them.

“I go first. Draw!”

Old Kagemaru’s aged voice rang out first. The crude mechanical claw outside his life-support tank stiffly pulled a card from the Duel Disk’s deck and added it to his hand.

“Next, I Set three Trap Cards.”

At the old man’s word, the mechanical arm turned again and again, placing three cards one after another onto the Duel Disk!

Three huge face-down card images appeared on the field before him with a thud, thud.

“He Set three Trap Cards? Has that Kagemaru guy really ever dueled before?”

Jaden looked surprised at the sight.

Alexis, Zane the Kaiser, Chazz, and the others also wore looks of surprise and confusion as they watched from a distance.

“Huh? Why do you say that?”

Only Syrus and Chumley, the class dunces and duel dunces, asked in bewilderment.

They could not see what was wrong with what he had done.

“Because normally, when you Set cards, you never state whether you are setting a Trap or a Quick-Play Spell. It would hand your opponent a lot of information and let them plan around it.”

Professor Crowler raised a finger and wagged it, giving an impromptu lesson.

“That Chairman Kagemaru seems to duel at the same level as Slifer Red’s washout Syrus, and you, koala boy!”

No sooner had he finished than old Kagemaru’s aged voice came back to slap him in the face.

“Hmph hmph. It seems the professors at Duel Academy these days are far too ignorant and weak.”

“The reason I deliberately said the cards I set were Traps is because that is exactly the condition for summoning one of the Sacred Beasts, Uria, Lord of Searing Flames!”

Inside the life-support tank, the old man controlled the mechanical claw with his brain waves and drew a card, placing it onto the Duel Disk.

“You, the boy with the sharp tongue, Rowan. Let me have you experience it firsthand, and feel the true terror of the Sacred Beasts!”

“I send the three Trap Cards on my field to the Graveyard to Special Summon Uria, Lord of Searing Flames from my hand!”

“Boom!!”

A faint light flared, flipping up the three Trap Cards that the old man had set on his field. They turned to particles and vanished.

The next second, an immense pillar of lava surged up from the ground in front of him with a rumbling roar!

It erupted with the force of a volcano!

“The Sacred Beasts’ entrance really is on another level from any ordinary Duel Spirit.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow as he watched, and muttered the words to himself.

Within that enormous column of molten fire, he could vaguely sense a colossal shadow slowly rising into shape, roaring as it came!