The duel ended, only taking a few more minutes. But all the spirits watching in the camp were suddenly silent.
How to put it?
The hero's duel was somewhat different from what they had imagined.
Actually, there were two spirits who had returned from the King of the Skull Servants' cave. When they saw the captain actually wanting to duel the hero, one of them initially wanted to remind the captain.
But he was held back by another spirit.
That spirit laughed and said, "No hurry, let's watch first. It might be very interesting."
The spirit being held back thought about it and felt his comrade's words made sense.
So he didn't speak. The two of them munched on melon seeds side by side, laughing as they watched the captain get beaten.
Indeed, it was very entertaining.
The captain, who had been flipped over by his own sword, closed his eyes and carefully replayed the recent duel.
Now, in hindsight, he suddenly felt like he hadn't actually done anything during the entire duel. Either the cards in his hand were discarded before he could even play them, or they fell to the ground, became set cards, and were directly destroyed, or they were simply stolen by the opponent.
Frankly, if it wasn't out of respect for the hero, he almost couldn't help but dismantle his duel disk and directly draw his sword to attack.
But now that the duel was over and he had calmed down, he carefully savored the recent duel, especially thinking about if he could master such a skill and use such dueling to bring joy to those hateful subordinates of the Evil God...
Thinking of this, the captain suddenly couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.
"Heh heh. Heh heh heh heh..."
He couldn't help but laugh.
The surrounding spirits looked at each other, feeling somewhat worried.
Could the captain have been broken by the recent duel?
Just at this moment, a warrior rushed in from outside in a huff.
"Captain! Report!"
The warrior said hastily.
"You asked me to find that red-haired, jellyfish-hairstyle otherworldly person. It seems we've found him!"
At the same time, Judai was eating.
If any other student encountered this situation of suddenly slipping and falling into another world, they might have been so frightened and confused they wouldn't know what to do. But the mentally strong Judai wasn't.
After a brief moment of panic, he quickly and calmly accepted this setup. He wandered around for a while and even developed the good spirit of a young person in another world—seeing an old woman pulling a small cart full of goods on the roadside, he enthusiastically went to help.
Then, under the old woman's fervent and irresistible invitation, he went to freeload three large bowls of food before patting his round belly and walking out to continue strolling.
"Nope nope, now's not the time for a meal burp~" Judai sighed, "That Yugen guy seems to have arrived too, gotta hurry up and find him. And I have to think of a way to get back to the academy before dawn, otherwise I'll get expelled if they find out..."
Winged Kuriboh, fluttering beside him: "Kuru kuru~"
Kuriboh seemed to say, no, I think we should be worried about something else besides expulsion right now.
"Huh?" Judai suddenly picked up Kuriboh, only then belatedly realizing, "Wait a minute, I seem to be able to touch you, Winged Kuriboh?"
Even Judai, who had just been busily eating, hadn't realized this was the spirit world.
"Kuru!"
Kuriboh suddenly cried out, flapping its wings and flying out of his hand, suddenly colliding with him and knocking him aside.
Judai suddenly fell on his backside on the ground, and in that instant, he saw a poison needle almost whizzing past his face, hitting the ground with a thud.
"What?"
Judai turned his head in surprise, only to see an insect-like creature standing on the high ground of the hillside to one side. It wore a full set of armor, held a sword and shield, and wore a cloak. Its posture was upright and humanoid, but its head resembled that of some kind of insect.
An Insect Knight.
"Huh? It seems like I've seen it somewhere before..."
Judai slapped his forehead, startled.
"Wait a minute, aren't you a card?!"
[ Insect Knight ] Level 4, ATK 1900, Normal Monster.
Insect Knight snorted coldly: "So you're indeed a Duelist. Did that small fry spirit help you? My scout said the King of the Skull Servants fell at the hands of an otherworldly warrior. Was it you?"
Judai had a stunned look: "King of what now?"
The armored insect knight leaped down, just about to attack again, when he suddenly seemed to sense something and his expression changed.
A domineering sword aura without any warning slashed out from behind him!
Suddenly ambushed, the armored insect knight wanted to react, but it was already too late. But then he saw the soil loosening beneath his feet in the back, and an Insect-type spirit suddenly burst out, using its body to block that sword aura. Its body was instantly blown to pieces.
That was a subordinate within the armored insect knight's deck. In the instant he was ambushed, it burst out to block this sword for him. But the lingering shockwave of the sword aura still sent the armored insect knight tumbling two rounds.
Looking up, he saw Black Luster Soldier descending from the sky, its blade wrapped in chaotic light and darkness, carrying the force of a thousand jun (ancient Chinese unit of weight, very heavy) as it came down in a cleaving strike.
"The legendary warrior!"
The armored insect knight was shocked. But his reaction speed was extremely fast. While tumbling, he had already conveniently hooked his hand and pulled out a card, quickly playing it.
"Sakuretsu Armor!"
Trap Card - Sakuretsu Armor, which can destroy attacking monsters.
Sakuretsu Armor's energy shot out, hitting Black Luster Soldier who was falling in mid-air, but it only hit a layer of seemingly invisible golden light protection, then dissipated.
Useless!
The armored insect knight was shocked: "There's also a protective magic?!"
The light surrounding Black Luster Soldier was [Power of the Guardians]. An Equip Spell Card, when a monster attacks, it can gather Spell Counters to protect the monster from being destroyed by battle or card effects.
At the same time, in this critical moment, the armored insect knight even felt a chill down his spine.
From the corner of his compound eyes, he caught a glimpse. The white-robed, white-haired magician had somehow blocked his path behind him, magic power brewing in the staff in his hand, about to erupt in his direction.
Attacked from both sides, there was no way to avoid it.
However...
"Counter Trap - Negate Attack!"
A powerful vortex exploded with him at its center. Black Luster Soldier's and Silent Magician's overflowing energy twisted into that swirling vortex. Following was a vast backlash storm, and both of them were forced to temporarily retreat under the sweeping impact.
"Phew~ that was dangerous."
The armored insect knight stood up, coldly assessing the two spirits, his gaze conveniently shifting to the back.
Towards the Duelist directing the spirits' battle from the shadows.
The armored insect knight said in a deep voice: "So, more than one otherworldly person has entered this place?"
Yugen walked out from where he was looking: "Tsk, looks like we still have to settle things with a duel."
The rapid movements and the few rounds of exchanges just now instantly brought back memories of the Egyptian Book arc, as if returning to a Pokémon battle version in the memories of DM King of Games.
Perhaps this was why it was said that duelists must rely on dueling to determine victory or defeat. Unless one side controlled overwhelmingly powerful spirits like the three Egyptian God cards that could single-handedly tear apart the opponent's entire battle force, otherwise, under the condition of no cost restrictions on skills and casually discarding monsters for any kind of summon, it was almost impossible to decide a winner.
"So that's it. In that case, you seem to be the Duelist who defeated the King of the Skull Servants. But no matter who it is, intruding into the god's domain must mean becoming the god's sacrifice."
The armored insect knight slightly waved his hand, revealing his duel disk.
"Enough talk, come on!"
"Duel!"
Judai, who was stunned on the side, hadn't caught up with the pace yet, completely not understanding what was happening. But one thing he had just understood was that Yugen seemed to want to duel the person opposite him.
Judai muttered softly, "Actually, I also wanted to duel with a spirit."
As the protagonist who had the most duel scenes in the entire Yu-Gi-Oh! series, this was probably Judai's first time since birth having his opportunity to duel snatched away by someone else who came knocking.