Chapter 13
"Syrus, look at the two Royal Magical Libraries on Rowan's field."
Jaden had caught on to something and pointed it out before anyone else could.
Everyone turned.
Not just Syrus, but Chazz's two lackeys as well.
On each of the brown fortress-like monsters, a second green gem had appeared.
Two Spell Counters on each Library now, sitting there quietly while no one had been paying attention.
They all remembered what Alexis had explained moments ago. Three counters removed from one Library meant one free draw from the deck.
On the surface, Rowan had used two copies of Upstart Goblin and achieved almost nothing.
His hand was still three cards. His opponent had gained 2000 life points. It looked like spinning wheels in place.
But both Libraries had quietly accumulated two counters each.
And then it clicked for Syrus and the two lackeys at the same time.
The Dark Magician deck's win condition had nothing to do with reducing the opponent's life points.
It only needed one thing: all five pieces of Exodia assembled in hand. Life point totals were completely irrelevant.
Even infinite life points meant nothing against a complete Exodia.
The moment all five pieces came together, the game ended, no questions asked.
All Rowan needed to do was keep drawing.
Across the field, Chazz had gone pale.
He was staring at the two green gems on the Libraries, and his expression made it clear he had arrived at the same conclusion.
"Finally figured it out?" Rowan said pleasantly. "A little late though."
The Dark Magician deck the system had given him was the OTK version. The underworld soul-crushing edition.
It was built for one thing and one thing only: burn through the entire deck in a single turn and end the game before the opponent ever gets to play.
"It doesn't matter how many cards you draw!" Chazz snapped, rallying himself.
"The moment your Spell Cards stall out and you pull a defense monster or a trap, the scales tip back to me! This isn't over!"
Ding. Emotion Points from Chazz Princeton: +200.
"Then your only hope is for someone to sneak onto the field and stuff a bunch of defense monsters and traps into my deck that I never put there," Rowan replied cheerfully.
Because out of the forty cards in his deck, beyond the five Exodia pieces, the two Royal Magical Libraries, and a small handful of other monsters, every remaining card was a Spell Card.
More than thirty of them.
If Chazz had gone first and managed to draw his counter-trap cards on turn one, setting them before Rowan could move, things might have been different.
Maybe.
But Chazz had handed over first turn. And Rowan had opened with a Library in hand, then used Still Water Clarity to guarantee the second one, locking in a perfect one-turn-kill setup from the very first draw.
There was nothing left to stop. Chazz could watch. He could listen. He could wait.
The outcome was already decided.
One thousand percent.
"Spell Card activation from hand. Pot of Greed. I draw two cards from my deck."
Before Chazz had fully processed the last taunt, Rowan played another card.
A large, grinning green cauldron materialized on the field, then shattered as two more cards slid from the deck into Rowan's hand.
"And with the activation of Pot of Greed, both Royal Magical Libraries gain another counter, bringing each of them to three."
"Monster effect activated. I remove three Spell Counters from each Library."
He drew twice more.
His hand jumped from three cards to six in a single motion.
"His hand just exploded!"
Jaden shouted from the sideline, pumping a fist. Full cheerleader energy.
"This duelist..." Alexis murmured from the arena's edge, watching Rowan with open fascination. "His thought process is extraordinary."
If she had understood Rowan's taunt to Chazz correctly, this deck contained no traps at all. Possibly very few monsters.
Just an unbroken wall of Spell Cards, each one triggering the Libraries for counters, each one cycling and filtering through the deck at speed, drawing more and more until the five pieces were in hand.
Was Chazz Princeton, ranked first among Obelisk Blue first-years, actually about to be one-turn-killed?
Alexis stared at the field with genuine astonishment.
"This is not happening," Chazz breathed through clenched teeth, sweat beginning to form at his temple.
Six cards through the deck and already it looked like this. Twenty-eight remained.
The shape of something very bad was becoming very visible.
"Oh look, Left Leg of the Forbidden One."
Rowan glanced at the two cards he had just drawn and casually announced that one of them was an Exodia piece.
Twisting the knife. Deliberately.
Ding. Emotion Points from Chazz Princeton: +800.
The chime was music.
Rowan let the corner of his mouth pull upward.
At this point in the story, almost nothing in Chazz's hand could reach across the field and interrupt an opponent's hand or spell chain.
Especially not from the brooding, pre-character-development version of Chazz that currently stood across from him.
Which meant Rowan could provoke as freely as he wanted. Test the system's detection range. Rack up points mid-duel.
Maximize everything.
All at once.