Who Let Him Play Yu-Gi-Oh! novel Chapter 480

The beam tore through the vampire without a shred of mercy. Fourteen thousand in damage almost pixelated her entire being. With a scream, the long-legged vampire collapsed to her knees, hands on the ground, gasping in pain.

Zane had won.

The path had looked bumpy, but Kira had never been surprised by the outcome. To him, Camula was a strong Dark Duelist by common standards, but her duelist power wasn't exceptional; her strength was propped up by forbidden cards and outright hacks like Illusion Gate. She shouldn't be Zane's equal.

If the win seemed laborious, it was partly because Zane's heart had been shaken—he was in the midst of remaking it, and that uncertainty bled into his play. And partly the protagonist's customary at 1 HP drama—dangerous on the surface, stable underneath, with low odds of a true upset.

In the original, when Camula used Illusion Gate, she also cheated off the table. Illusion Gate should stake the user's soul, with the loser paying the price. But she was a ends-justify-the-means duelist bent on reviving her race—honor meant nothing to her. She exploited the main cast's ignorance of dark power, rewriting the terms with her own magic—swapping in Syrus' soul in place of her own.

That way she bore no risk, and if Zane won, Syrus's soul would be taken instead. No risk to her, a leash on her opponent, and a table-flipping cheat—easy win.

But now, afraid of drawing Kira's eye, she ambushed Zane in secret. There were no bystanders to snatch as her soul's substitute.

Only Kira was present. She hadn't watched Duel City finals in person, but as a Dark Duelist she'd heard enough—this Duel King had won after gods fought a world-ending boss.

Cheating in front of ignoramuses is one thing. Trying tricks in front of someone like that would just get her killed worse.

Hence her end.

With the duel over, Illusion Gate rose behind her again. The massive door opened slowly. Beyond it—nothing. Only bottomless dark.

A demon's hand reached out, closing around Camula's pale throat. Her white face flushed red under the choke; her voice broke into ragged, helpless screams—she couldn't form a single word.

Kira wanted to intervene—this was the second Shadow Riders he'd caught. He'd come hoping to try the trick that hadn't worked on Dark Atticus—to see if he could use his power to influence the rules of a Shadow Duel, keep Camula alive as a remote-controlled puppet, and have her lead him back to the Shadow Riders' base for intel.

But no luck. Though his dark power had grown, and he could tweak a Shadow Duel's stakes a little when Zane won, he couldn't shake Illusion Gate's rules.

A brief probe told him the card's power vastly outstripped the Shadow Duel Camula had started. The Sacred Beast force beyond the door was absolute; it would not allow its promised soul to be spared.

Forcing it would risk a backlash from beyond—and that wasn't worth it. So Kira withdrew, watching Camula caught in her own web.

The Sacred Beast power dragged the vampire into a hellish abyss. Screams that seemed to come from her very soul echoed from behind the door, lingering long before fading.

The door shut.

The Sacred Beast was satisfied. The door became a fading image; the bat upon it smirked in mockery, as if waiting for the next fool to open it.

The second of the Shadow Riders—done for.

Zane stared at the alluring body now empty of a soul. In his head, her final struggles echoed—the despair as she was dragged into the dark. He said nothing.

If he'd fallen short—if he hadn't turned it around and had lost to her—

Zane dared not finish the thought.

He clenched a fist, looking down at his Duel Disk and the card still set upon it—Chimeratech Fortress Dragon.

The first card he'd received from Kira's lab.

The card that had plunged him into doubt back in Duel City—and then saved his life today.

Suddenly, he felt the worth of victory more keenly than ever.

Victory meant standing here alive, greedily breathing free air.

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