Veil Of Greed: Hunt For The Numbers!

by Fireking492-BlazeWarriorWolf

A era of no big villains has come again. But now, new threats threaten to throw everything into chaos once again. A predatory corporation sets its sites on the hundreds of number cards scattered after A Calamity In Time's final battle. Adam, Blaze, Dominic, and the others will meet all sorts of interesting characters while they risk their lives again.

36. The Duel Links Duel Ghouls

Veil Of Greed: Hunt For The Numbers!

Chapter 36: The Duel Links Duel Ghouls

Date: May 18th, 2023

As I was saying in the last chapter, I would explain everything I didn't in it here. That just leaves a fully fledged explanation of Duel Links. Duel Links was created by Kaiba in the Dark Side Of Dimensions/VRAINS timeline. For reasons unknown, it has launched in other dimensions entirely, connecting people interdimensionally through a virtual environment, the first to do something like that. It's what has allowed us to figure out how to link virtually to virtual worlds hosted in other universes. Duelists from Heartland City, Link VRAINS/Den City, Neo Domino City, I believe Goha City, Duel Academia, the 4 dimensions with a focus on the Pendulum dimension, and Domino City(both the DM and DSOD versions) have all logged into Duel Links. And some have even faced each other inside the virtual world. Duel Links is a place where dueling is taken to a new level, a virtual set of worlds to explore and duel in with plenty of things around to help duelists. But duelists must construct new decks upon logging in. They start with very basic and low level decks and have to do things like earn gems to buy structure decks and booster packs to acquire the cards they want. There are even duel tournaments and special events formed when new major duelists first enter Duel Links. Raid Duels for some more villainous characters for instance. Z-One, Paradox, etc. It is a really fascinating world and now, it's time to go there for the first time for real. It is connected to Link VRAINS directly but it's rules and things are different all things considered. We don't have enough duelist comrades available to help us investigate the problems in Duel Links, whatever they may be. So some of the comrades I'm going there with aren't actually duelists or weren't originally duelists when I first met them as Duel Monsters isn't prominent in the worlds they come from. I end up teleporting there after making sure our comrades have everything covered when it comes to the ongoing war against Pmurt and his pawns,

Everything was good to go apparently in Miitopia so I could be easily spared to take care of the problems in Duel Links and Ni No Kuni. So with that, I did the teleporting and met my comrades for the Duel Links mission. As we now have Athena and her knights from Saint Seiya on our side now, Seiya is here with us. He's got a mostly white knightly pegasus armor over a red shirt and blue shorts. He's also got short brown hair and eyes with tan skin. "Thank you Seiya for agreeing to come with us. I'm glad to see that you made it here alright. This is Duel Links or more specifically the Domino City duel world." Beerus looks around: "What the hell is this place supposed to be? Are all those people seriously fighting with cards instead of fists? In my universe, this never happens. I never thought I'd ever see those cards and monsters that have helped us in battle actually be used to play a friendly card game. It's hard to believe." Soulburner replies: "You get used to it. I had to deal with trauma from being kidnapped and forced to duel for 6 months straight. It was an adjustment to become a duelist people could look up to. I will blaze my circuit as many times as needed while we deal with whatever's going on here in Duel Links. This isn't my first time here actually." Skips looks around himself: "All these people seem to be having fun. But where's the problem here. I don't see any problems around here at all." Flame runs a scan: "I don't detect anything strange in the network. Someone must be cloaking their malicious virtual actions. That's the only explanation. And it has to be in a algorithm more complicated than any Ignis algorithm because I just can't get past the firewall I found." "I wonder if chakra still works in this virtual world." Ino uses her abilities as a sensory ninja. They work but: "Nothing. I can't find anything even with my chakra. At least we know that our abilities still work here." Gelina breathes a sigh of relief.

"That means that there's less to worry about now. But my magic is telling me something is wrong. At least the hacking that was done to give us access to our abilities in here worked. We'll need all we can get because I know from hearing the stories of others just how real and dangerous Duel Monsters can get." "Umm.. Why am I here again? I'm not a duelist or anything like that.. All I can do is float, grow my fists, and punch really hard. Oh and I have special earwax and instantly salivate whenever I think of pizza!" Lucille of Midgard is here with us too. She has a black cloak and face covering but her white hair and light skin eyes. "I don't understand why we needed to bring someone like him on this mission. Kids with such personalities should just stay home. It's too dangerous." "Don't underestimate that kid. He doesn't have a cosmo nor have I ever seen him fight. But his fighting spirit is just as strong as anyone else's. As one of Athena's knights, I can see it clearly in his eyes." "Hey, can we just get this over with? I'd really like to eat more food and take a nap. After we help in that war with that dumb bastard who I want to permanently erase from existence already!" That's when someone falls from the sky in front of us. It's Llenn and she's screaming. But she somehow lands slightly gracefully. "Owww! Come on! What world have I been somehow sent to now?! I was just about to win that PvP fight! Those guys didn't even see me coming! I was going to kill them! But no!" "Who in the world is this little munchkin?" "A munchkin huh? Not the first time someone has called me that! I'll have you know that I'm Llenn! They used to call me the Pink Devil of the desert! *she points her pink gun at Seiya* I suggest you watch how you acknowledge new people to you!" Beerus gets angry and is just about to erase both of them from existence with Haikai. I stand in his way: "Beerus, don't."

"What the hell are you getting in my way for, mortal?!" "Hey you, cat man! Stay out of this or else! *points gun at Beerus* Do you want me to blow your head off?" "I could easily crush you and your gun." "I dare you!" "You're so on! You stand no chance against a God of Destruction!" Llenn and Beerus go at each other, forgetting about Seiya and I. They try to attack each other but nothing happens. An error message reads: "Duel Links is not a game for fighting outside of playing the game. If you wish to fight, please enter a PvP room for a game of Duel Monsters." "I don't like this place already." "OH YEAH, I'LL JUST HAVE TO DESTROY YOU, ANNOYING MESSAGE!" "I'll help you! It's so annoying!" Llenn shoots at the message and Beerus uses Haikai on it. They destroyed the message only for hundreds of the same one to appear in its place. And that's how they made up. They started liking each other to spite the error messages. Before any of us could say anything else, we get surrounded by a mob of fans. "No way! It's Soulburner! But what are you doing here? Is this some kind of event?" "Seiya?! That's impossible! Seiya's not even a Yugioh character!" "Woah, Llenn's here! But she isn't even a Yugioh character either!" "Oh look, it's Beerus! Is this some kind of anime special event?" It was clear that the internet in many versions of Earth where Duel Links is just a cross platform video game is literally going haywire. And suddenly, the influx of players logging in causes a surge of lag in the area. To make matters worse, some fan says something ominous. "Will you duel with us? A new login reward has dropped today for a new special event. This Xyz monster.. Soulburner! Duel me and let me show you the power of this new card!" "Damn it! That's not a good sign. Is that a number possession glow coming off of this fan of yours? If what I'm thinking is right, a number card cloned themselves and hacked the system to possess every Duel Links player they could. This is really bad."

I was proven right just seconds later as the entire mob of fans started glowing in the same exact way and started becoming more like Duel Ghouls as they all said simultaneously: "Duuuuuuel meeeeeee! Duuuuuuuuuel meeeeee!" "I'm using my abilities to try to figure out what's going on but all of them have the same exact mindset! How is this possible? Are they all possessed?!" "My magic shows that they aren't themselves at all anymore. It feels like they're just like those Duel Ghouls I heard about from Swiftdrawer." "Yeah, these are like new generation Duel Ghouls and I don't think we can get out of this without defeating all of them. In this world, you have to fight with decks of cards. Since fighting is prohibited here despite the best efforts of our hacker comrades, that means we'll have to duel our way out of there. But if they're like the original Duel Ghouls, then they won't stay down for long and eventually, we'll get too exhausted to continue fighting and become just like them. *tries teleporting away* Just as I thought, we can't get out of here without beating all of these thousands of Duel Ghouls first. At least they aren't that smart. If you beat one, none of them, not even that one will be able to remember how you won at all. They're masters of their decks but they can't plan ahead before dueling someone." Llenn and Beerus try to escape through other means but they get error messages. "No jumping is allowed." "Flight is not allowed in this duel world." "This seriously pisses me off!" "I'm going to kill whoever is behind these dumb rules!" Seiya tries to make a path for us to escape. "Alright! That's it! Take this, you creeps! Pegasus Meteor Punch!" He unleashes a barrage of high speed punches but they don't do anything and he gets the same PvP error message. "In this world, duelists don't have HP. They only have life points which can only increase or decrease in games of Duel Monsters. We got away with a lot of stuff in Link VRAINS but I guess we can't here since the hackers on our side are now too busy to help us with all of the fighting that's going on. At least our appearances are as we wished them to be."

"Damn it! My Meteor Punch did nothing!" "That's it! This whole world can go to hell. Haikai!" Beerus tries to use Haikai to destroy the duel world but even though he wasn't targeting anyone specifically with the attack, the system still refused to allow any damage to occur. "Error: You do not have permission to destroy objects or structures." "Damn it! I hate this place so much! I hate it! I hate it! It's even worse than so many damn things!" I suddenly notice a shift in the weight of my stuff. I converted my avatar back from Alfheim Online and now that we're in Duel Links, I seem to be carrying some extra stuff to the tune of several decks and a box of cards that is pretty much infinite in storage. "Hey everyone, if you don't have a deck, I will just give you one because it seems my old save data from Duel Links from when I played it merely as a video game on my iPad has transferred over to this avatar for some reason. That means I have a lot of decks and cards now." I end up giving Beerus my Annoying Dragons deck, Seiya my improved version of the Red Eyes structure deck, Skips the Stardust Road structure deck, Ino my Harpie deck, Roach the structure deck with Elemental Hero Lady Heat, Llenn the Chronomaly deck I assembled, and Lucille the structure deck focused on Dark Magician. "So what do we do with these decks anyway? Do we throw them at people? Is this anything like GGO?" "No, just watch and learn. Make sure to look at the standard duel disks this game gave you. You'll all need to use those. It will take all of us to make it out of this crowd. We need to run to the teleport gate as soon as possible. It's nearby and is blue. It's mainly for fighting Legendary Duelists but I'm pretty sure it can let you change worlds too if I'm remembering correctly. Also, it's so interesting how everything that happened in Link VRAINS had no effect on the VRAINS part of this world's canon. Soulburner, you still came here looking for Playmaker despite the fact you already reunited with him in Link VRAINS. Crap like that even makes my head spin but it's okay. *activates duel disk* Who wants some? I'm going to start with my decoy deck." One of the Duel Ghouls practically leaps at me as they activate their duel disk.

And so, my first duel against these creeps begins. I instinctively started talking like I'm a unlockable Duel Links Legendary Duelist character. I played Duel Links a lot as just a mobile game, okay?! "*unison* Duel!* *I'll go first. It's my turn! I summon a monster!(Chainsaw Insect) I set a card facedown. Oh forget it, that's boring! I end my turn with what I've done!" "Duel me. *draws* Duel me. *activates Double Summon* Duel me and duel me. *summons Tasuke Knight and Elemental Hero Sparkman* Duel me, duel me and duel me! Duel me! Duel me! Duel me: duel me! *Xyz summons Number 669: Viral Machine Beast Marglaos(ATK: 2400, DEF: 2300* Duel me! Duel me, duel me! *attacks Chainsaw Insect*" "Not so fast! I reveal my facedown! It's called Metalmorph! It gives my monster an extra 300 attack and defense points." "DUEL ME! *damage calculation is done but Marglaos doesn't go anywhere and my monster causes them to draw another card* Duel me duel me duel me! DUEL ME, duel me!" "My turn again. So this number can only be destroyed by a number. Just as I thought. That shouldn't even be possible without a specific card here in Duel Links. Oh well, whoever gifted you that card and put it in your player mail inbox is good. However, I'm going to defeat you soon as I kind of got lucky. You have 3700 life points currently. However. I summon another Chainsaw Insect and equip them with 3 copies of Power of the Guardians! Now this is what I call the Heart of the Cards! Now, Chainsaw Insect #1, attack Marglaos! *damage calculation is done after Metalmorph boosts their attack points by the number of the target monster's attack points divided by 2. 1500 points of damage is dealt as a result.* Chainsaw Insect #2, attack Marglaos as well! Thanks to Power of the Guardians, my monster gains 500 attack points for every spell counter added to Power of the Guardians whenever the equipped monster is in battle. Since there are 3 in play, that's a 1500 attack point boost! *damage calculation is done, reducing my opponent's life points to 700 and now, they have 2 more cards in their hand.*"

"That's the end of my turn. Are you ready to try to fight back? I just want to see you try!" "Duel me. Duel me! Duel me! *my 2nd Chainsaw Insect is supposedly about to be destroyed because Marglaos can destroy one monster an opponent controls per turn apparently.*" "That won't work. I remove a counter from one copy of Power of the Guardians to prevent the destruction of Chainsaw Insect." "Duel me! Duel me.." "It's my turn again. Chainsaw Insect #2: finish this duel now by attacking Marglaos. You aren't taking this as seriously or strategically as I thought you would! This is the end!" It took me about 5 times to defeat that one duelist. That's one down. Literally thousands more to go but it's okay. It took a long time to knock very many down. Beerus complained loudly: "How the hell are we going to get out of this anytime soon? I get this card game now but it's so annoying that we can't just destroy everyone in our way already! I've had enough of this crap to be worth centuries!" "We could combine our forces together and tag duel all of them." "Ooo sounds like the Squad Jam in GGO!" "It is not. But thanks Soulburner for coming up with that. We'll just duel them all together while sharing our fields. I'm so sick of this too that I'm going to use my true deck. All of the artists will be used to defeat all of these Duel Ghouls as quickly as possible!" Soon, we're in a tag duel with every single Duel Ghoul except the few we actually managed to beat completely somehow. They won't be getting up anytime soon. That's a promise. After hours of dueling, we managed to defeat all of the, but they just got back up again. However, the tag duel was so big and long that it kind of broke the game a bit. The lag was starting to get bad and the Duel Ghouls froze still, as if their downloaded copies of the game couldn't handle it anymore and completely froze as a result.

None of us were affected by the lag but we did see it around all of us instead. All thanks to literally straight up teleporting here instead of logging in properly. This lag allowed us to safely pass all of the Duel Ghouls before the game recovered. By the time they were slowly chasing after us, we made it to the duel gate I mentioned earlier. As a result of this, we had a chance to get away from them at last. "All of you just grab onto me. I'm going to select a different duel world! We don't have time for anyone else to select it! Just do it! Soulburner and I are the only ones who know how to select a different duel world! The Duel Ghouls are inching closer to us! It won't be much longer until they surround us all over again!" They all nod and grab onto me as I touch the screen that appears before me until I switch it to the GX duel world. We teleport there only to find more Duel Ghouls. We're still by the gate but they have us surrounded. "Grab onto me again! Do all duel worlds have thousands of players turned into Duel Ghouls in them now?! There are so damn many of these creeps! It's unsettling! Each of them has a copy of that damn number card! So where's the original version of that number card?" I then select the 5Ds world only to see the Duel Ghouls so fast that I quickly send us to the Dark Side of Dimensions duel world where there's even more of them. We were forced to fight some of them while struggling to get to the Zexal world which we finally got to after an hour. But there, even the litterbots have become Duel Ghouls. So I immediately got us to the Arc V world only to go straight to the VRAINS world where we're now effectively trapped because Sevens world hasn't been completed yet if it's real. "Why the hell aren't you taking us anywhere else?!" "Beerus, there are no other available duel worlds to go to." "What?! That's all of them?!" "Guess we'll have to fight all those people here." "Not so, Takeru. Listen up humans, this is VRAINS world, seen as a expansion of Link VRAINS. Due to this, the duel boards can be summoned and used here. We can get away from those Duel Ghouls but we have to hurry. They're coming closer and closer to us.

I summon mine as does Soulburner. "Damn it! No one else has one and these boards can only fit up to 2 people at most even though they're only designed to be used by one person! What do we do?" "Oh yeah, there should be a duel board rental thing nearby. Isn't that right, Flame?" "Yes, that is correct, Soulburner." "Oh come on! You mean that cute little thing over there with all those Duel Ghouls between us and it?" "Man, I wish my powers could do stuff here. I could punch everyone out of the way so easily!" "Walt, powers.." "Swiftdrawer! What are you planning? Is it going to be something dumb like what Mordecai and Rigby would come up with?" "Skips, you are half right. We need a diversion and a so called slip and slide if ya know what I mean. That way, we can get enough duel boards gradually by using these 2 we already have with us to go retrieve them. Everyone, whoever is a good distraction make silly noises and get the Duel Ghouls to focus on you. If we get more than one person to distract them, that will make dividing their attention much easier. That's what we want but we have to get those duel boards fast. We don't have long until the Duel Ghouls give us no room left to escape. Roach, you'll give our 'friends' a slippery ride they will forget if I'm being honest. That is, if everyone is okay with the plan. No pressure." "How do I make a slip n slide for these creepy Duel Ghouls?" "Pizza." Roach starts heavily salivating and his powers as a Supernoob allow him to produce a lot of that stuff per second. He starts thinking and speaking about pizza obsessively, meaning that soon enough, many Duel Ghouls are going to fall for that rather strange trap. Lucille couldn't believe her eyes: "That kid.. He's actually useful. I should have known better than to immediately brush him off. He clearly was sent here because he is trusted to help somehow in his own way."

"Exactly. I trusted that he would help. My friends Mordecai and Rigby used to screw around all the time and sometimes, that helped them beat bad guys." With that said, Llenn, Gelina, Seiya, and Ino willingly become distractions and scatter the attention of the Duel Ghouls, slowly leading them away to "eternal" chase or a saliva caused slip and slide. Meanwhile, Soulburner and I brought Skips and Beerus to the rental machine and they each got a board. I then saved Seiya from being crushed by the very Duel Ghouls he lured away and got him to the rental machine too. Then, those of us with boards got everyone else to safety and we flew high up once Soulburner and I instructed Beerus, Skips, and Seiya on how to use the boards. The Duel Ghouls could no longer reach us. But then, Regnes summons himself through my duel disk: "I can sense the true presence of Number 669. *he points in a direction* That way. There something over there. I don't know what it is but it has the number somewhere within it. We better go there immediately. I must go before I get ejected from Duel Links by the system. See you in the next duel." Regnes literally unsummons himself and we start flying in the direction of Marglaos. What we soon found was a room inside of Duel Links. A huge room with something in the middle of it. We entered inside of it. Flame gasps: "No way.. This is where the source code for Duel Links is kept. It and Link VRAINS run on different code but it's all coded in the same style." "This is crazy! Not even the Gold Knights or Athena could create a world like this one!" But then, a familiar looking duelist who is honestly a minor character and running gag in Yugioh VRAINS shows up smirking. "Welcome to the magical room where the life force of Duel Links exists! Since I can't be Playmaker, I've done the next best thing! Duel Links is all mine! All duelists are under my control, except for all of you!" "Brave Max?! Is that seriously you?!" "Good! You remember me, Soulburner! And here I thought no one ever would remember me.."

"Who the hell is this chump looking kid?" "The name's Brave Max and I love Playmaker! I want to be just like him! And with my army of Duel Ghouls, I will become a hero just like him! My ghouls and I will make sure no more bad guys attack the internet! All of you should join me, together we'd be able to protect every virtual network in all of existence by turning people into more Duel Ghouls for the cause of bringing peace to Link VRAINS and beyond!" "You bastard! I'm going to kill you once this is over!" "Your name is Llenn, right?! Well, I'm the one who brought you here. I thought the antagonists of this adventure could use a side kick so the viewers at home wouldn't believe for a second that they were truly scary or a threat to what I want to do. The kids will love this episode special! The finale where I defeat all of you and become just like Playmaker! So which one of you wants to go first to lose first?" "I will." "Swiftdrawer! The ever so mysterious Swiftdrawer! I accept! It will be a honor for you to be erased once I beat you in this duel!" "We'll just see about that!" "Duel!" "It's my turn! I summon Duel Ghoul Sekta! And now I heroically create my circuit! I need one Duel Ghoul monster! I Link summon! Duel Ghoul Nezjosa! His ability lets me banish Sekta from my graveyard to summon from my hand Duel Ghoul Hesitation! When I summon one Hesitation, I can special summon another from my hand! I now overlay them in order to Xyz summon! The need to control the resources needed to become a hero like Playmaker creates a monster who will stand above all others as my equal! Come forth, Number 669: Viral Machine Beast Marglaos! When Nazjose is linked to a 'Number' Xyz monster, his attacks rises by 800 to 2300! With that, I set this card face down and end my turn!" "It's my turn and it will be the start of a nightmarish performance of artistic terror!"

The duel progresses in my favor for a while until.. "I won't let you beat me, villain! This is my last turn, you say? Well, I'm about to prove that this turn will be the last turn in this duel which means you're about to lose! I activate Rank Up Magic Barian's Force! That gift given to Duel Links players of Barian's Force is sure coming in handy! Barian power, born of chaos! Cast your judgement upon this world of filth! Chaos Xyz summon! Chaos Number 669: Life Destroying Viral Machine Beast Marglaos(ATK: 2700, DEF: 2550)! I've never even used this monster before!" The fight against that chaos number was tough and I ended up losing the duel. "Damn! I lost fair and square but you won't erase me just because you won!" "We'll see about that, all villains who stand in the way of me will be destroyed because that's the fate of all supervillains! And you're one of them!" He tries to erase my avatar and my mind with it. However, the accumulation of everything I've done as a knight puts a stop to this. My very life force is too strong to be erased so easily. "Darn it! Who's next to duel me?!" Everyone duels him and loses except for Soulburner in the end. "Go, Salamangreat Heat Leo! You're first! Attack! I may not be able to destroy your monster but you still take battle damage! Even though you are able to weaken or destroy my monsters with your number, that won't stop our blaze!" It doesn't take long for the duel to end from there. I would have gone into further detail but I really despise writing duels. I just don't want to do it anymore. Unless I'm willing to in the future research all these decks like the Salamangreat cards, I'm just not going to. Doing the research properly allows me to actually write the duels I see play out in full which is something I can't really do unless it's with original decks like the Artists. Remember, I don't really remember my adventures in the body I use in our world until I write about them and even so, the detail is limited by my own limitations.

Anyway, Brave Max is sent flying into the wall of the room, just barely missing the source code for Duel Links. "Playmaker is awesome but you aren't awesome! If I can't win with cards or erase you easily, then I will just have to use my power over Duel Links to give myself the authority to attack all of you myself for being such persistent villains who threaten my safety!" "Brave Max! Don't do it! Don't do it! Playmaker wouldn't want this!" "I don't care if he would or not! I'm my own person, I'm going to become my own Playmaker and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me! It's going to be so flash when I crush all you villains! Oh yeah! I'm awesome!" "Mind Transfer Technique!" "You're some girl named Ino right? Your moves are prohibited here in Duel Links! Try that again and I will just use the system to really punish you good!" "I'm not just some girl! I'm Ino! Ino Yamanaka of the Yamanaka clan in Konoha! I carry on my father's will!" "I don't care who you are! You're just a villain for me to defeat at the end of the day! Even if Playmaker doesn't approve, I will make him be proud of me by becoming a new Playmaker! It's going to be so flash! 2 Playmakers defeating bad guys like you to save Link VRAINS, Duel Links, and beyond! It's so perfect!" Brave Max accesses the source code and we're forced to just watch as nothing we try will affect him due to how the system is operating at the moment. There's got to be a way to allow us to fight him. After a couple minutes, he smiles cockily: "Oh yeah! It's beatdown time! This is going to be so flash since you villains can't do anything to hurt or stop me! Once I win, I will expand my army and go to Ni No Kuni to destroy all that chaos there before it can somehow spread to here and Link VRAINS! Actually, I just want the number cards that have apparently showed up there! It would be so cool to have more! I know there's far more than just one after all! You proved it, Swiftdrawer! You did! And with more numbers, I could be an even better Playmaker than Playmaker himself!" Beerus tries to erase him but nothing happens.

Seiya, Llenn, and Roach try to attack as well. Again, nothing happens. "Damn you! When we find a way to fight back, you'll pay dearly, mortal! You will pay dearly for all the harm you have caused today! I will make sure of it myself!" "Damn it! Why can't we just kill this guy already? It's not fair! Not even In Squad Jam have things ever been THIS unfair! I wish Pito, M, and Fukaziroh were here! With them, we'd have killed you by now! I know it!" "Crap! Nothing I do is working! How are you doing this?! None of my punches have affected anything today! It's not fair!" "You villains don't play fair so why should I play fair?" "But we're not the villains here! You're the one brainwashing people!" "They're better the way they are now! They'll get more duels thanks to me and they'll never run out of motivation to duel! It's genius and so flash!" Brave Max then attacks all of us relentlessly. It was clear that he was holding back but he was still doing an incredibly painful amount of damage to us. Even I felt some of the attacks despite the fact our hacker friends managed to ensure our gear would transfer over and work properly in virtual worlds, even a non combative world such as Duel Links. So yeah, my armor on this avatar is as good as my armor on my physical body is. "Despite all our strength, we have no way of physically fighting back. Llenn, our goal is to not kill Brave Max. We need to defeat him and take the number possessing him. Only then will he and all the people he turned into Duel Ghouls be returned to normal. At least this isn't like the Death Gun situation or the Sword Art Online Incident." "Ha, funny! You villains defeating me despite the fact only I'm authorized to hurt others here in Duel Links?! What a laugh! Your hilarious statements are only flash because they're so funny! You're cracking me up! This is awesome! It's also awesome that you think you'll ever be able to defeat me for good because it's hysterical to me!"

Yeah. Keep talking. Somebody's going to screw with your high horse now. I'm sure of it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lucille sneak up on the source code with Flame accompanying her. I then focus on Brave Max with my eyes: "If you want us to be villains, we'll show you how villains play dirty! I'm not a villain but I'm going to play along for now! You think you have us beat just yet, hero?! You really think that your restraints on what we can do will stop us from taking that precious number card of yours away from you?! Don't be silly! That's just not going to work out as well as you think because we villains are so good at making you heroes fail and lose hope! Mwahahaha! Look at me! I'm so evil!" "I don't care what you say! I'll crush you villains with this next attack! Get ready to die, villains! Your deaths are going to be so flash!" He generates some kind of energy blast and releases it. It splits apart and comes for everyone he can see within his plain of sight. However, I use my shield to reflect the energy that was headed towards me right back at him, it actually did damage. And the game didn't display an error message. Lucille and Flame stare and smirk respectively. Llenn shoots Brave Max successfully. "Ow! That actually hurt! This is so not flash! Why did it actually hurt?! What's happening?! I don't understand what's going on with me! Not fair! You villains managed to somehow do damage! But no matter, the system probably just glitched! *makes a gesture* Now I have patched any bugs within the system! Besides you villains of course! This is so flash! Now, there's no way any of you can hurt me ever again!" Brave Max fires another energy blast but Beerus catches it and throws it right back at him. "This world may be a virtual one created by mortals but the fact remains that you are not invincible here, arrogant mortal!" Brave Max takes the full blunt of his own attack before Skips starts throwing punches at him.

Seiya attacks from behind with his special attack Pegasus Meteor Puncg. Meanwhile, Roach gets ready and I pull out my sword. Lucille gets ready as well with her daggers while Llenn strategically fires with her gun whenever the perfect moments arise. "Oh yeah! I bet you regret bringing me here, you jerk, Brave Max!" "Aaaaa! This can't be happening!" Lucille and I join the fight against him. "No holding back! We still have to rescue Ni No Kuni! Haaaaa! Great Infernal Tornado Slash! Take this!" The number aura appears around Brave Max as it begins to greatly intensify. He's about to go berserk. And now, his defensive power has skyrocketed out of nowhere. He is no longer taking any damage. "I WILL KILL YOU VILLAINS, DIE!" He begins knocking all of us back and dealing so much more damage than before. The attacks we're all doing attack the player's actual mind rather than the avatar, making damage possible.. However, something very strange happens. Brave Max suddenly stops moving for no reason. Just as he was about to beat all of us to a pulp while going literally berserk, he suddenly just stopped. Just like that. It's like his entire body has frozen up. "What now? I've seen some crazy things but an enemy freezing up like this is a new one. Mordecai and Rigby are partly responsible for the crazy things I have seen." "I'm trying to enter his mind with my ninjitsu but it's not working. Something or someone is interfering." "Soulburner, do you feel that?" "What, Flame?" "Something bad is coming and I'm not sure if we'll be able to handle it even with all of us working together." "I sense.. that evil presence Ms. Saori sensed in Miitopia when we first joined the war for its future recently.." "Not that bastard again. PMURT NEDIB! IM GOING TO ERASE THAT FALSE GOD OFF THE FACE OF REALITY!" "This is bad. This evil is worse than even Demon Lord Morroc's evil. We have to be extremely careful now. We can't make any mistakes." "Not even the Lost Academia was able to prepare me for this situation.. But I believe we can win this."

"Aye. It's true that we have a chance of winning. We have to for the sake of all realities. Even if just us all died today, the next crisis could be lost by our side despite that. Pmurt is going to possess Brave Max now. Get ready for this fight is going to be difficult and extremely painful." We decide to step back from Brave Max and brace ourselves for the tyrant Nazi to fully take control over his body. It doesn't take long. Pmurt Max laughs: "There we go! This body is now mine! Too round and stubby for my tastes but it will do nicely! After all, it is the avatar of someone who isn't even 18 yet. And I really love people who are under that age! There are just so many things I want to do to them! So much things that will make me so happy and them so miserable! Who needs bodily autonomy when you could have alpha male gods like me have the bodies of others at our service with or without consent!" Llenn gets angry: "How dare you! You'd use minors for something so terrible?! In real life, I'm 20 years old! I may seem like a little girl here but know this, people like you will lose in the end!" "Pmurt! You bastard! You just exposed yourself as a pedophile! To think you'd sink so low as to prey on kids for your selfish and NSFW desires.. I should have known. You might have said something about this before and you had some of your pawns do horrible things to others on beds out in the open. I saw that crap and it horrifies me. This proves it once and for all, you are the worst of humanity and you truly do deserve to die a quick but painful death! Everyone, let's fight together and kick this bastard right out of Brave Max's body." "Hahahaha! Haven't you learned after so many times of fighting me that you just can't win enough to kill me permanently because you are all such useless wokeist freaks who keep destroying my perfect societies?! I'll teach you that lesson the hard way and make sure you're tortured nicely once I have all of you in cages! But first, I'll warm up your torture with all of these Duel Ghouls! Follow me if you want to free this loser Brave Max who isn't even worth insulting back so badly!"

He opens a portal to what looks to be the DSOD duel world and disappears when it closes behind him. I have Llenn take my hand as we teleport right to where he is now. He is in fact in that duel world with a whole army of Duel Ghouls. He laughs at us: "I knew you would come! And now, let's see if you wokeist freaks can even stand a chance against something as basic as this army of Duel Ghouls! I could have easily killed them all myself! Let's see what you can do! I hope you fail because then, I will get to see you die by the hands of my newest pawns! You sinners are going to get punished for your defiance of me! I'll make sure of it myself! Just you try to beat them all!" Pmurt Max then flies up so high there's no way a Kamehameha could even hope to ever reach him from down here. We easily cut down the army of Duel Ghouls one by one. Not by dealing damage but by generating enough force to knock them down as they cannot be damaged outside of duels in this world of Duel Links. It really took no time. Pmurt frowns and returns to the ground: "I thought that would take longer! That means that you are far more useful than my former worthless employees were! We should stop fighting each other. Wouldn't it be a excellent business venture for us to work together?! We all want the same thing: true peace and together, we could make it happen!" "Bastard! First, you admit to being a pedophile and then after everything you have said and done, you pull this! No! We refuse to help you with achieving true peace! Your true peace involves the genocide of innocent people! Ours does not! Pmurt Nedib, you're a Nazi scumbag who has no hope of redemption! I know we won't kill you today but we can still beat you today! After all, those Duel Ghouls we just defeated are getting back their senses." "What? How can this be? Everything was perfect until all of ruined it! Brave Max was such a nice long term puppet but now, I have to kill all of you because all my plans have been ruined outside of the ones I have in store for Ni No Kuni!"

A intense physical fight begins right after that, there's not even much allowance for talk. Llenn constantly fires at him and reloads when she needs to. He ignores her but even so, that still meant he has to fight the rest of us too. I swing with Drawing Devastation over and over but of the ones that hit him, not much damage is dealt. Soulburner pulls out a knife and runs at our foe and tries to stab him over and over while easily dodging anything the villain throws at him. Gelina casts spell after spell to deal damage but Pmurt apparently already put up a arcana barrier to block all those spells without any effort. Roach punches him whenever the fight gets close enough to his giant fist. Seiya just keeps punching and trying to use his special attack. Skips and Lucille try their best to attack too but to little avail. Ino tries to provide mental support for us and mental agony for Pmurt but she's only partially successful. I'm forced to pay more attention on just myself before Pmurt was just about to kill me. "Damn it! You're just taking all of our attacks like it's nothing!" "That's right! You should have known better than to face me without a lot more of your useless and also woke friends who are as freakish as all of you are!" "Well, we can still combine our powers to force you out of Brave Max's body. So, things aren't as set in stone as you may think. The sword represents hope, strength, a kind heart, and more. There's always something a sword can cut through just as the future can be broken through by anything with the same meaning as a sword." "Ha! That won't work! I've already won! There's no way you can defeat me by forcing me out of this body!" "The former Duel Ghouls would like a word with you. Even as you push us all back and hurt us extremely badly as you are now, there's still so much hope for getting rid of you! Even if it isn't us who put you down, I'm sure something or someone will just put you down in our place. We will expel you from that body even at the costs of our very lives!"

"So be it! Then, I will punish all of you sinners for real now! Say goodbye to your worthless lives! Goodbye to your disgustingly passive hopes and dreams! I am god and for disrespecting me, I will inflict my divine punishment on all of you now! This time, Adam. I will kill you and kill you for good! This is the end of you!" He starts attacking all of us so fast that not even my eyes could follow where he is at any time even with the help of Artist's Eye. The true difference in strength between us and Pmurt Nedib has never been so clear before. To him, we are like nothing. He's far from the most powerful menace in all existence but he is still someone you have to take seriously no matter how comically evil he can sometimes be. However, after we're beaten down, hurt badly, and bleeding(all this damage literally defies the system of Duel Links, all the fights have used so much force that we literally could now get hurt or be hurt as a result, that's why I said the attacks attack our minds directly), Seiya stubbornly gets back up and his cosmo, his life force turned into energy similar to Ki expands and even takes on a golden color as golden armor appears from another dimension and equips itself on Seiya after his pegasus armor willingly unequips from him of its free will. "I won't give up!" "What is this power? I've never faced a freak like you before who has a power like this! I will destroy you first to teach all Duel Links players a lesson! When I win, this world and all connected virtual places will become mine!" I get up as well: "I'm not done yet either, you bastard. I can't beat you enough to expel you from that body and this world. I'm not nearly strong enough but the will and life force of all the Duel Links players you and Brave Max have caused to log into the game can." "What are you saying to me, you freakish knight who has been a thorn in my side along with others for way too long?! Answer me, your god who you should be serving as should everyone else in existence!" I ignore him while Beerus gets back up and keeps him busy. Seiya begins charging up an attack with his cosmo.

I reach out to the Duel Links players after asking Ino for help with doing so as she can transmit her own or someone else's thoughts to groups of people at once. "Everyone in Duel Links, can you hear me? This virtual world is under threat by a surprise boss. This event must be concluded and your help is needed. If you want to help defeat the boss and save all of Duel Links, raise your hands up and offer some of your energy to me. I know that sounds like a lot and it is but trust me, this must be done. My friends and I won't let any of you down. The free special number cards you all got started this event so you better wish them farewell because they will vanish once this event is finished. Please, we need your energy for a impossible move that's the only way to win. It's hard to explain. I beg you all to just trust me even though I can't easily explain what kind of move requires some of your energies!" "What are you 3 doing?! You freaks! Don't ignore me!" Pmurt beats Beerus up pretty good and throws him to the side. "I said WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Gelina then uses a spell to bind our foe with magical chains as energy starts flowing in from the numerous Duel Links players who come from so many different worlds. It was in the millions if not more because in a rare moment, all servers containing instances of Duel Links were merged together for some reason. Pmurt breaks free of the chains: "I'll kill all of you freaks right now!" He makes a move to kill us all with the full extent of his power. "DIE, FREAKS! THIS IS THE END OF YOU! PATRIOTIC PULVERIZATION! FOR AMERICA. THE ONLY COUNTRY I KEEP ALIVE AND RULE OVER AS ITS MY HOME! ALL OTHER PLACES GET ABSORBED INTO MY AMERICAN STATE! PROJECT EMPIRE IN MIITOPIA IS DEAD NOW!" His attack does nothing to us despite it having such a menacing and destructive amount of power that Beerus sweated heavily at seeing it be unleashed upon all of us.

"That attack.. It should have destroyed this entire virtual world.. What did you mortals do this time?" "MY ATTACK! THATS MY BEST ATTACK AND YOU JUST MADE IT WORTHLESS?! HOW DID YOU DO THIS, ANSWER ME, FREAKS FOR I AM THE ONLY TRUE GOD IN ALL EXISTENCE! YOU WILL DIE AND THEN WOKEISM WILL FINALLY DIE TOO, THAT NUISANCE PROBLEM THAT MAKES PEOPLE NOT OBEY THE LIKES OF ME SO WE CAN HAVE ALL THE POWER AND CONTROL! NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES, THEY SHOULD ONLY EXIST TO SUFFER, MAKE OTHERS SUFFER, OR OBEDIENTLY SERVE THE LIKES OF ME!" I may be focused on forming a Duel Links Spirit Bomb but I still reply: "You do realize you just went mask off, right? You just spelled out what you desire and what you think of other people. I think you should know that someone just removed the physical battle permissions for Brave Max whose body you are still possessing. And even if you escaped his body right now, you still wouldn't be able to hurt us. Then there's the fact that there are so many people logging in that until they stop logging in, none of us can even hope to leave Duel Links for even Link VRAINS which is directly virtually connected to it. I don't even think you can escape Brave Max's body on your own right now. Can you see how much lag is going on around us?" "NOOOOOOOO! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! YOU FREAKS, I WILL EXTERMINATE ALL OF YOU ONE DAY, YOU WILL PERISH AND I WILL REVEL IN THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL OF YOU!" Skips and Lucille restrain him as Gelina traps him in chains again. "You're a hard bastard to kill no matter who you possess. You won't die today but the attacks will eject you and the number out of Brave Max's body, making the number unable to resist being collected or possess someone else instead." Llenn shoots him to make him fall to the ground.

Pmurt is unable to get back up but he is positioned to be forced to watch his own defeat at the hands of us today. Roach readies his right fist which has become really big. Soulburner and Flame ready their weapons and get ready to attack with the Salamangreat monsters which are still in play. Beerus recovers and readies his own attack. Gelina prepares a giant lightning bolt spell. Skips steps back as does Ino. Lucille gets ready to attack Pmurt one last time for now as well. And then, the Spirit Bomb is completed. Seiya finishes charging up his cosmo at almost the same exact time. Beerus, Gelina, Llenn, and Lucille attach first to deal a lot of hurt which slowly gets healed because Pmurt can self heal. Soulburner, Flame, and the Salamangreat monsters attack him in waves next. Roach then slams his giant fist on Pmurt, causing bones to literally crack a tiny bit. That left Seiya and I. "PEGASUS METEOR PUNCH!" "Feel the same pain on a microscopic scale as those you have hurt, Pmurt Nedib! SPIRIT BOMB! For Miitopia! For the people!" Seiya's punches end up combining into one whose force has been described as creating a Big Bang. It must be true as it seems to be a mini version of a universe creating Big Bang. The combined attack combines with the slowly ascending force of the Spirit Bomb, causing a force so powerful that Duel Links briefly had its graphics completely glitch out. When the glitching stopped, Pmurt Nedib was out of Brave Max's body who has gone back to normal. Before our foe can take the number we pretty much earned just now, I take it first. "Sorry, spoils go to the victors in a fight like this." Pmurt Nedib glares at us: "This isn't over! Evermore will be mine and so will that Sword of Disunity! This I swear! You freaks may have defeated me here but you can't kill me! Come to Ni No Kuni if you know what's good for you! There, I will eradicate you wokeists off the face of that world! No more will your naive ideas of who needs to protect who or who the strongest are be allowed to exist!"

He quickly opens a portal and almost immediately seemingly vanishes as it closes right behind him. "Soulburner, everyone, I do not sense any lasting damage in Duel Links. This battle isn't over. We must go to this Ni No Kuni. Swiftdrawer, you must know a lot about it. You should teleport us all there. Make sure to give us a brief description of that world once we get there unless we spot a fight nearby that we need to interfere in." "You're right. But first. Llenn, would you like to return to GGO now or would you like to help us and others save Ni No Kuni first? Guns aren't that common there but there are a lot of monsters and horrible people there." "I'm in! I wonder how many kills I'll get while there! Pito is going to be so jealous but it'll be okay. Let's go!" "Wait, everyone. Something isn't right. The sky just got dark." I tense up. "That can only mean one thing. A surprise Raid Duel Boss. This is really bad. But where is the boss? That's strange. We should see the boss in the sky ominously in some projection like form to signify the Raid Duel event. But I don't see any huge monster projection like thing anywhere in the sky." Soulburner gets concerned: "Does that mean that the boss is hiding?" "Be realistic, a giant monster and a duelist hiding in a place that has millions of players on it right now on the same server? I don't think so. I know what that boss monster is. The problems in Duel Links aren't all necessarily in Duel Links itself.. Not this time anyway.. Actually, I've known about this for so long.." "It can't be! The Raid Duel boss is in.. that world of Ni No Kuni?! This is really bad! If high enough technology is used by the duelist who is bonded to the boss then.." "Ni No Kuni will not stand a chance. We have to go and also recognize that Pmurt is there now and problems existing in that world might be a lot worse now thanks to the numbers that have been detected there. Sometimes I've pondered over which world is in worse shape, mine or Ni No Kuni. It's mine but today, it's Ni No Kuni."

"As much as I want food, dealing with these problems is very important. And being able to defeat that greedy mortal all over again is the icing on the cake. Wait, why haven't I had like any cake ever? Bulma better get me some! Anyway, we need to stop this because that mortal is more powerful than someone like me. That's highly concerning. If he can beat me without his full strength, innocent mortals and many gods won't stand a chance against him. A true threat to universes. I despise him. I've never met someone with such a big ego. Not even Vegeta has as big of an ego as him. And that's saying something since this is Vegeta I'm talking about for crying out loud!" "Can we go now? I want to shoot and kill some bastards!" "Yeah, let's go! I'll give all my cosmo to saving this other world! I promised to Athena that I would be safe and help save this world and Ni No Kuni as well. And I won't let her down!" "Don't forget about me. I may not be someone who really has any special techniques that are designed for combat but I can provide things such as healing. I'm not as good as Sakura at healing others with my chakra but I can't complain about my skills." Brave Max wakes up. "Ugh... What happened to me.. The last thing I remember is picking up this weird blank card.. Why am I in Duel Links? I don't remember logging in today! Aww man! I have to do my homework before dinner and I don't think I have much time for dinner! Aaaa!" Brave Max logs off. Beerus sighs: "That kid is a character even when he isn't possessed by a number card. We should just go right now. I think we've done enough talking. I'd like to get back to fighting in that war and having some delicious food as soon as possible." All of us agreed so I teleport all of us to Ni No Kuni or more specifically, an area I thought it would be best to start looking for problems in. The city of Evermore itself, the very capital of the unified kingdom. We arrive to a city in chaos. The Raid Duel boss is here. Is that Malefic Truth Dragon being ridden on by Paradox? "Damn it! It's Paradox and Malefic Truth Dragon! This is really bad!"

"Swiftdrawer! We have to duel him to save this place!" "I'm well aware of that, Soulburner!" But then, 2 individuals I easily recognize show up. One of them points at us. That's Swordsman Swiftdrawer. Cluu, the other one turns to them: "Why don't you ever speak? Are you suggesting that those strange people over there some of whom look familiar will be able to help us with that man on that huge yellow dragon?" The swordsman nods. "Okay! If you say so!" They walk up to us but before Cluu says anything, Beerus looks at him with an expression: "Who are you? You look like some sort of flying pig mortal." "IM NOT A PIG!" "Well excuse me! Mortal, what are you then?" "..I don't know." "You're quite the troublesome one, aren't you? Anyway, let's get the introduction quickly over with so we can get this upcoming battle over with." We all introduce ourselves. Cluu says to me: "Your name's Swiftdrawer too?! How is that possible?!" "It's a long and complicated story. My given name isn't Swiftdrawer but if you want to better distinguish me from your vey hot swordsman friend, you can call me Swift or Adam. Your choice," "I think I'll go with Adam. WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT SWIFTDRAWER?!" "Relax, I just find them attractive. That's all. But enough of that, I couldn't help but share that. I've found them attractive for a while. And it's ridiculous that I let that slip at a time like this. Oof.. More importantly, now that we all know who one another is.. *activates duel disk* Its time to take on Paradox and defeat him." Cluu and everyone else nods and we begin running at Paradox with Soulburner and having our duel disks ready to go. "Generating action field. Crossover." To be continued.