The celestial projection capturing Majestic Star Dragon shattering the Wicked God left a permanent mark across the Middle District's heavens—acting as a brilliant beacon of re-established order in a city completely paralyzed by network failures.
While the vast majority of the population remained thoroughly transfixed by the shimmering star dragon fading across the sky, they progressively noted that the luminous stardust particles dispersing from its wings remained anchored to the atmosphere.
The artificial starscape, which had blacked out due to severe grid failures, slowly cycled back online, returning to the comforting, familiar layout the populace knew. The compromised sectors of the Eva network systematically stabilized, executing self-repair protocols. Within a few short minutes, public transit junctions and traffic grids that had locked up from losing network support smoothly regained their automated direction.
The catastrophic battle against the Wicked Gods, which had closely mirrored a literal blueprint for the end of the world, ultimate left an impact that amounted to a massive wave of panic rushing through the population before quietly dissolving away. Ultimately, it anchored itself at the absolute peak of the trending topics on the Eva network, giving rise to an urban legend that far outstripped any other discussion thread: 'Synchro Saves the World.'
A substantial portion of the online community theorized that the entire incident was a highly sophisticated, large-scale viral marketing campaign orchestrated by a premier conglomerate. Others claimed it stood as the single most severe system glitch documented since the inception of the Eden Tower. A few technical groups even deduced that an anti-social element had utilized Divine cards as a specialized payload vector to execute a high-level breach of the main computer core, framing the appearance of Majestic Star Dragon as the literal visual rendering of Eva's internal anti-virus protocol executing a system purge.
While the online space churned with endless speculation, Amano Rei—operating within the absolute deepest sanctuary of the Eva network data lanes—found himself coming face-to-face with the main computer system for the very first time. Or rather, he was coming face-to-face with the premium rewards the core core was distributing to its executors.
[FALSE DEITIES OBLITERATED. HERETICAL DATA PURGED.] [DISTRIBUTING PROXY EXECUTOR REWARDS...]
He hadn't anticipated that the main Eva network would operate with such remarkable generosity. Not only had the system stepped in to execute real-time card generation during the absolute peak of the crisis, but it was actively issuing a set of premium rewards to its proxy executors upon a successful clear. It mirrored the exact conduct of an incredibly caring, ethical corporate director looking after their frontline staff.
Two card silhouettes materialised within the network space, drifting down gently toward Amano Rei and Lin Xingyao, emitting a deeply familiar radiance. Mmh, that precise shimmering glow matched the exact card-generation aura that had accompanied Majestic Dragon during the duel.
Amano Rei extended his hand, catching his card cleanly between his fingers. However, inspecting the card face, he noted that the monster printed on the surface wasn't Majestic Dragon, but rather Converging Wills Dragon.
[Converging Wills Dragon] [Level 1 / LIGHT / Dragon / Tuner / Effect] [ATK: 0 / DEF: 0] This card's name becomes "Majestic Dragon" while on the field or in the GY. When you draw this card: You can reveal it; Special Summon it from your hand. If you control a Level 8 or higher Dragon Synchro Monster, you can: Special Summon 1 Level 1 Dragon monster from your Deck.
It functioned as a heavily amplified, modern iteration of the classic Majestic Dragon, while similarly restricting its Synchro utility strictly to the summoning parameters of "Majestic" boss monsters. By introducing the capability to inherently Special Summon itself straight from the hand upon being drawn, paired with a secondary engine trigger to pull a Level 1 Dragon straight from the deck as long as a high-level Synchro dragon graced his board, it made assembling the rigid mathematical requirements for a Majestic Synchro infinitely more seamless.
The card materializing in Lin Xingyao's hand was a flawless duplicate of Amano's pull.
"There's actually a reward prepared for me as well?!" Lin Xingyao gasped in pure, delightful surprise.
Granted, she shared the formal status of a designated executor, but analyzing her operational contributions from start to finish, her work had amounted to nothing more than entering that highly explicit string of salvation code through her terminal. Had the main computer core's distributed reward not been explicitly hard-coded as an account-bound asset, Lin Xingyao would have felt far too embarrassed to accept it.
"It looks like I genuinely managed to coast along on your coat-tails this time, Junior. To think I would bring home an identical premium reward."
The exact fraction of a second she finished noting their identical pulls, a secondary card silhouette materialized out of thin air, drifting down gently right in front of Amano Rei's eyes.This card was a unique drop, exclusive to Amano Rei.
It seemed the main computer network, Eva, truly was an ethical boss who looked after her employees; the one who put in the extra corporate heavy lifting naturally walked away with a higher tier of performance rewards.
However, after successfully receiving the card, Amano Rei's brow knit together in a subtle frown.
Why on earth did she drop this specific card?
[World Legacy - "World Shield"] [Level 6 / DARK / Machine / Effect] [ATK: 0 / DEF: 3000]
Ib puffed out her chest: "To think it possesses a massive 3000 points of defensive mass—enough to completely stone-wall an assault from the legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon! Amano, my title as the definitive Shield of the Deck is officially under threat!"
Since when did you ever command the title of 'Shield of the Deck'? Amano Rei, as the literal pilot and owner of the deck, had absolutely zero recollection of her ever holding that specialized designation. Besides, if we are evaluating pure defensive parameters, Blue-Eyes White Dragon naturally commands a higher baseline stat than you anyway, Ib.
Still, this [World Legacy - "World Shield"] was visibly a card intricately tied to Ib's overarching lore.
While that underlying data structure might not be immediately apparent when analyzing her generic vanilla framework as [Crown-By-The-World-Chalice Chosen], the technical connection became glaringly obvious when referencing her Synchro evolution blueprint, [Ib the World Chalice Justiciar].
The Justiciar's primary trigger effect explicitly dictated: "If this card is Synchro Summoned: You can add 1 'World Legacy' card from your Deck to your hand."
Because Amano Rei hadn't possessed a solitary "World Legacy" card within his active inventory prior to this drop, he had continuously treated that specific text string on the Justiciar as an inert, non-existent parameter. Now, with [World Legacy - "World Shield"] integrated into his stash, it could loosely be classified as completing a vital piece of the mathematical puzzle for Ib's localized archetype.
Though who am I kidding? Ib's 'archetype' is practically non-existent right now.
What truly triggered Amano Rei's suspicion was the precise rationale behind the main computer core going out of its way to gift him this card. Pulling Converging Wills Dragon made perfect structural sense, given that Majestic Star Dragon served as the definitive lynchpin to secure a victory over the god.
But what was the narrative justification for dropping an item tied directly to Ib?
Ib grumbled, crossing her arms: "Hey! My presence was exceptionally critical to our survival today, alright! Amano, place your hand over your conscience and ask yourself—who exactly stepped into the breach to intercept a god's direct assault for you?!"
Suddenly, a bizarre fragment of the dialogue delivered by the Trickster during the peak of the Shadow Duel flashed across Amano's mind. The entity had claimed that despite operating deep within the hidden data lanes of the network, the main core's attention had been forcefully guided to their coordinates the exact millisecond Ib's vanilla data was materialized on the field.
Granted, placing baseline credibility in a single word spoken by a self-designated 'Trickster' wasn't an optimal approach. But recalling her instantaneous, un-fabricated panic at that moment, it didn't look like she was executing a calculated deception.
Could Ib actually possess a foundational data link to the main computer system, Eva?
Amano Rei could only blame his past life for solely hyper-focusing on the anime's storyline, leaving his understanding of the master-duel card lore and world legacy flavor text text fields incredibly shallow.
Shifting his cognitive focus back to the entities at hand...
"Right, the Trickster."
Having grown thoroughly accustomed to opponents immediately slipping into a state of absolute unconsciousness at the conclusion of a high-stakes Shadow Duel, Amano hadn't prioritized checking her status right away. To be perfectly frank, that mechanical execution provided an exceptional sense of structural safety within the rules; once you suffer a definitive defeat in a card game, you tuck yourself neatly onto the dirt and cease plotting any further heretical activities.
However, casting his gaze back toward the location where the unconscious 'Trickster' lay, Amano noted that her physical framework had similarly undergone a severe diminutive scaling sequence. While her hair color maintained its lustrous, pitch-black mane, her physical proportions perfectly mirrored the pint-sized, child-like state of the white-haired Lin Xingyao standing beside him.
His intuition told him that this specific avatar represented the genuine, segmented dark side of his senior's psyche, rather than a remote-controlled proxy piloted by the Trickster's code.
Does this mean the Trickster executed an emergency exit and slipped away the exact millisecond the duel concluded, precisely like the Puppeteer did?
Right as that hypothesis took root, his eyes caught sight of a familiar object resting right on the dirt beside the corrupted child-clone—a specialized masquerade mask. Amano stepped over, scooping it up to inspect it. The visual design of the physical mask perfectly matched the typography and iconography printed across the "Identity Card" the Trickster had tossed at him before the duel.
In the very next fraction of a second, the system's synthetic prompt rang out within his mind, and the masquerade mask resting in his palm dissolved into an influx of pure data particles.
[REGISTRY CONFIRMED: SPECIALIZED CAREER CLASS IDENTIFIED. INITIALIZING DATA ARCHIVING SEQUENCE...] [UNLOCKED CLASS PROFILE: "THE TRICKSTER"] [CLASS FLAVOR TEXT: THE CHIEF TRIUMPH OF premier-tier DECEPTION IS TO COMPLETELY BLIND-SIDE THE DATA FRAMEWORK OF THE WORLD.] [SYSTEM TRIGGER: "TRY EXECUTING A FABRICATED PROTOCOL TO CONVINCE THE EVA ARCHITECTURE THAT YOU HOLD A GOD CARD IN YOUR HAND~"]
The incredibly brief, cryptic system prompt left Amano Rei completely unable to parse exactly what functional utility this unprompted addition to his personal interface actually provided. Still, looking at the structural delivery, it appeared the Trickster's core script had been systematically absorbed by his system.
Hey... aren't you supposed to operate as a standard romance-progression system?
Well, Amano Rei was already far too exhausted to dedicate any further mental processing to criticizing his system's unorthodox deviations.
"Nnnh... mmmh..." A series of peculiar, soft murmurs echoed from the floor. Turning his head toward the source, he noted that the black-haired child-clone was unconsciously smacking her lips as she progressively drifted out of her comatose state.
"Get behind me, Amano!" The white-haired Lin Xingyao immediately bounced forward, assuming a defensive stance. "The Trickster is initializing her wake-up sequence!"
"Senior, I get the distinct impression that entity is no longer holding the Trickster's code."
The corrupted senior's eyelids fluttered open, revealing a pair of pitch-black star-burst patterns within her irises that stood as the exact inverted mirror to the original's eyes. She blinked rapidly, her gaze locking onto Amano Rei with an expression of complete, un-fabricated shock, mixed with a faint trace of instinctual panic.
"Amano... w-why on earth are you occupying this sector?!"
Even while operating under a corrupted, dark-side parameter, Senior's initial cognitive reaction maps perfectly onto her authentic personality instead of copying the highly suggestive, provocative persona deployed by the Trickster. How incredibly cute.
"Have you... come here to execute my termination?"
"..."
Alright, that specific train of thought stands at an immense, unresolvable distance from her standard personality! Senior, exactly what kind of narrative blueprint have you been digesting to cause your shadow self to form an absolute cognitive assumption like that?!
"Insolent Signer, Jack Atlas... I shall never surrender to the authority of your roaring flames!"
Got it. Senior's shadow self has systematically blacked out into a Dark Signer persona. Or to put it more accurately, this represents her repressed desire to flawlessly act out a highly specific, villainous character trope.
Having completely drained his mental fortitude running through a literal battle against gods, Amano Rei simply lacked the baseline endurance required to participate in a child's dramatic roleplay session right now.
"Right, right. Dark Signer Yusei, please behave yourself and accompany me back to base."
Delivering a thoroughly perfunctory answer, Amano Rei reached down with a single arm, scooping the corrupted child-clone up and tucking her firmly underneath his armpit like a package. No matter how violently her small frame flailed or how fiercely she thrashed in absolute indignation, she lacked the operational reach to break his hold. Ultimately surrendering to her structural disadvantage, she ceased her physical resistance, though her lips refused to fall silent.
"Unprincipled tyrant! Unprincipled tyrant! I shall permanently archive this humiliation in my memory, Jack Atlas!"
"Sure, sure. Feel free to log it into your data core as deep as you please, Dark Signer Lin Xingyao."
The rationale behind Amano Rei picking up the clone was remarkably straightforward: he needed to transport her out of this hidden enclave of the Eva network. As long as he ferried both the white and black child-clones back across the mirror threshold and into their foundational mental chamber, the fractured consciousness should naturally re-converge.
As for the underlying mysteries—why Lin Xingyao's mental chamber possessed a unique data bridge into the deepest vaults of the network, or why the Trickster explicitly framed her framework as specialized—Amano Rei possessed absolutely zero clues for the time being. And judging by the original Lin Xingyao's current expression, she looked every bit as completely clueless as he was.
Sprinting back through the horizontally inverted mirror conduit, Amano Rei unceremoniously tossed both child-clones straight out of the threshold, depositing them back into the proper sanctuary of their mental chamber.
Exactly as his past experience indicated, the moment they re-entered the proper boundaries of her psyche, the two 1-star avatars smoothly merged, executing an evolutionary convergence to reconstruct the authentic, full-sized 2-star Lin Xingyao.
It appeared that the strange physical symptoms she had been battling in reality—the sudden, un-purgeable spike in her body temperature—stemmed entirely from her spiritual blueprint being forcefully segmented into two isolated sectors by the Trickster's code. An incomplete consciousness loop naturally induced severe biological anomalies across her physical vessel.
"Wow! I'm finally back to my regular parameters!"
Reclaiming her standard physical dimensions, Lin Xingyao immediately executed a swift manual assessment of her baseline stats.
"Whew... thank goodness my mass didn't suffer any permanent compression."
She brought her hands up to verify her physical contours. The tactile feedback perfectly matched her routine assessment whenever she took a bath—the mass cleared her baseline requirements perfectly, sitting at an elegant, balanced proportion that was neither too substantial nor too lacking.
Wait... why exactly did your train of thought anchor on a routine data check executed during a bath?
Suddenly, a severe anomaly caught Lin Xingyao's attention.
The absolute moment her fractured consciousness re-converged into a flawless whole, a highly critical, automated system parameter initialized.
Amano Rei felt it entirely necessary to reiterate internally that he harbored zero personal expectation toward these forced encounters requiring absolute vulnerability.
——Mind Hack Phase 2: Spiritual Reversion.
This time, with Lin Xingyao's consciousness loop operating at absolute integrity, Amano Rei smoothly integrated into her neural pathways, cleanly securing the pilot authority over Lin Xingyao's physical vessel.
His awareness surged back into reality as he pushed himself up from the living room sofa. Although he could still detect a faint, residual warmth radiating through Senior's body, the dangerous, life-threatening fever had completely broke. Her physical vessel was executing self-recovery protocols at a highly palpable, rapid velocity.
Lin Xingyao's thoughts echoed clearly within his mind: "Junior... while I am fully cognizant of the fact that you executed this high-risk mental breach solely to preserve my life... I still expect you to assume absolute, formal responsibility for my well-being moving forward."
Amano Rei responded internally: "Right, right."
Lin Xingyao: "Ugh, stop using that completely perfunctory tone to dodge the issue!"
Amano Rei: "Understood, understood~"
At the end of the day, these mechanical deviations are an absolute act of god. Senior, you'll eventually grow thoroughly accustomed to these interface parameters down the line.
While the precise operational motive behind the Trickster hijacking Lin Xingyao's consciousness to infiltrate the deepest vaults of the network remained an absolute unknown, one thing was indisputable: had Amano Rei refrained from utilizing Mind Hack to execute an emergency intervention, her physical frame would have suffered severe, potentially irreversible degradation, exactly as Mana had warned.
Glancing over at the living room terminal to check the time, Amano noted that exactly one hour had elapsed since he initialized the skill.
In structural terms, it meant he was locked into this proxy-pilot configuration for another full hour before his consciousness would decouple from her network.
Amano Rei couldn't shake the feeling that the system's hard-coded two-hour duration parameter was exceptionally un-optimized. This time around, between executing the diagnostic sweep, tracking down her shadow self, and fighting a literal full-scale war against gods, he had wrapped up the entire operational delivery in exactly sixty minutes.
Exactly what tier of catastrophic multi-layered crisis does this system expect me to encounter that would necessitate a full two-hour spiritual anchor to resolve?
Bored out of his mind while occupying her frame, Amano casually extended Senior's legs, inspecting her feet. It had to be stated objectively that Senior's feet possessed a remarkably flawless aesthetic composition—incredibly pale, smooth, and refined.
Right as Amano Rei was wrestling with how to pass the remaining hour of his forced residency inside his senior's body, the mechanical chime of the Lin residence's front doorbell suddenly rang out through the quiet house.
Who on earth would be approaching the residence at an hour like this? Amano checked the terminal; the clock digits sat at exactly 9:30 PM.
Amano Rei: "Senior, tell me your parents didn't just wrap up their mandatory overtime shift early."
Lin Xingyao: "If my parents were returning home, they wouldn't use the doorbell interface; they would directly input their biometric override to unlatch the door."
True. Currently, the absolute highest-risk variable Amano Rei feared was running directly into Lin Xingyao's parents. Had he remained outside her network, he could have effortlessly deployed a rock-solid, rational defense framing himself as a supportive classmate checking in on a sick peer.
But right now, he was locked into a proxy-pilot state, while his own completely comatose, unresponsive physical body was sprawled out across her living room sofa. If her parents walked in on a scene featuring their daughter piloting herself while a random guy was passed out on their furniture, the resulting narrative failure would be catastrophic.
Initially, Amano's optimal play was to simply execute a complete blackout strategy—pretending absolutely nobody was home or ignoring the chime altogether.
However, the individual stationed outside the threshold appeared remarkably relentless. A full ten minutes ticked by, yet the doorbell continued to ring at a steady, un-interrupted cadence. If this persistent disturbance continued much longer, it would inevitably trip the apartment complex's automated security parameters, drawing active patrol units to their door.
Exactly what caliber of obsessive individual camps out at a doorstep in the middle of the night to execute an un-interrupted chime sequence?
Amano Rei couldn't help but run through a quick diagnostic analysis. Could it be a close female friend of Senior executing an emergency check-in? No, no... given the late hour and the intense persistence, there's a highly palpable probability that it's an aggressive, fanatical suitor looking to court her. After all, Lin Xingyao commanded a prominent reputation as a premier academy goddess; harboring one or two obsessive pursuers wasn't an anomaly.
Lin Xingyao interjected within his thoughts: "Junior, the entryway interface is hooked into an active monitoring feed. You can review the visual display from the central terminal to isolate who is standing outside."
Amano Rei: "Oh! To think this apartment complex features a high-utility convenience module like that?"
Apologies—I've grown far too accustomed to the primitive living conditions of my budget housing in the lower sectors.
Activating the visual feed linked to the threshold monitor, Amano Rei braced his focus, intensely curious to identify exactly what this fanatical suitor looked like.
Huh. Well, I'll be damned. The visual parameters are unexpectedly premium.
A cascade of smooth, vibrant, light crimson hair rendered with absolute clarity across the monitor screen, looking exceptionally striking even through a wide-angle security lens.
Remember what Amano Rei had calculated mere moments ago? He had explicitly stated that running into Lin Xingyao's parents stood as the absolute worst-case scenario.
Reviewing the data now, it appeared his initial diagnostic sweep contained a severe analytical error.
A vastly superior tier of catastrophic complication had arrived.
Phoenis was standing directly outside the door.
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