Watching the duel between Odion and Mai was interesting mainly due to seeing how passive of a duellist Odion is.
Yes, he summoned the stronger monsters and won in the end but most of his plan revolves around defensive plays I can tell and just simply using the Beast as his juggernaut.
Mai played well to prevent the beast from picking up steam with the queen, but she pressed too much, when she pushed Odion hit her with an un-noticed uppercut which sent her reeling to the knockout.
I look around the room and notice something interesting, the Kaiba brothers are together even after my contract came to light.
I turn back to the close by screen and notice Miquella nearby sitting on a table in spiritual form looking between me and a certain brunette who is surrounded by her brother's friends.
I walk towards him, and I catch his attention.
I give him a look and start to spiritually speak to him. 'You're staring Miquella, you must be curious about something, it doesn't take a genius to know what.'
He looks at me with a look of bleak curiosity.
[That cancerous tumour you spat out is still on my mind, the maelstrom is as chaotic as ever but without it, it seems to missing something important]
I get to the table and start looking through its buffet selection before giving Miquella a side-eye.
'Like a Shadow.'
my words cause Miquella to look confused and shaken, [How would you know that? You can't peer at your soul's chaotic maelstrom, but as I look at it seems you're right, it's like it's lost a massless layer upon it.]
I Shovel some shrimp onto my plate looking away from him. 'It's because I know more about the realm where that 'clot' came from and its main concept is Light and darkness, I can assume it was acting like a light source in the soul maelstrom in a way and where there is light it casts a shadow on everything around it.'
With little sound, I watch as Ranni appears opposite from Miquella flanking me with her hands interlocked. {I sense there is a story behind that world, but I feel it's not a nice one.}
I munch on the shrimp. 'You would be correct, That world was very much like your own, it started out as a blank canvas capable of anything ruled by Dragons unaffected by the touch of time, but unlike how you had the crucible to guide the growth of the lands between, the realm was the site of a great phenomenon which shaped it.
My words catch the attention of the pair since with my comparison to their own realm they can feel the narrative weight of it.
'The Phenomena was the Sparking of the First Flame, which I believe was the first in all existence, with its creation concepts of heat became a thing that propagated throughout existence, with Heat comes cold and with the birth of a pair of conflicting concepts came to start a cascade of other concepts first with propagation and decay which led to the distinction of life and death as states of being. Sound and silence. But the most important for that realm was that of Body and Soul.'
My story of the First Flame causes the other Demi-gods to appear for the story time since they have nothing better to do.
'I say that Body and Soul were the most important since in that realm the denizens were probably affected by the First Flame actually each had immortal Bodies but they each had no soul within them, so they were listless and simple beings with no purpose.
This changed when a few of them came across the first flame deep underground, Within the Flame they found Grand Souls which held power over the concepts the flame propagated, In this case, the main 4 were.
Gwyn Lord of Sunlight with the Light Soul which was the strongest and greatest of the Grand souls present,
The Pyromancer Witch of Izalith Who held the Life soul.
Nito, the First of the Dead with his Death Soul which could control both death and decay.
Lastly the forgotten Furtive Pygmy with the Dark Soul.
Each one of these beings was referred to as Lords with their respective souls being referred to as Lord souls.'
At this point, Godwyn who's resting on his friend speaks. {let me guess what happens next, they go to war against the dragons for control of the realm.}
I just nod while munching on a Chocolate-covered Éclair.
'You right Godwyn, the next thing they did was try and fight the Everlasting Dragons but with their scales of Stone being impervious to their attempts the key word is 'Try', but within the dragons there existed an aberration, as a draconic form of Albinism there was a Dragon Born without the Scales that made the dragons immune to the effects of time.
The Albino Dragon Seath the Scale-less who in my belief was himself a product of the first flame which created the disparity of his form to other dragons held a hatred for his kin due to this disparity, and also due to the fact they held an item from him which would grant him immortality like them.
So, Seath got in contact with the Lords and made a deal, the weakness of the dragons in return for his pardon and the immortality-granting item in question.
With the deal struck the Lords overcame the Everlasting Dragons to take over the realm and weirdly enough the lords kept their deal with Seath who became a sort of advisor to the lords, not sure really.
They had a grand age of Light where the lords ruled but unbeknownst to the lords Every flame must fade so the longer the age of Light lasted the more and more the First flame started to fade.
The lords derived their power from the first flame so while it faded so did their power, when they noticed each lord acted in different ways.
Nito, promptly went to try and sleep through the disaster, not caring since death is death so they would be fine they thought.
The Witch of Izalith being a grand Pyromancer tried to Ignite A new flame to replace the first flame but in her hubris's just warped her Life soul to create a font of rampant chaotic life which made monsters and overall chaos tied to the first flame itself as long as it was still lit.
Lastly, the Lord of Sunlight had a thought that would prolong his age of light but would start a cruel cycle of rebirth and decay, which scholars from that realm would refer to as the First Sin, He fed himself, his grand soul and the many souls of his loyal knights to the first flame to act as kindling.
This worked but scarred the world making it, so souls now were a tangible concept to those without lord souls, and the more souls a being had the stronger they were.'
This time Ranni cuts in with a question. {what about the Pygmy you told us about.}this causes me to smile since her own form is a pygmy in comparison to the other demi-gods besides maybe Miquella.
'The pygmy or as he was called Manus, was the most successful of the Great lords with his method to stave off the decay of the first flame, Now Due to the nature of his soul and how weak it was in comparison to the others he was the first to realise the first flame was fading so his plan was both ingenious and so blatant that the other lords never realised until it was too late with his victory.'
This causes some of the demi-gods to look very interested.
'Like the Witch of Izalith, he had the idea to essentially create a new flame, but they realized that no matter what, he couldn't create a flame greater than the source of his Dark soul so he had the idea of an ever-propagating flame which would form new small flames which themselves would make more flames without end.
So, he Split his already weak Dark soul into many fragments and set the sparks to propagate Humanity and humans as a race creating man within the realm.
The Lords noticed the propagation of humans since it's kind of impossible to not notice such growth, but they thought it was just a result of their age of light giving life to the realm so they ruled over them as gods, within each human was a minuscule sliver of the dark soul acting as a miniature flame, giving birth and fading away like a normal flame, to create an endless chain of fires which could outlast the age of light, into the Age of the Dark.'
My explanation of the pygmy's plan causes some of the demi-gods to be stunned at his creativity and forethought.
'Regardless of Gwyn's actions to keep his reign of light alive, in the end, the pygmy would win but the followers of Gwyn used the humans to relight the First flame by filling them with a vast amounts of souls before having them become ashes within the kiln of the first flame.
This process of reigniting the first flame occurred for countless ages, with each rekindle the world was sapped more and more of its life as when a soul entered the flame it didn't return since it was used as fuel so at some point the end had to come.
Those cards I puked out were key figures from the Last cycle of the rekindling process, at that point the realm had become a decayed mess and there were no beings of strong enough souls left to light the flame so a failsafe Gwyn built into the flame activated reviving the remains of those who could.
But at that time, the risen realised the world was screwed and chose to live out the last days of the world in their own ways, but another risen appeared and slew each of the revived beings becoming strong enough to reignite the first flame somehow.
But through their journey they were dragged into a sub-dimension full of cold and rot where they were requested to get a little painter girl some special pigment from the last settlement in the world, the Ringed City.
There in the ringed city with the help of some allies they found the city in a pristine condition but just at the brink of the starting to decay like the world around it and the only holding the city together were two key entities.
First was the one of Gwyn's daughters, Filianore who held the soul with control over time and a white shell which entrapped her in a never-ending dream causing Filianore's Time soul to keep the city in a time bubble unaware of the world outside the City Ring.
When the Ashen one finds her, his presence is enough to shatter the white shell with a touch sending the time bubble to the end of time within the realm where Filianore would die when time would fracture to feed the flame since nothing else was left.'
Most of the demi-gods are covered in grim fascination, what does the death of time look like to the world?
'There The ashen one saw the result of reigniting the flame endlessly, it was all just ashen dunes and grand ruins of civilisations, everything is consumed to feed the flame so even time itself was being fed the the flame this allowed the ashen one to be there at the end of time while being able to return to their own time later.
There at the decay of time, he found a friend who gained the same quest from the painter but the Ashen one wasn't fully aware of what the paint she asked for really was, it only became apparent when they met their friend.
At that point, the ashen one essentially time travelled while their friend didn't so for the rest of time his friend essentially hunted every being with humanity in existence so at that point, they had the closest thing akin to the Dark soul running through their body.
His blood was the Pigment the painter asked for, at that point the friend was also crazy due to the endless slaughter and the power running through him and attacked the ashen one in his madness, but in the end, the ashen one won.
At their victory, they possibly made a decision and faced the guardian of the Kiln of the first flame which was a Living god made from the combined power of every being who fed themselves to the flame.
In the end, the Ashen one overcame that god and stood at the embers of the first flame. There he had 3 choices, the first was to doom the world to the ashen hell they saw, and the second was to call on his companion to snuff the embers for an age of darkness.
There were other options, but their intentions are unclear, for one would have the ashen one become a lord of the dark but not by snuffing the flame and the last option would have had them betray their companion to consume the first flame to become the next lord of cinder while making it so while their alive the flame won't fade.'
I just munch on some chocolate cookies I had within reach as the demi-gods hear about the end of the other realm.
When I finish the story, I notice that the whole group of duellists have grouped up at the machine for the duel draft.
I walk over as I see one pop out of the spout, the guard holds it and looks at it, he looks around the room and throws the sphere towards someone.
With a firm grasp which caught the ball without even looking Seto Kaiba takes the Sphere depicting the image of his Blue-eyes white dragon blasting something beneath it with their breath before walking to the elevator for the roof.
The next Sphere is produced by the machine, the guard takes the sphere and looks around the room for the contestant but doesn't find them.
He then raises his hand to his earpiece and then looks to a screen, this causes everyone else to look at it, upon it is the depiction of a veiled Woman standing on the roof arena with a duel disk in white flowing robes in the wind.
The guard looks at the screen, then at his roster then shrugs then starts to speak.
"The next Duellist to Duel with Seto Kaiba is already there it seems," he says this and shows the Sphere which depicts the Millennium necklace and a Veil arcing under the ornament like Ishizu's veil, within the gap created by the arching veil a pair of eyes are visible under the Millennium necklace.
Both Kaiba and Ishizu take their place on the arena before starting the Duel.
[Seto's LP: 4000]
[Ishizu's LP: 4000]