On Youyu's side, his Duel with Kagemaru kicked off, and more and more players, having heard the news, rushed to the front row of the livestream to watch.
Some players didn't forget to start their own streams and screen recordings, planning to record the whole match. Among them were video creators getting ready to take this footage back, edit and polish it, then throw it onto dedicated video sites as new content. There were also academy instructors, planning to bring back this first-hand footage as teaching material for their students.
Although the Three Phantasm's insane strength far beyond imagination had already stunned the players, what really made them react on instinct were the two "society-revenge" effects attached to that "Awakened Three Phantasm".
Especially many players who'd been坑过 by iconic "report-to-society" cards like "Macro Cosmos" and "Skill Drain" — the moment they saw this "Awakened Three Phantasm", their DNA started resonating and their fists clenched up hard...
These Three Phantasm were basically the Society-Report Trio. Unlike the Egyptian God, whose power lies in absolute suppression and instant-kill force, the Phantasm specialize in tilting people's mentality.
After this Duel, Kagemaru left a very deep impression on everyone, and this Three Phantasm system of his really did look quite powerful, completely different from his portrayal in the anime.
Seemingly affected by the Power of Phantasms, Kagemaru himself was also acting extremely inflated, with a "who else but me among all Duelists under heaven" vibe.
To put it in one sentence: like a heifer riding a motorcycle—over-the-top badass.
"Kagemaru's not bad, this Phantasm build of his is kind of fierce." someone immediately commented.
"The key is that Life Energy absorption! That's the gospel of men, alright?"
"Relax, men are all talk anyway, they never last that long."
Of course, in the end, the result didn't deviate from anyone's expectations in the slightest. The universally acknowledged world protagonist, Youyu-san, once again took the win in the Duel.
But what nobody expected was that, facing that copper-wall-iron-wall Three Phantasm lineup, with both Monster Effects and graveyard resources double-locked, Youyu actually, actually...
...just straight-up slammed down a damn Ra's egg!
"Holy shit, savage!"
"6666, Youyu-san is insane! He actually just dropped the egg..."
The Winged Dragon of Ra itself is a fighter jet among trash cards in the Physical Card environment, but its egg is absolutely infamous. Lava Golem at least only dares to eat two of the opponent's Monsters, while Ra's egg gulps down three in one go.
And Lava Golem, no matter what you say, still has respectable combat power roughly on the level of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon and can serve as a beater. But if your Card Deck doesn't have "The Winged Dragon of Ra", then this egg that ate three of your Monsters is basically a vanilla with 1 ATK 0 DEF.
And that's not all; this egg even has an effect of "returning control at the End Phase of the next turn". Which means not only does it eat your three Monsters, but next turn it'll bounce back to your opponent's field and turn into The Winged Dragon of Ra...
Looking at it like this, no wonder among the Three Egyptian God, only that squishy fried-chicken Winged Dragon of Ra was originally the exclusive Egyptian God of that six-year-old-from-hell Mr. Tombkeeper — this kind of effect is obviously the favorite of shut-in players.
But with that, the Phantasm incident finally came to an end.
Kagemaru's entire Card Deck was confiscated, and the other three Phantasm Cards he'd restored using the Phantasm Tablet were all taken away by Youyu as well.
That brought the number of Three Phantasm in Youyu's hand up to a full nine copies—three were the ones sealed in live combat back then, three were Physical Card effect versions gifted by the system, and the other three were seized here from Kagemaru.
Kagemaru was also captured alive—because Youyu intentionally held back, Kagemaru wasn't even dead after that Duel.
The reason he didn't finish him off was that Youyu considered the potential aftermath still unresolved. He still needed to know where the archaeological team had stored those tablets sealed with the Power of Phantasms when they first dug them up, and more importantly, where the tablet of the original Three Phantasm was currently being kept.
If these tablets weren't recovered, they'd always be a latent threat; who knew when some other Duelist might grab them and stir up big trouble.
Fortunately, this soon stopped being a problem. Within two hours of Youyu leaving the island, word came from the Kaiba Group: a special task force under the Kaiba Group had located Kagemaru's base, and after breaking in by force, they had found all the Phantasm-related tablets there.
The D Department soon contacted them. Officer Fujino's tone suggested that higher-ups were applying enormous pressure, hoping the Kaiba Group would hand over these Phantasm Tablets to be preserved by their so-called "professional agency".
Classic upper-department tradition; even though the Phantasm Tablet hadn't been in their custody for very long to begin with, and later got stolen back by President Kagemaru without anyone noticing, they still insisted on calling these tablets "government property".
If they'd been dealing with someone else, that person might've been forced by this pressure from above to hand over the goods. Unfortunately for them, the target of their strong-arming wasn't just anyone.
It was Kaiba Seto.
"Duel Monsters have always been within Kaiba Company's area of expertise. I believe we reached a consensus on that long ago." The President was very tough when talking with the relevant department heads.
"I think the facts have already proven that your forces are not capable of guaranteeing the safety of these tablets—but our Kaiba Company is!
If you're not convinced, then let's use the true Duelist's method—let the Duel do the talking!"
As he spoke, President Kaiba on the screen literally raised the Duel Disc on his arm, his face clearly saying, "Come on, fight me."
And this trick actually worked. The moment he hefted that Duel Disc and slammed it there, the few leaders on the other side of the screen visibly chickened out.
This world is just that bizarre. If you stand there holding a Gatling, people in high places may not even take you seriously.
But if you wordlessly whip out a Duel Disc, they might actually panic...
Sure enough, not long after the President pulled out his Duel Disc, the leaders were persuaded. They tacitly approved the Kaiba Group's custody of the Phantasm Tablets and were forced to back down.
No helping it, Kaiba Company is practically on the verge of ruling the world, remember?
And even in the face of their concession, Kaiba still seemed a little displeased.
He had just finished spectating Youyu and Kagemaru's God-vs-Phantasm showdown, and that Duel had him so pumped his blood was boiling; he was dying to grab someone and Duel right away.
He'd originally hoped to take advantage of this bureaucratic wrangling to drag out a couple of D Department experts for a few matches to scratch his itch, but to his surprise they were so cowardly that the moment they saw him pull out a Duel Disc they bolted, not even leaving him a chance to play...
Mokuba didn't notice his big brother's dissatisfaction; he just said happily, "Great, this way the power of the Phantasm is completely in our hands!"
He paused, then added, "Big Bro Youyu will definitely be really happy about this... right, big brother?"
Kaiba snorted, rolling his eyes in annoyance.
As if to say, whether he's happy or not, what the hell's that got to do with me?