"Hey, you pervert who peeks at the girls' dorm, shut up with the backseat dueling! Who could have guessed his face-down monster was exactly [Obnoxious Celtic Guard]?!"
"Exactly! Summoning a stronger monster before attacking is the standard dueling strategy!"
Mindy and Jasmine immediately snapped back at Syrus, trying to defend Alexis.
"There's no need to explain, Mindy, Jasmine. It was indeed a lapse in judgment on my part!" Alexis raised her hand to stop her friends from arguing.
Her eyes burned with even more intense determination as she looked at Jiang He. "This guy must have carefully adjusted his deck. He added several monsters like [Obnoxious Celtic Guard], not just one or two trap cards like I thought."
"However, adjustments like these make the Exodia OTK combo impossible to pull off! Therefore, the advantage is still mine!"
Hearing this, her two friends, Jaden's group, and even Professor Crowler watching from the distance, all nodded in agreement.
"..." Jiang He felt a bit exhausted by their logic. He could only say that preconceived notions were a dangerous thing! Though, for him, this misunderstanding was actually a good thing!
"The battle continues! My turn isn't over yet!"
Alexis took one of the two remaining cards from her hand and placed it onto her Duel Disk!
"I activate the Quick-Play Spell, [De-Fusion]! It returns one Fusion Monster on the field to the Extra Deck and allows me to Special Summon the fusion materials used for its summon from my Graveyard!"
An orange light surged around the crimson-clad warrior. Soon, she split back into two beams of light, transforming into the orange-haired [Etoile Cyber] and the purple-clad [Blade Skater]. Both reappeared on the lake in front of Alexis!
*[Blade Skater]*
*[Level: 4]*
*[Attribute: Earth]*
*[ATK: 1400]*
*[DEF: 1500]*
"We're still in the Battle Phase, so [Etoile Cyber] and [Blade Skater], special summoned by De-Fusion, can still declare attacks!"
"As expected of the elite strategies of Obelisk Blue! This is getting my blood pumping!" Jaden shouted, unable to contain his excitement.
"Boss... whose side are you on? If Jiang He loses, I'm the one getting expelled," Syrus said with a long face.
"Ah, haha, sorry, sorry..." Jaden scratched his head awkwardly.
Jiang He completely ignored the "hot-blooded idiots" and seized the opportunity. He raised a card and gestured toward one of his two face-down cards.
"I activate my set card! The Continuous Trap, [Nightmare Wheel]!"
"The effect of [Nightmare Wheel] is that I select one monster on my opponent's field. As long as this card remains on the field, that monster cannot attack or change its battle position!"
As the trap card flipped up, a torture machine made of skeletal gears manifested out of thin air. It appeared directly behind Alexis's Blade Skater and, amidst her panic, bound the skater's body into the machine!
"N-Nightmare Wheel?!"
The slight smile that had just begun to grace Alexis's face turned into a look of alarm. Then, a thought suddenly struck her.
She looked at Jiang He with a mix of shock and irritation. "You... is this really an Exodia deck?!"
After seeing those two cards, Alexis realized something was completely wrong! What kind of Exodia deck used a dueling style and cards like those? It didn't match any of the potential Exodia variants she had speculated about!
"I don't think I ever said that the deck I'm using now is the same Exodia deck from last night... did I?" Jiang He said, shrugging with a perfectly straight face.
Alexis choked on her words. Thinking back, the annoying guy really hadn't ever claimed he was using his Exodia deck.
But... then what had she been guessing for this entire time?! So the "secret" to handling his deck being countered was just... to use a different deck?!
Alexis felt her blood pressure and the temperature of her face rising!
[Ding! Alexis Emotion Points +400!]
Even her two best friends felt a sense of shared frustration!
"I-It's not an Exodia deck?" Jaden and Syrus were also stunned. When Jiang He dueled in the dorm, wasn't he always using Exodia?
Crowler was completely lost. He felt as if his brain capacity was simply insufficient to process this. He ended up staring blankly, his mind going numb as he stopped trying to analyze the duel.
"I set one card and end my turn!" Alexis grit her teeth, glaring at Jiang He.
She had no choice. She set her final card and ended her turn. After all, following the De-Fusion, she only had two monsters: the 1200 ATK [Etoile Cyber] and the 1400 ATK [Blade Skater].
Now, the 1400 ATK [Blade Skater] was locked down by Jiang He's Continuous Trap, [Nightmare Wheel], due to her lack of intelligence on his deck. She couldn't attack to destroy the defense-position [Obnoxious Celtic Guard]. And [Etoile Cyber]'s 1200 ATK was exactly equal to the Celtic Guard's 1200 DEF.
The only thing she could do was set her third face-down card and pass. Now, the momentum had clearly shifted in Jiang He's favor! The other onlookers focused their attention even more intensely.
"My turn, draw!" Jiang He pulled a card from his deck.
"But before that, I activate the second effect of [Nightmare Wheel]. Once a target is restricted, during each of my Standby Phases, it deals 500 damage to my opponent!"
"What?!" Alexis gasped.
"Ah!!"
As Jiang He spoke, the skeletal Nightmare Wheel emitted a sudden arc of electricity. As the bound Blade Skater screamed in pain, the arc also zapped Alexis, causing her to wince.
Her Life Points dropped from [4000LP] to [3500LP].
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