Chapter 61: New Sodom

Bandit Keith left while howling.
...
...
"So you went to the Spirit World?"
A few minutes later, Mokuba Kaiba arrived at the ruins and looked at Yuxuan in surprise.
After winning the duel against Keith, the Seal of Orichalcos immediately contracted, stripping away Bandit Keith's soul. Following that, the surrounding space began to spin violently, and after a whirlwind-like journey, Yuxuan was swiftly transported back to the ruins.
As Yuxuan landed, he let out a long breath of relief.
He had finally made it back.
That was close, incredibly close. Fortunately, he had acted with quick wits and lightning speed, snatching Bandit Keith's Duel Disk right before being teleported, holding it tightly to his chest throughout the journey. Even he could not help but admire his own reflex-like speed in stripping away the Duel Disk. If he had reacted even half a beat slower, he might have been hauled away before he had the chance to loot the dropped items, which would have been a devastating loss...
Mokuba had also rushed over personally to investigate after hearing that something was wrong at the ruins.
"It seems so."
"And then you ran into someone from the Neo-Doma organization?"
"So they're called Neo-Doma?" Yuxuan rubbed his chin. "Is there any connection to the old Doma organization?"
Mokuba replied, "Our current investigations haven't found any direct links. All we know is that they also use the 'Seal of Orichalcos' and hunt duelists' souls through duels."
Yuxuan understood instantly: "So, they were the ones President Kaiba has been investigating all this time?"
He suddenly grasped why an organization would warrant President Kaiba going to such great lengths to track them down personally.
Eight years ago, Kaiba had experienced firsthand the terrifying power of the organization known as Doma, and had witnessed with his own eyes the capabilities of that God of Orichalcos. Now that the three Egyptian God cards were gone, should that evil deity awaken once more, he would naturally become the primary line of defense protecting this world.
Even setting that perspective aside, purely for Kaiba himself, this was undoubtedly an unforgettable hurdle in his career as a duelist.
Back then, when facing Darts, the leader of the former Doma organization, Kaiba had fought side-by-side with his old rival, the Dark Yugi. Despite fighting two against one, they had still suffered defeat in the duel, and Kaiba's soul had narrowly avoided being devoured by the God of Orichalcos. In the end, it was the Dark Yugi who pulled a blank card out of thin air, scripted a two-hit miracle, and snatched a thrilling victory from the jaws of defeat.
So, when all was said and done, it was Yugi who had turned the tide and destroyed Doma. Now that Atem was no longer around, if the Company President had the opportunity to settle the score with the God of Orichalcos, he would certainly not let it pass.

"Then is the 'Arbiter' previously mentioned by President Kaiba the leader of Neo-Doma? Is it Darts?" Yuxuan probed tentatively.
Mokuba shook his head. "His identity is currently unknown; we only have this codename. But I suspect it isn't him. Rather, it's someone else who used some unknown method to awaken the power of Orichalcos sealed by Yugi... I mean, sealed by the Pharaoh."
Yuxuan tried to recall the plot of DM. Atem had ultimately used his own "vessel of the heart" to seal the God of Orichalcos, which represented the dark will of the world. Realizing that the situation was hopeless, Darts sank into the seabed along with the ancient ruins of Atlantis and vanished. Although it looked like he had exited the stage, since he hadn't actually died, the possibility of him making a comeback couldn't be ruled out.
"Still, to think that even someone like Keith would throw his lot in with Neo-Doma, and that they're now actually attacking the Spirit World..." Mokuba said. "It's amazing you managed to beat him, though."
Yuxuan nodded in profound agreement. "Yeah, yeah. It was extremely thrilling, and winning in the end was pure luck. Thinking about it from every angle, I suppose my deck just isn't strong enough yet. If only I could get more rare cards..."
Mokuba scratched the back of his head. "Well, the stock of cards in the company's local branch was already shown to you last time... Oh, that's right!"
He slapped his forehead as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "You're already a student at Duel Academy, right? In that case, showing you 'that' shouldn't be against the rules."
"What?" Yuxuan was startled.
"It's a batch of powerful rare cards, newly completed by the company and not yet released for sale," Mokuba smiled. "According to the original plan, they were supposed to be shipped to Duel Academy.
However, the quantity of this batch is limited, and once they actually arrive at the Academy, they'll probably be snatched up fiercely. You'll be lucky to buy even a pack or two. Since you're an Academy student anyway, selling them to you in advance doesn't violate any regulations."
Powerful rare cards scheduled to be shipped to Duel Academy... could it be...
Yuxuan instantly recalled the plot from the opening episodes of the GX anime.
It seemed there was an episode shortly after the school year began, when a naval fleet sailed majestically toward Academy Island, escorted by formations of fighter jets overhead. The captain looked as solemn as if facing a formidable enemy, carrying a briefcase stamped with the Kaiba Corporation logo and declaring that "this item must be delivered safely at all costs."
His initial reaction at the time had been that this was utterly absurd—an entire fleet and fighter jets escorting a single box of cards?
Upon closer reflection, it felt even more absurd. Because should any expert ever harbor designs on that box of cards, the fleet and fighter jets would seemingly be utterly useless.
After all, no matter how formidable aircraft carriers and heavy artillery were, could they possibly defeat someone playing card games?
However, it seemed none of the students ever got to buy that box of cards, because Professor Crowler intercepted the entire lot before the students even finished classes. He bought every single card, handed them to Chazz Princeton, and had Chazz use this box of rare cards to punish the slacker Jjudai Yuki.
Classmate Chazz's later famous VWXYZ series originated from right there.
Thinking of this, Yuxuan's eyes lit up.
Classmate Chazz's VWXYZ series was actually quite fierce in this format. The anime showcased quite a few powerful support cards that had never been printed in the real game. A representative example was the Continuous Spell [Dimensional Hangar] he used in the TV series, which looked somewhat like a prototype of the powerful new card [Union Hangar] that the VWXYZ series received in the real card game more than a decade later.

Although the GX anime-exclusive version of VWXYZ probably wasn't as powerful as the real-world version reinforced by new Konami cards over a decade later, in this environment, it should still be considered a quite prominent archetype.
As for what classmate Chazz, whose deck had been intercepted, was going to do...
Well, that wasn't a problem for him to worry about.
Although this archetype was rare, it probably wasn't as rare as some characters' signature cards. In the anime, when Chazz wandered off to Duel Academy's North Academy, his original deck had been completely ruined in a shipwreck and rendered unusable, forcing him to hastily patch together a brand new deck from random cards at North Academy.
Therefore, theoretically speaking, the VWXYZ set Crowler gave him should have been scrapped.
For a period later on, he indeed stopped using this archetype, but mid-to-late in the storyline, he suddenly pulled this deck out again one day. So either he happened not to bring this deck with him when he left the Academy, or he later flexed the financial might of the Chazz Princeton Group to buy a brand new one.
"Then I'll notify you to come take a look once the cards arrive in a couple of days," Mokuba smiled.
"Thanks a lot."
"Ah, don't mention it. Instead of that, you should probably worry more about the upcoming tournament," Mokuba said cheerfully. "My brother will probably be happy if you can get stronger as soon as possible.
If you get wiped out in just a couple of moves on the tournament stage, my brother might just get angry, you know."
Yuxuan: "......"
The moment that was brought up, he felt the pressure mounting again.
Indeed, although theoretically the tournament didn't strictly mandate that he had to win, if he lost too miserably, the Company President would most likely be displeased.
"Oh, right, the head of the research team here said they have some questions they'd like to ask you."
"Research team?"
"Yeah, the team responsible for researching the ruins," Mokuba said. "Academic progress on developing the Black Luster Soldier has been bottlenecked for quite a while, and the team leader says he feels this opportunity is huge.
Who knows, you might just become the first duelist to help develop a brand new power for the Black Luster Soldier."