Chapter 190

"Then allow me to show you exactly what this pathetic little monster is capable of."

Under Titan's uneasy gaze, Rowan waved a hand, giving the order for Time Maiden to attack.

"Time Maiden, attack Archfiend Matador Knight! Sacrificial Strike!"

At his signal, the gray, cylindrical mechanical angel on his field leapt forward, charging straight at the ram-riding jester fiend.

"What?! Another zero attack monster attacking on purpose?!" Titan stared in disbelief.

"But that pathetic Level 1 runt shouldn't have any of those Timelord effects...!"

"Heeheehee!!"

Titan didn't even need to give the order. Archfiend Matador Knight let out its familiar cackle on its own, raising a clawed hand and unleashing a cone of sickly green energy to meet the charging Time Maiden head-on.

BOOM!!

Time Maiden's gray, cylindrical body exploded into a burst of fire and smoke under the impact of the green energy blast.

WHOOSH!!

As the same green energy cone tore through the destroyed Time Maiden and continued on toward Rowan, delivering the battle damage, one of the two remaining face-down cards on his field flipped open at his signal.

It revealed an image of a scale, its pans wreathed in flames colored much like the Timelords themselves.

"Activating a face-down card! Trap: Judgment of the Fool! I take zero battle damage from one instance of battle damage this turn!"

VWOOM!!

A wave of gray energy surged up from the trap, forming a barrier that easily absorbed the incoming green energy blast.

"If Time Maiden really doesn't have any of the Timelord effects, then what was the point of Rowan deliberately sacrificing it in an attack?" Zane wondered aloud, clearly puzzled.

Everyone else, including Titan across the field, wore the same confused expression, all eyes turning to Rowan.

"Truly the king of setting up the punchline, our Zane."

Rowan looked ready to hand the man a medal on the spot.

"Time Maiden's effect. When it's in Attack Position and gets destroyed by battle, sent to the Graveyard, every monster on the field is forced back to its owner's hand!"

"What?! Another bounce-back-to-hand effect?!"

Titan's face went white with horror. He nearly screamed the words out loud right then and there.

But the next instant, a burst of gray light rippled outward from the tiny particles left behind by Time Maiden's destruction. On his field, the deep indigo, vampire-like fiend, the ram-riding jester fiend, and the towering, bone-armored demon—all three monsters dissolved into orange particles from the ground up under that passing wave of gray light, vanishing completely. In a flash of light, they reformed as three cards, returning to Titan's hand.

His two Continuous Traps, Call of the Haunted, having lost the monsters they'd revived, shattered apart into particles with a pair of soft pops, destroyed automatically and vanishing from the field.

Titan stared down at the three monsters now sitting back in his hand, his expression, visible even beneath the death mask, darkening to an almost bottomless shade of despair. He sank into a heavy, choking silence.

[Ding. Titan's Emotion Points +1400!]

At the pleasant chime of the system notification, Rowan couldn't help but notice the veins bulging across Titan's face seemed to multiply even further. Then, with a faint hiss, a few thin streams of blood actually trickled out.

"..." Alexis, Bastion, and Chazz all fell into stunned, wordless silence at the sight.

Oh, someone get this man some flowers.

All that effort Titan had poured into re-summoning his Ritual Monster and the rest, and it had all gotten bounced straight back to his hand yet again...? And this time, things had escalated to a genuinely absurd degree.

"Bro, did that guy over there actually just start bleeding because Rowan tormented him too hard...?" Syrus asked, pointing at Titan with a dumbstruck expression, turning to Jaden.

"Looks like he really is bleeding..." Jaden, Chazz, and Bastion all wore matching looks of queasy discomfort.

The group that had already fallen victim to Rowan's torment collectively took a step backward, putting some distance between themselves and his Underworld deck. That left only Zane and Syrus standing at the front of the group, still frozen in place, looking a little dazed.

Even Rowan couldn't help sweating a little at the sight.

The reason Titan was bleeding was, quite obviously, entirely on him. The man was just an ordinary human being forcibly channeling the dark power of that Shadow Charm. Though, Rowan admitted, he supposed he did bear some tiny, negligible fraction of the responsibility, seeing as it was his fault the man's emotions had spiked so violently, drawing far too much power from the dark item in one go.

Still, according to basic human physiology, Rowan reasoned, a little bloodletting was probably a fine way to relieve some built-up stress.

"My turn's over. Your move."

After that brief internal commentary, Rowan ended his turn without further comment, addressing Titan, who still stood there in dark, simmering silence.

Your turn now, little brother.jpg

"I'm not out of options yet, kid! This turn, I'm paying every last bit of this rage right back to you!"

Titan's voice came out low and simmering, his fury building steadily beneath the silence. The bulging veins across his face occasionally hissed, releasing another faint thread of blood as if venting pressure.

He placed his hand over the segmented deck on his Duel Disk. "My turn, draw!"

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