Luckily, Mitsuzawa's presence wasn't entirely reduced to zero, and at least Tania still remembered him.
Tania led the group forward while acting as a competent guide, starting to explain the information about this world.
"After the Seven Stars battle, I originally returned to my own world," she explained.
Tania was originally a spirit and naturally resided in the spirit world. However, it seems that the worldview of the spirit world isn't unified, with various dimensions where different spirits exist.
Just recently, a sudden change occurred in the dimension where Tania resided.
"Our world cracked open, and the sky and the earth shattered without warning," Tania said. "Unknown rifts suddenly became ubiquitous, gradually sucking us all in.
When I woke up, I found myself here, in this completely unfamiliar but hellish world."
"A hellish world?" The phrase made Ed uncomfortable.
"Literally," Tania glanced at them, "but there's an entrance nearby. Rather than explaining with words, it's better if you see it with your own eyes."
Sure enough, after following her with twists and turns, they soon emerged from the intricate tunnels.
The intensity of light in the space increased significantly. They exited a long hallway, and an entire expansive world suddenly appeared before them.
It looked like a city, with densely packed buildings arranged like rising spires, a style no one had ever seen before.
A hemispherical ceiling covered the entire space, so large that the boundaries were hard to discern. Circular lamp bands were installed on the dome, encircling like ripples on water, extending to the horizon, illuminating the entire city.
They stood on a cliff at the cave entrance, overlooking, soon spotting the residents below.
A group of monsters, clearly Winged Beast-Type, dominated the city, each fierce-looking, wielding long knives and whips, enslaving and driving weaker monsters to work and do labor.
The enslaved monsters appeared to be low-level spirits. For instance, "Petit Angel" — a Level 3 Normal Monster with only 600 attack points, usually just living by being cute in the Duel Monster Realm.
But now these Low LV Monsters had become labor slaves under the Winged Beasts' whips, driven like livestock to work.
Among them were some spirit races that some students were quite familiar with. Some poor spirits might even die from exhaustion due to the intense labor — or simply be whipped to death by the Winged Beasts.
Some students couldn't bear to see it. Asuka asked, "Is there anything we can do?"
"We've been trying to organize a counterattack," Tania said. "My companions have been planning for a long time; we've found the nest controlling this city, which is that one."
She pointed to the most unique building in the center of the city. It looked like a mechanical giant mushroom, connecting to the lamp bands on the ceiling.
"I see," Ed said, "it's like a government or something?"
"So, we just need to destroy it?" Manjome asked.
"More or less," Tania nodded, "It's like the heart of the Winged Beast-Type. If we take it down, we'll have absolute advantage, and capturing this city will only be a matter of time."
Seeing the students eager to try, she quickly added, "But don't act rashly. This is their city, and reckless action won't succeed.
We must be cautious, gather as much intelligence as possible, make a perfect plan, choose the most suitable approach, and consolidate all forces before going forward..."
"Uh, sounds great," Xiang whispered, "but it seems we're already too late..."
"Hmm?"
Tania was stunned for a moment, following his pointing finger to look. To her surprise, a large group of sand sculptures had already charged down the cliff and were heading aggressively toward the city's border, excitedly shouting something, seemingly unafraid of not being noticed by the Bird-Beast Guards stationed at the border.
Tania was dumbfounded.
"What are they doing!? Have they lost their minds?" She shouted from behind, "Stop, come back! The duels in this world are not like the ones in your world!
In this world, all summoned Monsters are physical, meaning all duel damage is real damage!
If you lose here, you will actually die!"
But upon hearing this, rather than feeling scared or turning back, those sand sculptures only charged more enthusiastically.
"Did you hear? The NPC gave a hint!" someone shouted, "Here you can summon monsters directly into reality!"
"I must fight immediately!"
The players were summoning their monsters as they ran, launching a dazzling array of attacks against the opponent, blowing up many Bird-Beast Guards and ripping open a gap in the city's border.
Tania was stunned, "Why? Aren't they afraid of dying?"
"Don't worry," Youyu smiled, "they know what they're doing."
It's unclear if the sand sculptures had any idea, but at least Youyu did.
According to the anime's explanation, he knew that this dimension was at the bottom level of the Supreme King's Twelfth Dimension rule. These Winged Beast-Types, seemingly in control, were actually just a group of low-level weaklings, whose dueling skills might only be on par with the simple AI of the Kaiba Group.
The players should handle these small fries quite easily.
Even if someone was unlucky and got killed, it wouldn't be a big deal; after all, they had three lives, and they'd be resurrected as a hero in a few hours.
As Youyu anticipated, the Bird-Beasts enslaving the spirits below were quickly defeated. The leading Bird-Beast, who surprisingly had a Duel Disc, revealed it and let out a couple of strange cries, trying to resolve the battle through a duel.
However, his skills were weak, losing his head in just two turns to the unstoppable "Grand General Purple Flame."
The enslaved spirits exchanged glances, then seemed to realize the chance for rebellion had come, quickly joining the sand sculptures, charging deeper into the city with them.
Seeing their mentors so brave, the students' passion was also ignited.
"Everyone! Let's follow them too!"
Youyu didn't stop them either.
After all, the Winged Beast-Type in this dimension had such mediocre dueling capabilities; they clearly couldn't stand against these elite students.
Tania was stunned for a long time, finally accepting this reality, and had little choice but to steel herself, pick up her Duel Disc, and follow.