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ROAR!
Dragon-cries split the gloom as Red-Eyes Black Dragon and the projection body of the legendary dragon Timaeus descended into the Dark Purgatory, and the pressure the two apex dragon-kind erupted with actually scattered the weight of the Devourer and the Predators for a beat.
Dark Magician Girl needed no order. She was already streaking toward the Timaeus projection, mana storming around her, and as the two spirits met, the Dragon Knight Dark Magician Girl came down upon the Dark Purgatory.
Card swap. Blue Card!
The evolution card slashed through, and a volume of data that deserved the word terrifying spilled out of the D-Ark, sheathing Raidramon's body whole.
"Raidramon, super-evolve! WarGrowlmon!"
As though to a rousing battle theme all its own, the frame beneath the light swelled vast, and a crimson demon dragon broke out of the data-shell, its upper body sheathed in the mightiest of metals, Chrome Digizoid.
Twin thrusters rode its shoulders, tuned for air and ground alike, and from its back stretched ribbon-like assault balancers, telescoping freely, built to run an enemy through.
The machine-wrought WarGrowlmon carried itself with more swagger than Growlmon ever had, and pressed on the senses harder besides.
「 WarGrowlmon 」*
Race: Digimon, Cyborg type
Quality: Legendary
Level: ★★★★★★★ (Seven-Star)
Skills: Atomic Blaster, Twin Edge, Ambush, Trinity Burst
Atomic Blaster: Fires a shockwave of atomic grade from the twin cannon-ports on its chest, destroying every enemy before it. The shockwave carries the power of decomposition.
Twin Edge: The vibrating Chrome Digizoid blades along both arms deliver a crossing slash, armor-piercing.
Ambush: Launches a concealed strike with the assault balancers at its back, with a chance of striking a weak point.
Trinity Burst: The body crystallizes and summons phantoms of Rapidmon and Taomon, and the three unleash their assault art as one, a single strike whose power rivals the Mega stage. Upon release, WarGrowlmon falls into a weakened state.
---
"You have a THIRD Seven-Star card?!" Watching the black dragon, the Dragon Knight Dark Magician Girl, and the WarGrowlmon take the field together, Iris went numb from head to toe. Her hand rose and pointed at Luke all on its own, her voice shaking, her eyes refusing what they saw. "Wait. You've already ascended to the Monarch Realm?!"
Counting the Angewomon from the very start, Luke now held four card spirits fielded at once. Only a Card Master of the Monarch Realm could summon that many in one breath!
And it wasn't Iris alone. Viola stood with her eyes stretched wide, staring up at the three spirits radiating terror across the sky. The black dragon, the dragon-riding knight-girl, the WarGrowlmon. Not one of them gave an inch to her Earthring Dragon. If anything, they ran stronger.
Am I the counterfeit Dragon's Valley clansman here?! The thought tore through Viola's head with real force. She no longer knew where to even begin her complaints. An outsider held more dragon-family cards than she did. In what world was that reasonable?
"You're Valley-born too?" Even Silas wore the face of a man whose script had been swapped mid-scene. Which of you is the clansman here, exactly? Isn't your dragon-card count a touch outrageous? Did I mark the wrong target from the very start?
"Don't look at me like that. I'm Kingdom-born, through and through." Catching the strange look in Viola's eyes, Luke shook his head, then swatted down Iris's pointing hand without ceremony. "And I never once said I owned only ONE Seven-Star card."
"Besides, it's a Monarch ascension. Hardly worth all this fuss."
As he said it, his gaze slid over WarGrowlmon, and satisfaction moved through it. Worthy of one of the Tamers era's protagonist partners. The destruction packed into that kit ran maxed to the line, and the Trinity Burst above all, close kin to the Sistermons' Grand Sister Cross in shape, stood in another world entirely for raw power.
In the anime, WarGrowlmon evolved out of Growlmon. Here, by the grace of the evolution web, Raidramon could super-evolve straight into it instead.
*「 Growlmon evolution successful. WarGrowlmon's information has been updated. Mana backflow obtained! 」*
In the same moment, a ripple of mana washed through Luke's body. The backflow from this evolution ran far past Raidramon's, leaving him one bare thread short of the Three-Star Monarch Realm.
Hardly worth the fuss? Iris very nearly whipped a card across the back of his head. What exactly do you take realm breakthroughs FOR?
As for Viola, what crossed her face was a thread of regret, and something like loss. If only Luke really were Valley-born. How much better everything would be. Especially since he'd been the one to save her. At the thought, a flush too faint to easily catch slid across the girl's pale, distracted face.
"Valley-born or not, all of you die here." Silas had clawed his way back from the initial shock. "Hold as many cards as you please. They are Seven-Star cards. Against the Abyss Devourer, you have no chance of flipping this board."
The look he turned on Luke had gone darker still, and the jealousy in it no longer bothered to hide.
The Monarch Realm. Even he had burned years past counting to reach it. And this Luke, barely done with his exam, not yet formally enrolled, already stood at Monarch, holding four Seven-Star cards.
His own command over the Seven-Star grudge-hunters had rested on the Machina Puppet Dragon's peculiar nature, and with the Puppet Dragon dead, his strength had dropped a full step with it. Even his hold on the Abyss Devourer hung entirely off the Writ in his hand. The gap between himself and this boy would only ever widen.
Under the weight of that jealousy, Luke's name had gone onto Silas's must-kill list in permanent ink.
"Can you win?" Elise had been every bit as shaken by the Monarch reveal, but unlike the other two, what her face carried was worry. It was exactly as the Renegade said. Even with three more dragon-family spirits on the field, the root problem stood untouched.
The Abyss Devourer remained the strongest thing present, and without a card that could answer it grade for grade, the odds still ran against them.
"Rest easy." Luke dropped a pat on her head, and one more card appeared in his hand. He looked between Angewomon and WarGrowlmon. "Which of you wants it?"
WarGrowlmon's Trinity Burst rivaled a Mega-stage strike, true, and Angewomon's Arrow of Light carried the power to trigger a Digimon's warp evolution besides. But the Black Gate still stood wide open, and keeping one card folded was never the wrong play.
Naturally. Even an Abyss Devourer did not rate the full bottom of Luke's deck.
Watching it, a flicker of envy crossed Dark Magician Girl's face. She knew the stage to come wasn't hers. Even fused with the Eye of Timaeus, risen as the Dragon Knight, she could fire exactly one Eight-Star strike, and her true floor still fell short of the Eight-Star line.
But then she thought of Luke's promise, and quiet anticipation kindled underneath the envy. She had no intention of being left behind.