CHAPTER 43

"Princess, you can still quit now," Anne said, worried. "This is a joke, right?"

"I'm not," I replied. "Start the match."

"B-but..."

"Start the match, Anne," Janet cut in, her usual serious expression returning to her face. "My sister knows what she's doing."

"O-okay," Anne stammered.

"One more thing," I said "Don't hold back," I said, looking her straight in the eye.

Janet raised an eyebrow, but nodded in agreement. A fireball exploded in the air, signalling the start of the spar. I smirked as Janet disappeared from sight.

CLANG!!

I blocked Janet's dagger attack with my scale-covered right arm. A surprised look appeared on her face for a split second before it disappeared. She jumped back and threw three knives at me. I dodged them easily, but three extremely thin strings came out from the knives and swung horizontally at me. Janet was a poison dragon, so all her attacks were coated with poison. Since we were sisters, she would never use it to harm me, but her attacks were still dangerous because they were coated with paralyzing poison.

The strings were too close for me to dodge. I looked at Janet and saw the triumphant look on her face. I almost facepalmed. We had made a bet: if she won, she would get to use her pink book as much as she liked. I could have just stood there and let the strings hit me, as they wouldn't make a dent in my scales anyway. But if I did that, what would be the point of spending hours in the library reading both magic and science books? I had to show off the results of my hard work.

'I guess I have to thank that guy for this later,' I thought.

[ LIGHTNING SHIELD ]

The strings suddenly stopped about two centimeters away from my skin.

"Repel," I murmured, and the strings and all metals around me flew off in different directions.

I dodged a swipe attack from her fan. The fan wasn't normal, it had sharp blades protruding from at least seven different angles. Each of the blades was coated in poison and could be dislodged and used as a projectile when needed. What's more, the whole damn thing was made of metal. I smirked, causing Janet to throw her fan away immediately. As soon as she did, lightning exploded from the fan.

BOOM! BOOM!!

Janet was genuinely surprised as I countered each of her high speed attacks.

BOOOM!

She increased her speed again, this time each of her strikes came with an explosion of poisonous gas when they hit. Her eyes widened as her poison gas dissipated each time it came close to me.

" Y-you have poison affinity" she exclaimed

" No" I replied

Although I could use poison, too, due to my minor all elements affinity, I haven't used it since the beginning of the fight. I used something I saw in a book once, photolysis. Lightning strikes generate a lot of energy, which can cause the molecules in the poisonous gas to vibrate violently. This can break the bonds between the molecules, causing them to evaporate and dissipate into the atmosphere. It comes with a high mana cost, though.

I formed a spear of lightning and threw it at Janet. All the knives and daggers around me followed immediately after, affected by the magnetic field created by the spear. Janet tried to dodge, then she noticed the spear wasn't moving in her direction but it was too late. Tiny bolts of lightning separated from the spear and hit all the metals within 50 meters of the spear, including the knives on Janet. This caused them to heat up and explode. I boosted the explosion a little bit with a fire spell.

The smoke cleared up, revealing a battered Janet covered in smoking scales.

"That was good," she said. "You almost got me there for a second."

"An assassin without weapons is half defeated, unless she's a dragon, of course," she continued.

Her face began to transform into a snout. "Don't hold back, sister. I want to see just how much you've been hiding from us."

__________________________

[ DAMIAN'S PERSPECTIVE]

"Please, I don't know where she is, spare me," a feminine voice said.

"Lena!" I called out.

Lena's eyes glowed, and the figure began rolling on the ground and screaming, "I'll talk! I'll talk!"

"What are you waiting for? We have things to do," I said impatiently.

"Earlier, I felt a foreign energy infiltrate this floor. I don't know where it came from, but you can check the higher floors. It might be from there" she said hurriedly " please spare me senior, she bowed in front of Lena "

[ VAMPIRE NOBLE PRISCILLA HAS OFFERED HER LOYALTY TO YOUR AVATAR. DO YOU ACCEPT]

[Y/N]

Naturally, I chose yes. While Priscilla wasn't that strong individually, she had a similar ability to mine. She had the ability to create that fog and the beasts within it, and control them as she wishes. So, accepting her was the same as getting an entire army under my control.

[ERROR: VAMPIRE SUBJECT IS BOUND TO A DUNGEON]

[SEVERING TIES TO THE DUNGEON]

[ PROCESS COMPLETE. PLEASE EXIT THIS FLOOR IMMEDIATELY]

With all that done, we moved to the next floor, wondering what we would meet there this time. I really hoped I could find Jenna there so I could get out of this place.