Chapter 175: Sub-classes

Chapter 175: Sub-classes

Lissandra then pauses and closes her eyes again, taking in a deep, slow breath; the smile on her face increases.

I don't feel any mana from her, none at all. It's as if her heart isn't beating and creating it. Yet the danger I feel from her is extreme. My instincts, my senses, all of them warn me and scream at me to run. The woman in front of me is much more dangerous than the people we just dealt with.

"Lissthanie?" I throw at her, testingly.

She shakes her head, "I'm sorry to say that, little pup, but that part of me is gone. I improved my imprint, and when I embedded it into Hadwin's hand, I removed your influence from it and also a few mistakes I made."

"That's a shame; I kind of liked that version of you."

"No, you did not, you hated it."

"True," I carefully walk to the side, and the kinetic energy I've already collected is quite massive. I'm also extremely hard to kill with the bracelet on my hand, yet... I can't see her level or her class. As before, there isn't any info over her head. I don't see it the same way I didn't see it on the second floor or the same way I don't see it over the heads of tutorial attendees.

I don't think it's because she is as strong as before; she is weakened and terribly so without her potent mana, yet, she feels dangerous.

She knew I would burn her; she knew her imprint was imperfect, so she dealt with it.

I don't even know how, but she is standing in front of me; before I'm able to do anything, her fist hits my chest and sends me flying against the wall.

I see that she only tilts her head and grabs Tess's javelin, and with immense force, throws it back at the blonde girl. It pierces Tess's chest and pins her to the wall.

"I have shown you mercy, so do not annoy me any further," Lissandra says to Tess and her steps are light as she moves towards me.

When Lissandra appears in front of me again, I'm prepared, and all around me, kinetic energy explodes, yet she endures it and only lightly dodges to the side a few times, jumps over one attack, and then ducks slightly and twists her upper body while deflecting the rest.

Lissandra dodges it all while looking exceedingly nimble. I slash against her, boosted with the entirety of my mana and my body constantly ravaged. She matches my speed perfectly.

She is much faster, yet she slows down to my level and totally destroys me. She dodges every slash, every kick, every blast of flames or kinetic energy. She redirects mana projectiles with the back of her hand. She cancels flames with a swing of her hand.

And then she slaps me, sending me to the ground.

"Little pup, you wouldn't believe how much I wanted to do that," Beautiful, full of energy, and smiling she stares down at me.

Then we hear a scream and see Lily stagger backward, one of her arms missing and a big round hole in the silver door with her grayish mana still along the edges.

Before Lissandra moves, a stream of Sophie's mind-manipulating mana shoots at her, yet Lissandra dodges even that and Isabella's flames after. She grabs the javelin Tess again throws at her and ignores the lightning that flickers around her body, coming from the javelin she holds. With a quick twist in the waist, she kicks me as I try to dash at her and endures the cone of kinetic energy I shoot at her.

"I'm sorry, little girl, I can't let you do that," with a quick movement she steps to the side and throws the javelin at Lily. The weapon pierces the shoulder of the black-haired girl.

Then, instead of Lily ́s falling to the ground, the illusion made by Aaron or Dennis disappears and the real position of Lily is revealed, already standing close to the Saint.

The Saint is an unearthly beautiful woman who lies on the bed. Her skin seems to have some warmth to it and her chest is moving up and down; the woman seemingly only sleeping peacefully.

Yet it's only a body, a shell that used to house a brilliant mind. A woman who used to be strong enough to be called Absolute, the title that Lissandra also has.

Lissandra moves and easily avoids Hadwin, Tess's, and Kim's attacks and even throws a piece of rubble at Sophie, sending her crashing against the wall while coughing out blood.

Lily is already attacking the Saint and her gray, smoke-like mana continues to crash against the dead woman's body, barely doing any damage.

Lissandra stops right before passing through the hole in the silver door; there is still Lily's [Disintegration] floating around the entrance and creating something like a net.

For the first time, Lissandra hesitates.

My eyes meet those of Lily, and she says something; at the same time, both of her legs disappear, and I feel her skill strengthening even further as it pushes against the Saint. Lily, having only a single arm, continues to shoot mana at the Saint, sacrificing her limbs to strengthen her skill.

In the end, she succeeds, and grayish mana hits the Saint's head and chest, taking a big chunk out of them.

Congratulations! You've successfully completed the 3rd floor's main quest in the fifth round of the tutorial for Hell difficulty. An entrance to the 4th floor has been created.

Good. Everyone learns from their own mistakes, so I think we can give Hadwin a little bit of slack. It's not like he had bad intentions; he is nearly innocent.

And no, it's not like I'm defending him because I also might be partially to blame.

Nope. I did nothing wrong.

Damn it! Why doesn't she just die?! A goddamn cockroach, like Absolute. The way she clings to life is almost admirable. Plus, if things go the way they're going now, I'm sure I will do a few more similar things and break the tutorial and the system around the 7th floor.

Hmm, that does sound kind of interesting.

"Lily?" I ask Tess.

"She is sleeping now. It will take a few days or weeks before she restores her limbs, but she doesn't have to worry; we will take care of her."

"Sounds good," I answer.

The silence that ensues is interrupted only by the chilling cold wind that I ignore, even though I'm sitting here in tattered, thin clothes. My heart continuously creates energy that I transfer into thermal energy to keep myself warm. I even left a few orbs for others that they use as heaters, and little Isabella also helps by radiating some heat.

"Nat, she did play with us, right? She didn't fight seriously at all."

"Yes. What kind of adult would go all out on little kids?" I answer Tess, "But I still think she wanted to keep us there. She needs a new mana heart and to become more like us to escape the tutorial. She would sacrifice any of us to do so if we stayed there."

Lissandra tricked me. She made me think she had less mana than she actually did. She also acted as if my personality affected her more than it did, causing me to lower my guard.

In the end, she even connected to the healing aura of the Saint in a similar way items I took. The woman copied my [Resonance] to do so. Then she spent her entire or nearly entire remaining mana to recreate her body.

The scary part is that she affected the process and recreated her body to be as strong as possible, each stat other than mana probably well into the high hundreds.

She fought us with only the strength of her body.

I made a mistake and it nearly cost us. Actually, it did cost us; we couldn't take much stuff with us, only a few big bags that the twins and Kim, no, Min-Jae, shamelessly took with them to the castle and left before the throne room. They grabbed them again when they were returning from fighting Edwal, such greedy little twerps.

What I regret is not being able to train in the aura of the Saint, but that's kind of my fault, so I will deal with it as I always did. I will bear the consequences of my decisions.

Now then, the notifications.

Congratulations! You have cleared the 3rd floor of the Hell difficulty tutorial. Welcome to the 4th floor: Waning Realm.

You have acquired:

Access to the Shop

Skill upgrade token

Rare-graded gear of your choice

30 stat points

Well done! You successfully entered the 4th floor. You can now select one of the sub-classes. The classes are based on your actions and performance up until now within the Tutorial.

Pick carefully; it's difficult to change your sub-class!

Available sub-classes:

Initiate of Pride

Initiate of Patience

Initiate of Greed