Chapter 121: Slapping the Old Prince in the Face

"Whether it's a pack of lies or not, you're about to find out."

Camula said with a curling smile at Professor Crowler's staunch faith in science, the faint glint of a slightly sharper-than-normal fang showing at the corner of her mouth.

"Well then, let's begin."

"Duel!"

"Duel!"

As Camula and Professor Crowler spoke in unison, their expressions turning serious, both Duel Disks lit up at once.

The golden disk on Camula's left arm unfolded in an instant into a full Duel Disk shaped like a pair of sharp, bat-like wings.

Once both of them had drawn their opening hand of five cards, 4000 Life Points appeared beside each of them.

"That Duel Disk is certainly flashy..." Rowan couldn't help commenting on Camula's ostentatious golden bat-wing disk.

"I'll go first. Draw!"

Camula drew straight from the deck slot on her golden bat-wing Duel Disk, adding the card to her hand, then quickly pulled out another and set it on the disk.

"I summon, in Attack Position, Zombie Werewolf!"

"Awoooo!!"

A faint glow lit up, and a monster took shape: a silver-furred, upright werewolf in green trousers, its eyes burning crimson, letting out an eerie howl as it appeared on the field before her.

Zombie Werewolf Level: 4 Attribute: DARK ATK: 1200 DEF: 1000

"Next, I activate the Spell Card, Foolish Burial, sending one monster from my deck straight to the Graveyard!"

"Then I'll set one card face-down. Turn end."

With a soft thud, a face-down card materialized on the field before Camula, and her turn ended.

"Using a spooky little dog monster as a decoy for show, while the real killing move is a Trap Card meant to revive whatever she just sent to the Graveyard. That tactic's easy enough to see through!"

The mushroom-haired professor said, wagging a finger with total confidence as he broke down her strategy.

Then he laid a hand over the deck slot of his own detachable Duel Disk, catching the card as it popped out automatically.

"My turn. Draw."

After glancing at the card he'd drawn, Professor Crowler pulled out two more and set them on the Duel Disk.

"I set two cards face-down, then activate the Spell Card from my hand, Heavy Storm!"

Crowler revealed the Spell Card in his hand.

"This card's effect destroys every Spell and Trap Card on the field. Allow me, the foremost authority on practical dueling at this academy, to teach you a somewhat more advanced strategy."

The mushroom-haired professor said, brimming with self-satisfied confidence.

"Whoosh!!"

The next moment, a raging hurricane swept out from the face of Heavy Storm in his hand, quickly flipping over and shattering not only the face-down card on Camula's field, but the two he himself had just set as well, destroying all three at once.

"And with that, any chance you had of reviving whatever's sitting in your Graveyard is completely shut down."

"As for the two cards I just set, those were the Trap Card, Statue of the Wicked."

As Professor Crowler raised a hand, the two cards that had just been destroyed by Heavy Storm reappeared on his field and flipped face-up.

Both bore the image of a golden, malevolent statue.

"When this set Trap Card, Statue of the Wicked, is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, I get to Special Summon one Wicked Token onto my field."

"Hummm!!"

An instant later, two golden, statue-like tokens took shape in a dim glow on Professor Crowler's field.

Wicked Token Level: 4 Attribute: DARK ATK: 1000 DEF: 1000

"Beautiful combo, Professor Crowler! Not only did he destroy the card she was planning to use for a revival, he Special Summoned two Wicked Tokens he can use as Tribute fodder!"

Out at the lake, Jaden pumped a fist, calling out his praise, thoroughly hyped up.

Chazz, Bastion, and the others nodded along in agreement. Say what you would about Professor Crowler getting soundly beaten by Rowan and then Jaden back during the entrance exams, the man genuinely had real dueling skill.

"You boys still have plenty to learn. You too, failing student boy, and you, Jaden Yuki my boy!"

Professor Crowler, thoroughly pleased with the praise, wagged a finger, practically floating on air with self-satisfaction.

"I have to ask, Professor Crowler, are you really not going to check what that face-down Trap of hers actually is first?"

Watching the mushroom-haired professor float away on the screen, Rowan couldn't help a weary comment, bringing him back down to earth.

Sure, that combo of his had genuinely been impressive. But the vampire Camula had already sent her little bat scouting ahead of time, gathering intelligence on Professor Crowler, Jaden, and everyone else's decks.

She already knew, more or less, exactly which monsters and Spell or Trap Cards each of them was running.

"I suppose the one who beat Darkness really is a cut above the rest."

Camula said with a soft, amused laugh, finally speaking up.

"Hummm!!"

As her words fell, the set card on her field, the one that should already have been destroyed, reappeared as well, flipping face-up.

"The Trap I set wasn't anything so ordinary as some call of the dead. It was the Trap Card, Coffin of the Undead!"

Camula said, her mouth curling into a satisfied smile.

"This card's effect activates the moment it's destroyed and sent from the field to the Graveyard while set. I get to Special Summon one Zombie-Type monster straight from my own Graveyard!"

"Rather more useful than your Statue of the Wicked, wouldn't you say?"

"Nani?!"

Professor Crowler's expression changed at once.

He'd barely finished his confident little analysis, and already he'd been proven wrong, and fast.

Worst of all, he'd just been mocked by the very "theatrical charlatan" of a vampire he'd