"Thanks. I will keep that in mind, Eli.

" Klautz showed an action of gratitude at least by his words. But Eli didn't seem to take it in a good light as she encased her face with a pinched expression in response to his words.

She leapt back, finally breaking the deadlock of their swords.

"It's Evelyn Lebeau.

" She shouted all the while stretching her neck.

Klautz furrowed his brows as he had question marks on his face. 'Did she just get annoyed cause I called her Eli?'

"Okay?

" Klautz took on a poker face as if to show that he had no idea what she was talking about.

'Eli or Evelyn, how does that matter? One of us is going to die in this battle anyway,' Klautz shrugged as he rolled his eyes as he took his stance.

It was then...

In the blink of an eye, before anyone could even notice she put away her sword back in the inventory ready for another quick teleport. But alas it didn't work!

Her eyes shot wide as realization stuck on her. Her pupils shook left and right gauging her surroundings as she realized what she had brought upon herself.

All of her teleportation dolls were burned to crisp!

Klautz smirked.

'Plan B worked out well,' he consoled himself.

That was how Klautz fought battles. He always had a plan B prepared in case plan A fails. After all he was calculative by nature but even he cannot completely predict the outcome of all the unknown variables that involved a battle.

At first he thought that he would just let her push him back and kill her when she is the most sure of her victory. When one is sure of one's victory it is exactly then that one lets their guard down. With her guard down she would have been an easy kill even with teleportation. Plan A was going well.

But alas, Verona's interference broke his flow. It irks him to no limit when an unknown variable disrupts his plans. He had forbade her to come nowhere near but who would have thought that she wanted to die so badly?

But Klautz didn't let the anger get to his brain, he immediately executed plan B which was burning off all of her dolls with fire; chasing off Verona came as a side effect.

Evelyn was stuck at her place. Her dolls were on fire, hell! Even the clothes she had left behind were no on fire.

Now, she couldn't use her old tricks anymore. She was brainstorming hard to find a way to win this match. After all to her it seemed that Klautz was weaker than herself and it was just his proficiency with the sword that had kept him alive.

'Without the dolls defeating him would be much more difficult!' Little did she know that Klautz was holding back all along.

It was then…

Klautz released an intense amount of killing intent as he charged towards her. Klautz had no more plans to hold back.

*Gulp*

Neither the smoke rising from the orange flames nor the lack of oxygen was a problem to her but, she felt herself suffocating at the killing intent alone.

She froze to her place. It was like dark energy emanating from Klautz had held onto her fixing her to her place. Little did she know that Klautz higher stats were doing their work!

But even then she had never seen such eyes before. It felt like he had massacred hundreds if not thousands! She had never seen such killing intent before.

'Just how many has this man killed?' Her inner voice resonated but her outer body failed to respond. Indeed Klautz had killed many in his previous life. He was veteran ninja of hell!

'No wait during the match I had mostly oppressed him. He shouldn't be stronger than myself!' She told herself in order to console her wavering heart. But she could feel it; her death was at the door. Escaping for her panic stricken heart wouldn't let her think straight! After all, unlike Klautz she was not from hell. She was an earthling newbie just like everyone else. How could she have overcame the fear of death?

Stefan too felt something stuck to his throat as he felt Klautz intent to kill but he came back to his senses once he realized the killing intent was directed towards Evelyn. He forced his legs to move as he tried his best to stop Klautz. Unlike Evelyn who froze, he chose 'fight' out of the golden 3 Fs of survival.

'No I can't let him kill Eli'

He ran in between Klautz and Evelyn. He didn't even have the opportunity to complete a transformation and use his powers.

*Slash*

Klautz slashed his sword but alas Stefan came in between.

"What?

" Klautz squeaked.

*Drip*

Klautz tried his best to break his momentum but alas the sword struck at his shoulder blade. Blood ran across the blade of the sword as it dripped from the hilt.

Evelyn who was frozen to her place finally got out of her daze. She switched her gaze from Klautz to Stefan and then back to Klautz. She was no fool, she had felt it. Klautz had pulled back his sword at the last moment otherwise Stefan would be dead by now.

But she didn't say a word, neither to Klautz nor to Stefan.

*Poof*

With a poof, she disappeared from their site never to be seen again. Klautz had burned all the toys around them but that doesn't mean that she had placed no toys outside of the forest fire, somewhere far away.

Klautz could have killed the girl cause he had reacted before the girl could even blink an eye. But Stefan's little disturbance gave the girl enough opportunity to escape with her life.

***

Author:

Creation is hard for authors. Cheer me up with your power stones!

Let me know your thoughts about the chapter in the comments section!