His opponents attack

At least, he thought so.

Klaus, who hid in a house near the city gates in time, looked back.

'That guy is powerful.' He thought, looking at the man standing atop a building trying to find him.

Although he didn't have a way to measure that guy's power, and there were no physical indications to tell him that, the oppressive feeling he felt at the sight of him was terrifying.

It was possible that this person could kill him in a very short time if they came face to face.

But that guy was not so patient. After spending a few minutes looking around the city, he gave up and shouted some things to his subordinates, then entered the building or perhaps looked elsewhere.

Klaus knew it was time to leave, so he slipped past the people nearby and left the city about eight minutes later.

Just then, the city's alarms went off, alarming everyone.

Still, Klaus didn't mind this. He started running through the undergrowth, getting away from the city quickly.

Small and large mountains surrounded this city; some had vegetation and lush trees, while others were barren and lifeless.

From what he had learned, thanks to Jasmine, he knew that normally, First Baths did not occur in excessively large places. Hence, this place, which was not 'excessively large', was in keeping with what a First Bath demanded in terms of terrain, although it barely and barely fell into that category, as the truth was that it was quite large.

To give an example, if Klaus wanted to get from the small Hill where he appeared upon entering here to the mission hill, he would have to run for many hours at full speed if he wanted to arrive within one day. If he wanted to make it, he had to do it without rest and with his current strength and ability.

So yes, this place was immense. Still, Klaus enjoyed this, for it was a new and different world. In this world, it was much easier to look at than on Earth, for there was not too much pollution.

As he ran through the overgrown brush, he had to avoid some Curses that roamed the surroundings, as he didn't want to get into trouble with that sort of thing now. While they would help him get stronger, he knew there would likely be many Curses on the Hill he would face, so he couldn't hurt himself before getting there.

Besides, he had spent a few days in the city; it is possible that the other nine were already on the Hill, looking to dominate it. So, he traveled quickly there, wasting no time or pace.

But suddenly, a System announcement appeared in front of him, flashing continuously.

It seemed to want to alert him to something.

'Something nearby?' he thought. His hair stood on end as he felt the danger coming from his side, and he cocked his head to dodge it, at the same time jumping to the side.

Just then, two attacks crossed his vision.

Klaus frowned and maneuvered in the air to land perfectly on the ground.

Then he looked up.

It was two people attacking him.

His system was still flickering, so he looked toward the system's opening window.

[Two of your opponents are attacking you]

'Rivals?' He averted his gaze from the system and looked at the two guys before him. They were wearing robes familiar to him. 'I see; they are part of the remaining 9 I must face.'

He smiled. This was a golden opportunity to test his strength.

He had been training for several days, and although his training was tricky in this world, as there wasn't too much positive energy, he had still grown strong enough to feel confident. That's why he wanted to test himself.

And these two arrived just in time to do so.

They were both surprised by Klaus' ability to escape that situation so nimbly and looked at him.

"Apparently, you are not weak, Reared in the Mist."

"But you are not welcome in the Sorcerer world, so you'd better hurry up and die."

After these short words, they both jumped toward Klaus without even introducing themselves.

Klaus, the first thing he did was to throw his bag aside, and then he took a small step back to dodge one of the blows, which had a knife in his hand.

'They want to kill me, huh.' He smiled. At the same time, he swung his right arm until he hit the other's chest. The blow was precise and fast, so the hit guy was unprepared to defend himself.

This caused him to swing back several steps, giving Klaus time to move his hand to his knife sheath and pull it out.

'Well...' He immediately focused on one of the two, knowing he couldn't fight them simultaneously. He had to deal with one first, then deal with the other.

So, he looked at the one who had missed his punch, the one with a knife in his hand.

'The other will be stunned briefly; if I seize the moment, I might succeed.' Klaus quickly moved the positive energy within him to surround his broad-bladed knife, and in just 1 second, he leaped toward one, wanting to finish the attack with one move.

His attack was deadly and fast, stunning the pair of attackers. Still, they were not weak. They had already achieved 'Adaptation' long before, so this was not too difficult for them.

Besides, they had more positive energy than Klaus, so their attack didn't hit where it should have. Instead, it hit his opponent's knife. Still, the force of the incoming attack was so strong that it sent that guy about four meters backward.

This move allowed Klaus not to be attacked by the other in a short time, allowing him to make a new attack, mixing his legs with a kick to the lower stomach to push him further away.

At the same time, without that guy noticing, Klaus quickly moved his Ring through his positive energy and wrapped it around the knife, drastically increasing its sharpness and power.

Klaus quickly launched a horizontal attack, looking for his opponent's head.

The attack was so fast that the guy couldn't react in time, and soon, a cold edge crossed his neck, cutting it in two.

Still, there was no time to glory in this. Klaus had to turn on his own axis at that instant to attack backward, and a sword attack crashed hard into his knife.

The attack was powerful, but Klaus smiled. 'I see, so the basic form is used like this. It's powerful.'

Klaus moved his body sideways with agility to dodge the attacks threatening his life. Between movements, he suddenly arrived behind the body of the guy he had just killed.

He quickly grabbed the body before it fell to the ground and used it as a human shield.

That was just the moment when a powerful attack cut the guy's body in half.

"You fucking bastard!" A roar came out of the attacker's mouth when he saw that he had split his friend's body in half.

Klaus frowned, realizing that this guy was quite a bit more powerful than him, but he soon devised a strategy and smiled.

He took advantage of that moment of bewilderment to make an amazing or absurd move: He threw his knife from the right side of the body split in half, at full speed against the attacker's face.

This man was surprised. 'Is he stupid?' he thought. If someone throws his weapon in a fight where he is at a disadvantage, he should naturally be considered a stupid person. And more so when the attack range that the person throwing his weapon is left with is much less than the attack range of his opponent.

Therefore, the man moved his sword to parry the incoming knife attack.

Klaus smiled even wider then.

At that instant, Klaus stepped out from behind the body split in two, and quickly approached the attacker's body. The latter immediately realized that he had fallen into the trap, but it was too late. Soon, Klaus hit him between the chest and stomach.

"Buagh!"

This left him out of breath and staggering backward a bit. Somehow, his sword slipped out of his grip, falling to the ground.

Klaus then nimbly grabbed his knife and re-wrapped it in energy. "Heh, looks like your carpal tunnel is slightly affected. Too bad, too bad."

The man before him couldn't understand, and Klaus had no plans to explain it to him.

His attack was never meant to kill him. In fact, he needed to make it look like a quick attack but easy to defend against so that his enemy could protect himself with his sword. Once this attack hit, the speed of the attack and the angle at which the knife was thrown would act on a critical area: The carpal tunnel.

That's why Klaus smiled, walked toward his enemy, and cut off his head without a second thought.

"Well, that's a lot of knowledge I can employ in this place, and things turn out better than I expected." Klaus was smiling as he bent down to plunge his knife into the chest of the guy he had just killed.

He wanted to know where the Ring and the Cursed Core of a Sorcerer were. Are they inside the body, or is it something mental? Can they be taken out of their wearer? Curiosity gnawed at him inside.

But a few milliseconds before his knife dug in, the body at his feet shuddered strangely as the cursed energy hit them with several waves of energy. Klaus endured the pain; it wasn't too hard at this point, and he allowed his knife to stab hard into his chest.

But that caused something weird...

"GAHHHHHHH!" A scream of pain came from that body, causing Klaus to be stunned and look down.

The body had no head, naturally. It had cut it off just a moment ago.

How could it scream, then?

That's because right where the 'chest' used to be was now a strange head of a newly born curse.

His knife had stuck firmly into the part where the brain of that curse was, which was the place where the chest of the guy he had just killed was.

'What the hell?'