Everyone simultaneously turned to Albert, waiting for him to elaborate on what kind of beast was blocking their path.
They weren't fearful or panicked in the slightest. They seemed to be ridiculing the beast for choosing the wrong target to attack.
Their leader Albert, was a foundation establishment realm cultivator close to the peak.
In their minds, nothing in this forest could threaten them. Their safety was almost guaranteed unless they were deep inside Snow Lake Jungle, where the strongest beasts resided.
Raven, on the other hand, decided to seek confirmation from his master, as he didn't believe that a Foundation Establishment martial artist would have much knowledge about such beasts.
"Disciple, I advise you to find a suitable chance and flee from this place. This beast is something not even your master, at my peak, would dare to exchange moves with." His master paused for a moment, panic evident on her face despite her efforts to remain calm.
Raven noticed the struggle his master was facing to stay composed, and it tightened his chest even further, his heart unconsciously beating faster.
His backbone and the foundation of his confidence all this time had been his master!
If even she was acting this way, panicking and urging him to run, then this beast was certainly not something they could face.
'Master, what's the realm of this beast, and what's its name?' he asked anxiously, his eyes darting left and right in search of a suitable escape route.
"Not even I have that information. The only thing I and the various first-ranked sects know about this beast is that it exists to protect something in the deepest parts of Snow Lake Jungle. As for what it's protecting or the purpose it serves, we don't know."
She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and continued at a slower pace, "I didn't expect you to encounter it since it has never left the depths of the jungle before, which is why I never bothered to warn you about its existence. Judging by how angry it looks, someone must have recently provoked it."
'Well, that is just... too much,' Raven thought, stupefied.
As soon as Raven finished that thought, all hell broke loose.
The creature moved, controlling its amorphous hands to slash its meter-long claws in his general direction. But Albert was one step ahead: without wasting a single moment, he jumped sideways — unsheathed his sword — then slashed vertically, destroying the cabin and meeting the beast's amorphous hands in a direct confrontation.
Boom!
The sword, strengthened by a dense amount of Qi, shattered into tiny pieces upon contact with the amorphous hands, and Albert was sent flying over ten meters away.
Just as everyone expected Albert to stand back up and charge at the beast again, their minds froze at the sight of a bloody hole where his chest had been—a hole so large you could see right through it.
How is this possible?!
Raven and Kim were dumbfounded as they stared at Albert's lifeless body lying several meters behind them. Fear gripped their hearts, and their legs refused to move.
Sweat drenched their bodies as their brains momentarily shut down from the severity of the situation.
'If even Albert couldn't take a hit without his body being instantly penetrated and his sword shattered, how am I supposed to escape?' Raven's pupils shrank to tiny black dots as he realized he might not make it out alive.
Although he knew the ferocious beast was insanely strong—so strong that even his master, at her peak, couldn't contend with it—he never imagined the gap would be this vast. There wasn't even the slightest resistance against it.
While Raven was in a daze, the ten amorphous hands that had taken down Albert in one strike swiped at the five guards closest to the beast. Each guard was targeted by two hands, leaving them with no chance to flee or block the attack.
Is this the end?
As the coachman stared at the oncoming amorphous hands, his mind was devoid of any thought of resistance. In his eyes, the hands were like moving planets, and while he could try to defend with all his might, he didn't believe for a second that any of his martial arts could stop them from crushing him.
However, just as the two amorphous hands were about to reach the coachman, they suddenly changed trajectories and targeted the cabin. Their movement was so swift yet deliberate that it caused the people inside the cabin to gasp in shock and fear.
Sara, in particular, mentally broke down. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the ground with a loud thud, her eyes emotionless and her mind unable to process anything after witnessing Albert's death.
She was in such a grave state of shock that even Raven, her friend, decided to leave her be.
His life was more important!
'Master, can you save me from this?' Raven anxiously asked.
If all ten hands had targeted him, he might have accepted his death as inevitable, but with only two coming his way, he chose to ask his master for help.
'Don't worry, disciple. Two hands can be dealt with for a few seconds. The moment I block their advance and form a barrier around you, flee immediately and don't look back.' Hearing his master's advice, Raven didn't dare to disobey and quickly prepared to flee.
He didn't even bother to ask for Sara's protection at this point.
However, just as the barrier was about to materialize around Raven and shield him from the oncoming attack, a sudden force—one that not even his master's remnant soul could contend with—prevented it from moving or utilizing any Qi.
"Eh?" Raven's mind went blank as he noticed the failure of his master's technique, a technique that had never ceased to amaze him until this moment.
A hot sensation in his chest brought him back to reality. As he looked down, he realized his chest was gone and was replaced by two amorphous hands that, without making a sound, retracted back to the enormous mouth after penetrating his body.
"Even though this isn't part of my plan, it's still the perfect situation to kill both of you." Yone couldn't help but burst into laughter as he saw the shocked expression on Raven's face before his body dropped lifeless to the ground.
Though Yone wasn't the one who directly killed Raven, with the help of the system, he suppressed the remnant soul inside the ring forcing her not to intervene and watch calmly from the inside.
Simultaneously, he took the ring from Raven's finger, grabbed Sara by the waist, and instantly altered his body, fueling it with all the Qi he had. He then sprinted in the opposite direction of the ferocious beast, his instincts heightened.
He wasn't planning on staying in this hellish place a second longer!
As for the Armend that had dropped from Raven?
Yone had already collected it the moment Raven's chest was penetrated.