Jacob had made the remark about Devils mainly as a joke, but the truth was that the Charybdes and Dragons were not the only races walking the Earth now. But, well, that was a discussion for another time.

Now, after completing the Devilish Essence Distortion Formation, he got up and used his Qi to remove the blood from his hands.

What he had said to Frederick was true. Jacob was immune to the Charybdes poisons. How was something like that possible, one would probably ask?

Well, they lived in a universe of Magic and Cultivation. But, as he had just said, symbols and actions now carried a much heavier weight than people had even started to realize.

In his past life, Jacob had declared a personal war on the Charybdes. He had hunted them, even the strongest ones, relentlessly. But, unfortunately, there were other people with hate similar to his, but for Dragons or Hydras. Once they had killed enough Dragons or Hydras, those people would acquire an aura capable of weakening those terrifying creatures and doing much more.

Even in his studies, Jacob had barely been able to explain or two to this phenomenon. But, essentially, it came down to Karma. Jacob didn’t have any other word for it.

Karma.

The thread that tied everyone together, Karma, could shatter one’s Cultivation in a millisecond. There were, allegedly, even Cultivation Techniques based on it, or maybe, given that Jacob himself had never seen one, just one Cultivation Technique.

When someone killed so many of one race, their soul would mutate and acquire natural qualities that would make it easier to kill even more. Some theorized that the Dragons, as a whole race, had killed so many of every other race that that would explain the effects of Draconic Aura and Roars.

Others even thought that all the Karma Dragons had reaped through their history made them so strong and so on. There were some crazy theories out there, and most of them contrasted with each other. However, Jacob knew from direct experience that some part of that was true.

He was not only immune to Charybdis poison but also to their hemotoxin. So his attacks would dig way deeper than normal in their armor and the monsters, even the bigger ones, always avoided touching his blood because it was poison to them.

If he hadn’t had a body so weak, he could have crushed all the Charybdes present with just his aura. The smaller ones would literally pop and explode in a thousand tiny fragments. The stronger ones would claw all their eyes out and start melting on the ground.

He had all this knowledge to himself to avoid making the others too comfortable. But, on the contrary, Jacob needed them to be scared, to be more careful than they had ever been.

And that was because his aura would barely work on the Charybdes from the 4th and 5th level upward. So he hadn’t used it on the monsters that Helena and Frederick had just faced to give them some experience.

They were all in for nastier surprises at the moment. They had just seen a part of what those hellish creatures were capable of.

“So, we go there next?” Frederick pointed toward a house in the distance, still inspecting the humming pentagram on the ground with distress.

“Yeah,” Jacob nodded, “radio silence again around the 50 meters mark from it. This time, we will pelt the warehouse and collapse it as soon as possible. Helena and Aunt Linda will do that. The walls are basically paper against your attacks. Juliet will rest and just use the Phoenix’s Fire if we need to. Fred, you are on rotation too. Get in the back and rest. Everyone else, you will catch any stray Charybdis.”

I truly hope no one dies.

It was a dark thought, but the reality was bleak. They would need a modicum of experience before going against the real deal. Jacob was providing them a somewhat shielded environment to fight the Charybdes, which was way more than anyone else could usually hope for: in fact, any meeting with those creatures never had ‘shielded’ anything, but just a bloody massacre.

The Devilish Essence Distortion Formation would allow them to wipe them out without the Charybdes noticing virtually, but they still needed to be prepared for the worst.

“Marcus, Joseph, Geneva, Marina. You are all up—one for each side. Behind you, there will be Juliet, Frederick, Aunt Linda, Lucius, and I. If you feel like you are being overwhelmed, shout in my direction. No one else moves. Remember, the Charybdes are like landmines; they will stay put until the perfect moment, then shoot up and dig inside your neck in half a second. Then, you are dead in less than a minute after experiencing the worst possible pain of your life.”

Jacob was pretty sure that at this point, his threats were a little overboard and killing the mood, but he truly cared too much for them to let them die for a stupid mistake. He had lost so many recruits and young soldiers just because they had underestimated the beasts.

He also decided he would use his aura in case they were indeed on the verge of dying. But if he did, it would give them the illusion that he could rescue them at any moment, which he couldn’t.

Jacob surveyed the big warehouse with his portable Perception Formation and found a sign of life inside it.

A lot of life.

Well, this one is going to be tougher, it seems.