The blue flare within the skull of the Skeleton Solider was known as Dead Flame.
Dead Flame was like a life source for any dark being, and to kill any dark being, diminish this Dead Flame was the key.
The Dead Flame was quite frail, and as long as it was touched by any weapon or exposed to the air, it would diminish. But it was only the earliest form of Dead Flame because Dead Flame is only found in Dark Being without any magic power.
If a Dark Being had awakened magic power, the Dead Flame would be encased on the Magic Core. Unless someone could remove that Magic Core or destroy it, the dark being won't die easily unless they got completely obliterated!
As for those Extraordinary Tier Dark Beings, their Dead Flames were even more difficult to sniff out because the higher tier a magic core, the more difficult it was to destroy it. Even if Dark Beings lost their limbs, they could continue to fight as long as the Dead Flame wasn't touched.
Some Dark Beings of the Extraordinary Tier couldn't be killed without destroying the magic cores because their Dead Flames could keep them alive and even revive them!
That's what truly made the Dark Beings truly terrifying!
Jacob coldly looked at the pile of bones and picked up the titan iron ingot.
However, his eyes widened slightly before he twisted his body and used rotated his sword, placing it in front of his ribcage.
The next moment, something clashed with his sword, and it just saved him a mortal wound, but the impact was so great it sent Jacob flying a few meters away.
Jacob quickly used his other sword to maneuver his body in the air and stood on his feet.
Jacob looked horrid at his attacker; a long spear blade was hovering over his previous standing position, which was held by another skeleton, but this one was wearing rotten armor.
'A Rare Tier-8 Skelton Warrior!' Jacob recognized this armor skeleton since only skeletons with Rare Tier-8 or above could wear armor.
Without wasting time, he sprang into action; he twisted his body and… ran!
Jacob wasn't a hot-blooded fool who would underestimate his enemy just because he could, especially when the enemy was a skeleton warrior-level Dark Being.
Because any skeleton warrior could command hundreds of skeleton soldiers, sometimes a pair or an entire cohort of skeleton warriors working together to hunt their prey could make the number of skeleton soldiers in thousands!
That's why it was recommended to flee the moment you saw a skeleton warrior because these guys were simply too dangerous and hard to deal with.
'First, that skeleton soldier, and the next one is the skeleton warrior, and I won't be surprised if there is a Skeleton Grand Warrior in his cohort who could command these skeleton warriors. It's an ambush for anyone who exits that wall, and I fell for it!'
Jacob's expression went grave as his Acceleration entered 3X, and he jumped into the trees. He wanted to leave this area as soon as possible.
Because a Skeleton Grand Warrior was a bonafide Extraordinary Dark Begins, and he couldn't fight them head-on, the gap in strength was just too great. He won't even be able to scratch a Skeleton Grade Warrior's bones, much less extract its core from his seemingly indestructible head!
Furthermore, a Skeleton Grand Warrior or any rare skeleton warrior normally had a metal elemental magic core or golden in rare cases, which had no use to Jacob, so risking his life won't bode any benefits.
'Creekekee…'
A strange bone-clanging sound rang in the area, which made Jacob's heart palpate because this was clearly a single from whoever was in charge of those skeletons, and Skeleton Grand Warrior could only make this kind of sound!
'What a damn bad luck to encounter an Extraordinary Dark Being right off the bat!' Jacob cursed under his breath and raised his Acceleration to another level.
He could hear sounds coming from all directions, and this number was more than he could handle.
So, he entered 4X Acceleration, which was the limit he could control right now, and his speed suddenly exploded as his single leap was a few meters long, and before the ambush could succeed, he was almost out of the danger zone.
His speed was a little bit faster than an Extraordinary Tier-1, and those Skeleton Grand Warriors were not proficient in speed but combat.
So, Jacob easily leave the ambush vicinity behind!
After leaping for five minutes, Jacob controlled his heart rate, and it slowly started to slow down despite Jacob continuing to move. His speed also started to decrease as he sweated profusely.
A dry piece of meat appeared in his hand as he ate it, but he didn't stop because he had this feeling that those skeletons might not be the only ambush around the Dark Pass.
He wanted to leave the Dark Woodlands, which were quite vast, truth be told.
But as long as he left the Dark Woodlands, there won't be many ambushes waiting for him, not as much as in the Dark Woodlands.
Because the Dark Woodlands was the region where the dark pass was located, and if anyone from the four powers wanted to venture on this side, they had to cross the Dark Woodlands before they stepped into the territory of Rare Wilderness Plains.
The Rare Wilderness Plains were actually just Rare Plains, and Wild Nation or Freedom Plains were just part of the Wilderness.
Even those dark begins couldn't conquer the wilderness plains because there were terrifying beasts residing in Rare Wilderness Plains and their numbers weren't any lower than Dark Begins.
That's why the Dark Beings mostly paid more attention to those beasts than wasting their time waiting for someone to come out from the Dark Pass, and they can't lay siege there either, like the Wilderness.
But still, they couldn't just ignore the easy prey from the freedom plains, so a small portion of their army lay wait in dark woodlands and antagonized anyone who came from the other side of the wall.
Jacob had read about the ambushes, but he never thought they were so deadly, and he almost got himself killed within a few minutes after he passed the dark pass.
After moving for half an hour, leaving the dark pass miles behind, he decided to take shelter in a large tree crown since the ground was simply too dangerous.
Jacob was also a great advantage because those dark beings didn't have a heartbeat or breathing, rendering his powerful hearing useless. It was only helpful when the enemy was on the move.
Two hours passed as Jacob was sitting in a meditative position while holding his swords.
A few meters away from the tree where Jacob was resetting, the ground was filled with rotten leaves and mud. Anyone would think it was just normal ground.
But right at this moment, two white eyeballs suddenly snapped open. If someone saw them, they would think the ground had grown eyes!
However, it hasn't seemed the case when the creepy eyeballs suddenly started moving, creeping toward the tree where Jacob was resting.
No sound was made as those icy eyeballs moved close to the tree trunk, and shockingly those eyeballs suddenly shifted from the ground to the tree and started creeping toward Jacob!
Those eyes were slowly closing the distance between them and Jacob as they shifted from trunk to branches and were only a few feet away from where Jacob was sitting.
Suddenly those spooky eyes' speed turned from crawling to speedy, and within a second, they were upon Jacob, and it was at this time a maw filled with rows of vicious razor-sharp teeth heading for Jacob's neck.
Jacob's eyes snapped open when the maw was only over feet away from him, but there was no hint of surprise but killing intent instead, mockery even.
His hands moved in a cross-motion right where the eyes were, and the next moment, a deep azure slit appeared within the air, and an azure crocodile face emerged, and soon this horrid creature's whole azure snake-like body, which was three-meter-long and two feet thick twisted around the tree branch.
It was like the illusion had been broken.
The next moment, the azure slit split open as azure blood gushed out as the menacing creature with an open jaw dropped dead in its place, handing like a loose rope.
Jacob looked at the dead creature with white eyeballs, 'If I hadn't felt the vibration of the tree branches, this Crock-Snake would've bitten my face off.
'Its water mirror illusion was simply too perfect. So, this is a Rare Tier-5 magic beast with 1-Star Water Magic Core!'
Jacob couldn't help but reevaluate his opinion of this place again because the danger wasn't just contained to Dark Beings, but the deadly Beasts were also as fatal.
Especially the beasts with magic cores, known as Magic Beasts like this one, who had innate magical abilities!