Seeing the two adult Tornado wolves at the magical rank in front of him, cold sweat poured down his back, while their killing intent tried to inflict fear within Jason.
Gulping down his saliva, he took a glance at the sleeping cubs and Artemis as an idea appeared in his mind!
'Should I....No...I can't...Even if I do so it would be useless' Shaking his head, Jason immediately disregarded the idea of kidnapping one of the tornado wolf cubs in order to survive, because it would end up in bad blood with each other, which was not what both of them most likely wanted, and it was unsure if he would even survive his current dilemma like this.
Thinking about all kinds of solutions, Jason′s head seemed to smoke and in the end, there was no perfect solution for his current situation.
He was too slow to flee from two magical ranked beasts and not strong enough to fight them.
Abducting the sleeping tornado cubs would only worsen the situation long-term while he would maybe survive for a short time.
However, the worst was that Artemis just continued to sleep, as if the killing intent around them was nothing, while his back was completely drenched in cold sweat.
Within a second, Jason used his newly established fortified soul conjunction with Artemis to forcefully wake her up, which was retorted with an annoying screeching from her, as she opened her eyes.
Standing up, she looked around, only to see the adult Tornado wolves radiating a dense killing-intent in front of them, which shocked her, as she stepped back, only to bump into Jason.
"Now your awake, hmm?" Jason said as a joke, trying to ease up the tension around them while staring at the adult Tornado wolves that didn't move a single inch.
They were equally shocked to see two low-ranked beings infiltrating their den, which not a single beast around them ever dared to do because they wouldn't be able to endure the wrath of two magical ranked beasts at the same time.
As such the current situation was uncommon while the mother tornado wolf was only glad that nothing happened to her cubs, who seemed to sleep next to the bipedal being, without being on guard against possible attacks.
From the Tornado wolf's perspective, this could only have a few certain reasons… either her cubs were manipulated, tricked by an illusion, sedated from poison or there was no threat from the beings that infiltrated the den.
After scanning through her cubs' mana cores, she couldn't detect any poison, while the first two reasons were quite difficult to figure out.
But even so, the wolf mother felt relieved, causing her to decrease the killing intent she released by a large margin, allowing Jason to take a deep breath.
'They won't attack me with the cubs next to me, right?' Jason figured out and this was most likely the only positive aspect in his current position.
Suddenly an idea formed in his mind, as he remembered something important about mother-beast instincts and that they knew if their cub was in danger.
As such, Jason tried to go all in.
Slowly grabbing one of the wolf cubs with his hand, he could only hear two loud growls in front of him, as the killing intent increased once again.
However, Jason couldn't care less at the moment, because his shoulder burned like fire, as he picked one of the tornado wolf cubs up from his leg in order to lay it next to his leg to free it.
The other two cubs laid across his other leg and he did the same with the two of them.
Yawning, one of the tornado wolf cubs seemed to wake up, only to fall back into a deep slumber, which caused Jason to smile lightly.
'They don't even know that I'm about to die huh? At least some emotional support would be nice.' He lamented while maintaining his smile until both legs were finally freed.
Meanwhile, Artemis couldn't really do anything to help because her talons were too sharp to grab the tornado wolf, which would hurt them and wake them up, even if she dulled them.
As such, Jason had to do everything by himself, and after his legs were free, he changed his current position, only to hear the growling next to him becoming louder.
The adult Tornado wolf approached him, causing goosebumps to spread all over his body, while he tried to be as genuine as possible.
He didn't want to hear the tornado cubs and picking them up once again to lay them carefully in front of him, he caressed them one after another which caused them to turn on their back, revealing their belly towards him.
Caressing it, Jason suddenly sensed Artemis' jealousy, as she approached him from behind, demanding carcasses.
Frowning, Jason couldn't help but mumble "Are you a diva or something like that? We might be torn apart any moment and you want to be caressed?", before he noticed that he could freely breathe, without any killing intent enveloping him and Artemis.
'Huh?' Looking at the two matured Tornado wolves, he noticed that their gaze turned less hostile and Jason stepped back from the three cubs in order to give their parents time to inspect them to figure out if there were any injuries.
If his knowledge was not completely wrong, the intelligence of beasts at the magical rank was not worse than that of average adults and Jason relied on this information in order to survive.
Furthermore showing too much fear would worsen his situation, even if he couldn't help himself in the beginning, because he was too flustered.
As such, he thought about multiple magical ranked beasts' habits, and only a minority hunted for fun, while most of them only killed beasts in order to protect their children, territory, or eat something.
Before he utilized his plan, he saw the male tornado wolf dragging a large beast corpse into the den, while the thick scent of blood permeated the air, telling Jason that they had more than enough food for the time being.
Slowly retreating, Artemis finally noticed how serious their situation was, as she similarly stepped back.
After inspecting their cubs, the mother tornado wolf's gaze averted back to Jason and Artemis, before she picked up two cubs with her maw before the other tornado wolf took the remaining cub.
'Can we go?' Jason thought, as Artemis suddenly flapped with her wings, landing on his right shoulder, causing him to almost shout out in pain.
"YOU!!" Gnashing his teeth, he held out his left arm for Artemis to step it, before she slowly paddled towards his left shoulder while expressing her being sorry through the fortified soul conjunction.
Stepping slowly back, he wanted to prevent doing any sound, and only when the two of them left the Wolf den for good, Jason sighed in relief, before looking around if anything dangerous was nearby them.
To Artemis, he instructed
"Stay with me for now...I don't know if there are any flying beasts around us...We lost our team and are without anyone who is capable enough to defeat unblemished beasts…"
Thinking about all kinds of possibilities, Jason′s shoulder that still hurt like hell with each step he took was the only thing that forcefully held him back from being lost in thought because he had to find a good hideout in order to recuperate.
The forest was too dangerous because he could see high mana fluctuations from everywhere and was as such not a good place for him to recuperate from his injury.
Suddenly he remembered something
'Wasn't there something with low mana fluctuation far behind the flower, nearby the hillside where our assassination failed?'
Jason wondered and if his memory was not completely wrong, he couldn't see any high-graded mana fluctuations from there.
He didn't feel comfortable about the place, but Jason felt that it was the only area that was remotely safe if anything within the four-star rift could be called like this.