Without anyone noticing, a living person had vanished as if evaporated.
This phenomenon was highly unusual. Everyone in the team immediately entered a state of readiness.
When they first entered the forest, they had felt something was off.
To be specific, it was too quiet.
No birds, no beasts, no insects, no snakes.
Moreover, from the moment they noticed Karl's disappearance, it felt as if several cold gazes had appeared around them.
'Wild beasts? Magical beasts?'
Feng Xiaoyu's body was enveloped in Nen. With her eyesight, she couldn't find the unknown creatures casting those gazes.
Her expression slightly grave, she gave a slight nod to Ponzu.
Ponzu understood, channeling Nen into her hat.
"Buzz..."
Bees wrapped in Nen seeped out from the hat, dispersing in all directions.
"Could be magical beasts. Pair up, back-to-back, cover each other."
Feng Xiaoyu watched the bees fly into the forest, then addressed her teammates present.
No one knew how Karl had vanished, but it must be related to those faint gazes.
In any case, being able to make Karl disappear without a sound implied something formidable. They couldn't afford to underestimate it.
Hearing Feng Xiaoyu's words, everyone tensed up.
The buzzing of the bees gradually faded. In less than ten seconds, Ponzu's body suddenly jolted.
"What's wrong?" Feng Xiaoyu noticed Ponzu's reaction and quickly asked in a low voice.
"In an instant... all my bees died."
Ponzu's eyes showed fear. She had dispersed over thirty bees. Not to mention they were protected by Nen, the bees had flown off in different directions.
She couldn't fathom what could make all the bees in different locations die simultaneously.
Feng Xiaoyu had some knowledge of Ponzu's bees. Hearing this, her face changed.
Just then, the ground beneath one pair of teammates suddenly gave way, pulling the two into the earth like lightning, without a single sound. The ground almost instantly returned to normal.
This time, everyone finally heard a sound. But when they looked towards the source, their two teammates were gone, and everything there appeared normal, with no obvious changes.
Without understanding the situation, their team of twenty-one was instantly reduced by three.
A chill involuntarily crept into everyone's hearts.
Among the second pair taken, one was a Nen User.
So, what could make a Nen User disappear without any resistance, not even a sound?
Moreover, when it acted, it somehow avoided everyone's sight.
Just thinking about that made their hair stand on end.
No one dared to speak… they couldn't even breathe too loudly.
They did this to not miss any sound from their surroundings.
But the next second, someone broke this tacit understanding.
"Those gazes... are gone."
Someone directly stated a rather fatal change.
The gazes were gone...
No, they weren't gone. They had gotten closer.
Swoosh!
The air vibrated, a faint sound arising.
A black shadow flashed like lightning. Then, the head of the person who spoke was gone.
They didn't even see an afterimage. It was as if an eraser had wiped away his head, turning him into a headless person.
The teammate standing back-to-back with him naturally followed him into the afterlife.
In the blink of an eye, two heads were gone.
By the time everyone reacted, they only heard the rustle of leaves being brushed on a tree.
Immediately after, they finally saw the attackers' faces clearly. The price paid was the subsequent deaths of six more people.
The attackers appeared, four in total.
Upon appearing, they took eight lives.
Among them, two lost their heads, two were skewered through the heart by a tail whip, two had their throats directly torn out, and two had holes blasted through their heads.
The remaining ten or so team members felt as if they were stepping on a mountain of needles, jumping back in fear, staring in horror at the suddenly appearing four humanoid creatures?
The next moment, a female voice emerged from one creature's mouth, making Feng Xiaoyu and the others' hearts jolt.
"Hey, can you change your habit of snacking? This is the Queen's food. Not a single piece of meat can be missing."
The speaker was a creature with a scaly tail, legs like a deer, fur covering its pelvis and upper body, a narrow face, and features close to human.
The creature's hands and feet were identical to the Chimera Ant's claws. Not only was the voice female, but the language used was actually the common tongue.
As she spoke, her pangolin-like tail suddenly flicked, throwing two corpses to the ground.
From a nearby tree came a muffled voice: "Habit."
As it spoke, accompanied by several plop sounds, chunks of bone emerged from the leaves, striking the ground and stirring up dust.
Looking closely, they were actually fragments of skull.
Thump thump.
A creature with a build and appearance resembling a gorilla slapped its own chest and said, "Does it taste better alive?"
"Don't be stupid. Hurry up and work."
"Oh. Does it taste better squashed then?"
"..."
Feng Xiaoyu and her group were considered well-traveled, but it was their first time seeing such terrifying and strange creatures that could easily break through a Nen User's defense.
"Scatter and run!"
Feng Xiaoyu made a snap decision.
Some things could be judged at a glance.
With their current strength, they couldn't possibly defeat these four suddenly appearing creatures.
So, they could only scatter and run, increasing the chances of survival, and pass on information about these creatures.
Every team member immediately scattered and fled without the slightest hesitation.
As they moved, the ground split open, and someone was pulled underground.
Despite noticing this horrifying scene, no one stopped, running with all their might.
The targeted prey were running, but the monsters on the scene remained unmoved.
"Futile struggle."
A shrill voice said so.
The forest was too quiet, frighteningly quiet.
As if all living things had disappeared.
Feng Xiaoyu's figure weaved between trees, her heartbeat never calming down.
'What were those monsters?'
'New species?'
'Undiscovered magical beasts?'
'No. We had investigated a lot of information beforehand. There definitely shouldn't be such creatures.'
'Moreover, they treated humans as food, and there was a key word: Queen.'
Feng Xiaoyu couldn't hide her shock. She didn't even have a moment to rest.
Instinct told her that if she stopped even for a second, she would lose her head.
Whoosh!
Ahead, the sound of wings flapping suddenly came.
A tall figure came into view.
The figure had two curved, thick bull horns on its head, short black hair, a face with human features, and a pair of bat wings on its back.
Feng Xiaoyu's heartbeat... skipped several beats at that moment.
…
Far away at the southern beach station on the Yorbian Continent, Law received the weekly summary report.
"Normal."
Law muttered to himself.
Currently, Gon and Killua hadn't cleared the game yet, and no Chimera Ant Queen's severed limbs had been found on any beach.
He walked out of the station, looked up at the blue sky, completely unaware of what was happening in East Gorteau.
Everything had exceeded his expectations.
The Chimera Ant Queen was not severely injured, so she hadn't left behind any severed limbs.
The first place she landed wasn't the NGL but the Republic of East Gorteau.
Moreover, shortly after landing, she had preyed upon twenty humans.
That could be called... accelerated evolution.