Days of relentless travel through the wilderness had left the survivors of Golden Harbor utterly exhausted.
The carriage convoy trudged along the dusty dirt road, each step heavy with numbing fatigue.
The nobles had long lost their initial elegance; their ornate robes were caked with dirt, their refined hairstyles a tangled mess. Yet, a faint glimmer of hope began to spark in their eyes.
For at the horizon’s edge, the silhouette of a human city came into view!
It was a medium-sized kingdom city named Orsay.
Unlike the coastal Golden Harbor, Orsay thrived due to its position along several trade routes.
Its towering walls gleamed gray-white under the sunlight, the open gates revealing glimpses of buildings and bustling pedestrians beyond.
This sight proclaimed one truth—it was safe!
“Look! It’s Orsay City!” Baron Fabio nearly leapt from his carriage, his plump face alight with uncontainable joy.
His voice trembled, as if he had glimpsed salvation.“Finally… finally, a safe place!” Count Reinhardt let out a long sigh, the tension of days easing slightly.
After so much hardship, the city’s mere existence was a powerful lure.
The private soldiers and guards perked up, their weary faces breaking into relieved smiles.
The promise of taverns, inns, clean beds, and hot food beckoned irresistibly.
Jie Ming stood at the convoy’s forefront, pausing to calmly survey the city ahead.
“My lord, may we enter the city to rest and resupply?” Count Reinhardt cautiously approached, his tone pleading. “The horses need feeding, and our rations are nearly gone…”
Jie Ming nodded silently, recognizing the nobles’ need for rest and supplies.
“Very well,” he replied curtly. “But the entire convoy doesn’t enter. Your carriages and most of the men stay outside. Send a team of elite guards to procure supplies. The rest, rest here and stay vigilant.”
Though puzzled by Jie Ming’s caution, the nobles, awed by his prior displays of power, agreed—knowing they could still enter the city to indulge.
Soon, a group of nearly a hundred was assembled, leaving most guards behind, and marched toward the distant city.
Upon entering, the clamor of city life hit them, overwhelming the nobles who had endured days in the wilderness. Tears welled in their eyes, eager for a decent inn to rest in.
But then, chaos erupted!
“Kill!”
A shout brimming with murderous intent exploded from the city gate!
Instantly, over a dozen black shadows shot out like specters, moving with lightning speed!
Clad in uniform dark attire, they wielded not common swords but daggers and short spears glinting with faint green poison.
This assassination squad targeted the noble carriages at the convoy’s heart with deadly precision!
Their movements were agile, slipping past the guards’ attempts to block them, striking like venomous snakes.
“Assassins! Protect the nobles!” General Brandon roared.
His guards reacted swiftly. While they might falter against beastmen, they were seasoned against assassins.
But the guards who had entered the city were too few, and the assassins far outnumbered expectations, quickly bypassing the defenses.
Count Reinhardt and Baron Fabio screamed in terror from their carriages, while the noblewomen huddled together, sobbing hysterically.
One assassin reached Reinhardt’s carriage, his poisoned dagger flashing as it stabbed toward the curtain.
“Courting death!”
Jie Ming’s voice cut through.
He had already sensed the killers lurking at the gate, anticipating this.
In a blink, he was at the convoy’s front.
Before the first assassin could touch the curtain, Jie Ming appeared behind him.
His left hand shot out, seizing the assassin’s head.
Crack!
A sharp snap, and the assassin’s head twisted unnaturally, his body collapsing like a broken doll, the poisoned dagger clattering to the ground.
Jie Ming didn’t spare a glance, his form blurring again, a shadowy streak weaving through the crowd.
“Ahh!”
Screams rang out!
These professional assassins were as fragile as paper before Jie Ming.
The one-sided slaughter lasted less than a minute.
When Jie Ming tossed the final assassin to the ground like a ragdoll, every black-clad figure lay in a pool of blood, none spared.
Their lifeless eyes brimmed with confusion and fear.
Jie Ming calmly approached a still-breathing assassin, blood gurgling from his mouth, his pupils fading.
Crouching down, Jie Ming appeared to inspect him.
A faint glimmer flashed in his eyes as his powerful mental energy surged through his fingertips, invading the assassin’s mind.
“Soul Search.”
He forcibly extracted fragments of the assassin’s dying memories.
Images flashed like shattered glass before Jie Ming—
A grand noble mansion in the capital, a banquet hall filled with clinking glasses, where richly dressed men and women wore false smiles while secretly plotting.
From their clothing emblems and addresses, they were kin to Reinhardt, Fabio, and others.
Greed gleamed in their eyes as they discussed how to “legitimately” seize the titles and wealth of these fleeing nobles.
This assassination squad had been dispatched by those capital kin, ordered to strike once the nobles’ whereabouts were confirmed, staging an “accident” to claim their inheritance.
As the assassin drew his last breath, Jie Ming stood, his face expressionless.
The intelligence was no surprise; he had anticipated this before leaving the city.
Not just Jie Ming—upon seeing the assassins, every noble instantly suspected betrayal.
“We can’t enter the city! No city is safe!” Reinhardt clutched Jie Ming’s sleeve, his aged face etched with despair, his voice hoarse. “Those jackals in the capital will devour us! They know our location, our every move! We must avoid all towns and head straight to the capital!”
The other nobles echoed him, preferring to brave the wilderness, hunger, and exhaustion over stepping into another potential trap.
Jie Ming nodded. “Return, then. Have the guards purchase supplies.”
“Yes! Yes! Hurry!”
The nobles hastily abandoned the chaotic scene, sending stewards to negotiate with the city’s nobles before retreating to the convoy outside.
The forced abandonment of rest in the city cast a heavy pall over the convoy.
…
When the first rays of morning sun pierced the dense fog, Jie Ming’s convoy had ventured into a misty region where wetlands met dense forest.
The air grew oppressively humid, a mix of decaying leaves, earthy rot, and a sickly sweet floral scent that unsettled the senses.
Twisted, towering trees blocked the sun, leaving only dim, dappled light to flicker through the canopy.
“Stop!” Jie Ming raised his hand abruptly.
The convoy halted instantly, horses whinnying nervously, wheels stilling, leaving only the guards’ heavy breathing and pounding hearts.
An inexplicable dread gripped everyone, as if something terrifying lurked behind the fog, watching.
In that deathly silence…
Crash!
A deafening roar shattered the calm.
The still marsh water exploded nearby, mud and water spraying.
A colossal beast, like a mountain, surged from the water!
It was a giant python!
Its dark green scales, coated in vile mucus, gleamed coldly in the dim light.
Its massive body, thicker than a carriage, loomed, its head larger than a coach, amber eyes glowing with bloodthirsty ferocity.
Foul saliva dripped from its fanged maw, corroding the ground with hissing white smoke.
The moment it emerged, it lunged at the nearest noble carriage, its venomous fangs capable of shredding horse and carriage in an instant.
The guards raised their weapons, trembling in fear, dwarfed by the monstrous creature.
As the python’s massive head neared the carriage, Jie Ming appeared at its side like a specter.
His right leg coiled with power, channeling his full strength into a thunderous kick to the python’s head!
Boom!
A deafening crash, like a thunderclap.
The python’s massive body shuddered, its sturdy skull visibly caving under Jie Ming’s kick.
Viscous blood and brain matter sprayed like a fountain, staining the surrounding mud a shocking dark red.
The python let out a pained, piercing hiss, its enormous body thrashing, churning the marsh into a frenzy, shaking trees.
Its massive tail whipped, snapping nearby trees with a series of cracks.
Yet Jie Ming clung to the python, unshaken.
Giving it no respite, he plunged both hands into its neck.
“Break!”
With a fierce pull, his muscles bulged, arms swelling like steel.
Rip!
Before the horrified gazes of all, the marsh python’s head, larger than a carriage, was torn from its body!
Amid gushing blood and mucus, Jie Ming ripped the head in two.
The headless corpse thrashed briefly before collapsing, sending a wave of mud that crushed surrounding shrubs and trees.
The nobles and guards, pale, stared in disbelief, their eyes filled with awe and terror.
But as relief washed over them, believing the danger past, Jie Ming’s smile vanished, his gaze snapping to one direction.
“Trouble!” he growled. “Defend!”
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A rapid barrage of arrows, glinting coldly, shot toward the central noble carriages.
“Ambush!” General Brandon roared.
Despite Jie Ming’s warning, several unlucky nobles were shot dead on the spot.
Then, from the forest depths, rapid footsteps and beastly growls erupted.
A squad of about fifty elite beastmen, clad in tough yet simple leather armor, wielding short spears and axes, attacked the core noble carriages from the marsh and forest flanks.
Unlike the earlier wolf cavalry, these beastmen moved with stealth and clear tactics.
Ignoring the regular guards, they targeted the carriages of Reinhardt, Fabio, and Brandon.
“Fabio! Protect the Count!” Brandon bellowed, drawing his longsword and charging the beastmen.
The guards and adventurers fought desperately but were quickly outmatched by the disciplined, targeted beastmen.
Their spear tips glowed with faint green poison, felling victims into convulsing, frothing heaps.
The nobles in their carriages paled, trembling. Fabio screamed, “How?! How do they know our exact position? Our carriages?!”
Reinhardt gripped the carriage’s interior, his aged face twisted in fear, his eyes flashing as he glared toward the capital.
“This is no coincidence… these beasts know our every move! Someone in the convoy is leaking information!”
Fortunately, Jie Ming, fresh from slaying the beast, charged into the elite beastmen.
Boom!
A single punch exploded the head of a beastman vanguard leaping for a carriage, blood and brains splattering.
Blood sprayed through the forest, severed limbs flying, screams and wails echoing.
Soon, the fifty-strong elite beastman squad was slaughtered by Jie Ming alone.
As he snapped the neck of the final beastman, sending it crashing down, the forest fell into eerie silence.
Brandon, quickest to react despite his wounds, inspected the beastmen.
He soon yanked a blood-soaked parchment from one’s waist.
The parchment, clearly human-made, detailed their route and the distinct features of specific carriages!
“This…” Reinhardt’s face darkened. “There’s a traitor in the convoy!”
“Damn it! Who is it?!”
“We need to move, or more beastmen will catch up!”
Word of the traitor spread quickly, sowing chaos among the nobles. Jie Ming, arms crossed, leaned against a tree, expressionless.
But unnoticed, his lips curved slightly upon seeing the parchment.