Chapter 128: Traitor?

Several days of trekking across the wilderness had worn the survivors of Golden Port to exhaustion.

The caravan stumbled along the dusty dirt road, each step heavy with numbness.

The nobles had long lost their initial dignity; their splendid robes were caked in mud, and their exquisite hairstyles were a mess, yet a faint glimmer of hope began to ignite in their eyes.

For on the horizon, the silhouette of a human city loomed into view!

It was a medium-sized kingdom city named "Orsay."

Unlike Golden Port, it was not coastal, but its location connecting several major trade routes made it vibrant and alive.

Towering city walls shimmered with a gray-white luster under the sunlight; the main gates stood wide open, revealing glimpses of the buildings behind and pedestrians coming and going.

All this proclaimed one fact: this place was safe!

"Look! It's Orsay City!" Baron Fabio exclaimed, so excited he nearly jumped out of his carriage, his fat face glowing with unbridled joy.

His voice trembled, as if he had spotted salvation itself.

"Finally—finally we've reached a safe place!" Count Reinhardt also let out a long sigh, his nerves, tense for many days, finally relaxing slightly.

After so many days of rushing about, the very existence of this city was now a tremendous temptation.

The private soldiers and guards also perked up, smiles of survival after disaster appearing on their weary faces.

The taverns and inns within the city, along with clean beds and steaming hot food, all tempted them irresistibly.

Gao Jie Ming stood at the very front of the column; he halted his steps, calmly surveying the city ahead.

"Gao Jie Ming, may we enter the city to rest and replenish necessary supplies?" Count Reinhardt cautiously approached Gao Jie Ming, his tone pleading, "The horses need feeding, and our dried rations are nearly exhausted—"

Gao Jie Ming nodded silently; he knew these nobles truly needed rest and supplies.

"Allowed," Gao Jie Ming replied briefly. "But the entire column cannot enter the city. Your carriages and most of your people must remain outside. Dispatch an elite guard unit to enter and procure supplies. The rest shall rest here on the spot and stay vigilant."

Although the nobles did not understand Gao Jie Ming's caution, they were awed by the power he had previously displayed and readily agreed; after all, they were certain they would be able to enter and enjoy themselves.

Soon, the nobles formed a massive group of nearly a hundred people, leaving most of their guards behind, and marched grandly toward the distant city.

The moment they stepped into the city, various noises rushed to meet them, making the nobles, who had trekked through the wilderness for days, unable to hold back tears of joy; they wished nothing more than to find a decent inn immediately to rest.

However, a sudden crisis erupted!

"Kill!!"

A roar filled with murderous intent suddenly exploded from the city gate!

Immediately afterward, more than ten black figures rushed out from the gateway like ghosts, moving with lightning speed!

They wore uniform tight-fitting attire, and clutched in their hands were not common swords or blades, but daggers and short spears infused with a faint green glow.

This assassination squad targeted the nobles' carriages in the center of the column with clear intent.

Their movements were agile; they dodged the guards attempting to block them, striking vital points like venomous snakes.

"Assassins! Protect the lords!" General Brandon roared.

The guards beside him also reacted swiftly; against orcs, these guards might have been powerless, but when facing assassinations, they were highly professional.

Unfortunately, the number of guards who had entered the city with the nobles was far too small, while the number of assassins far exceeded expectations; soon, many assassins broke through the guards' blockade and charged forward.

Count Reinhardt and Baron Fabio screamed in terror inside their carriages, while the women huddled together in fright, wailing loudly.

One assassin had already rushed to Count Reinhardt's carriage; the poison-coated dagger in his hand flashed with cold light, stabbing straight at the carriage curtain.

"Seeking death!"

Gao Jie Ming's voice came from the side.

He had detected these killers ambushing at the city gate long ago and had expected this.

In the blink of an eye, he surged to the front of the column.

Before the first assassin could even touch the carriage curtain, Gao Jie Ming had already flashed behind him.

Extending his left hand, he grabbed the assassin's head.

Crack!

A crisp sound of bone breaking rang out; the assassin's head twisted at a bizarre angle, his body went limp, turning into a pile of mush, and the poisoned dagger in his hand clattered to the ground.

Gao Jie Ming didn't even glance at it; his figure flashed again, moving like a blurred black shadow, weaving through the crowd.

"Ah!!"

Screams of agony rose one after another!

These professional assassins appeared as fragile as paper dolls before Gao Jie Ming.

This one-sided slaughter lasted less than a minute.

When Gao Jie Ming threw the last assassin onto the ground like a rag doll, all the black-clad figures lay in pools of blood, none surviving.

They died with their eyes wide open, filled with incomprehension and fear.

Gao Jie Ming calmly walked up to an assassin who had not yet completely drawn his last breath; blood gushed from the man's mouth, his pupils were dilated, clearly indicating he would not live much longer.

Gao Jie Ming squatted down, seemingly inspecting the man's condition.

Yet a faint light flashed in his eyes; powerful spiritual sense passed through his fingertips, directly invading the assassin's mind.

"Soul Search."

He forcibly read the fragments of memory from the assassin's dying moments.

Scene after scene flashed rapidly before Gao Jie Ming's eyes like shattered glass: that magnificent noble mansion in the royal capital, inside the banquet hall filled with clinking glasses, several men and women in luxurious clothing wore hypocritical smiles while secretly plotting something.

Judging by the patterns on their clothes and how they addressed each other, these people were precisely the relatives of Count Reinhardt, Baron Fabio, and the others.

Greed gleamed in their eyes as they discussed how to "legitimately" inherit the titles and wealth held by these exiled nobles.

This assassination squad had been dispatched by those noble relatives in the royal capital; upon confirming the whereabouts of the fleeing nobles, they had set up this ambush intending to create an "accident," so they could rightfully inherit all the estates.

As that assassin breathed his last, Gao Jie Ming stood up expressionlessly.

Regarding the intelligence he had just witnessed, he felt not the slightest surprise; he had already anticipated this before leaving the city.

In fact, not only Gao Jie Ming, but the moment they saw these assassins, all the nobles present immediately thought of this possibility.

"We cannot enter the city anymore! No city is safe!" Count Rheinhardt suddenly grabbed Gao Jie Ming's coat hem, his old face filled with despair, his voice trembling and hoarse, "Those jackals in the royal capital will devour us alive! They know our location, they know everything about us! We must avoid all towns and head straight for the royal capital!"

The other nobles echoed him one after another; they would rather sleep under the stars and endure wind and dew in the wilderness, rather suffer hunger and exhaustion, than step into any city that might hold a trap again.

Gao Jie Ming nodded: "Then you all go back first; let the guards go purchase supplies."

"Good! Good! Go quickly!"

The nobles hastily abandoned the mess on the ground, arranged for a few stewards to negotiate with the city's nobles, and then left the city to return to their convoy outside the walls.

The forced decision to abandon entering the city for rest made the atmosphere of this noble convoy unusually oppressive.

When the first ray of morning sunlight tried to penetrate the dense fog, the convoy led by Gao Jie Ming had already deepened into a region where wetlands and dense forests, shrouded in thin mist, met.

The air here became unusually humid; the scent of rotting withered leaves and mud mixed with a cloyingly sweet floral aroma from plants, making people feel slightly uneasy.

Tall trees with twisted branches blocked out the sky and sun, so the marching convoy felt not a shred of warmth from the sunlight, only dim light dancing mottledly among the forest.

"Halt!" Gao Jie Ming suddenly raised his hand.

The convoy behind him stopped at the sound; horses neighed nervously, wheels ceased turning, leaving only the heavy breathing of the guards and the violent pounding of hearts.

Everyone felt an inexplicable oppression, as if something terrible was hiding behind the thin mist, spying on them.

In this dead silent instant—

Splash!

A huge noise shattered all tranquility.

The calm surface of the swamp not far away suddenly exploded, splashing mud and water in all directions.

A colossal beast, so large it took one's breath away, rose from the ground like a small mountain, breaking out of the water!

It was a giant python!

Its dark green scales were covered in disgusting slime, reflecting a cold light under the dim illumination.

Its trunk was abnormally thick, its head larger than a carriage, and a pair of amber beast eyes filled with bloodthirsty ferocity.

Foul-smelling drool dripped from the fangs of its gaping maw, corroding the ground it touched, emitting hissing white smoke.

As soon as it appeared, it unhesitatingly opened its huge mouth and pounced directly at the nearest noble carriage; those poisonous fangs were sufficient to tear a horse and the carriage compartment into fragments in an instant.

The guards raised the swords in their hands in fright, but their bodies trembled slightly in fear; facing this colossal creature, they appeared so tiny and powerless.

At the instant the giant python's massive head was about to touch the carriage, Gao Jie Ming had already appeared beside the python like a ghost.

He gathered strength in his right leg, concentrating all his power into a single point, and kicked the side of the python's huge head as fiercely as thunder!

Bang!

A deafening roar erupted, as if a sudden clap of thunder on flat ground.

The python's massive body shook violently; that hard skull was actually kicked by Gao Jie Ming until it visibly dented inward.

Viscous blood mixed with brain matter gushed out from the wound like a fountain, dyeing the surrounding mud and water into a shocking dark red.

The giant python let out a painful and shrill shriek; its massive body twisted wildly, churning up splashes in the swamp and shaking the trees.

Its huge tail swept across like a whip, snapping surrounding trees outright, emitting a series of "crack" sounds.

However, Gao Jie Ming seemed stuck to the python's body, completely unmoving.

Giving it no chance to catch its breath, Gao Jie Ming forcibly plunged both hands into the python's neck.

"Open up for me!"

He suddenly exerted force, his muscles bulging, his arms swelling like steel bars.

Rrip!

Under the horrified gazes of everyone, the head of the Poison Swamp Giant Python, which was larger than a carriage, was actually torn off its body by him through sheer force!

Accompanied by gushes of foul-smelling blood and slime, the head of the Poison Swamp Giant Python was violently torn in two by Gao Jie Ming.

The massive headless corpse twitched on the spot for a moment, then crashed to the ground with a boom, raising towering mud waves that crushed the surrounding bushes and trees into powder.

All the nobles and guards now had pale faces, their eyes filled with unbelievable fear and awe.

However, just as the python's death made everyone breathe a sigh of relief, celebrating that the danger had passed, Gao Jie Ming suddenly retracted his smile and looked in one direction.

"Not good!" he shouted in a low voice, "Defend!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sound of breaking the air suddenly rang out!

A rapid and dense rain of arrows, carrying cold light, accurately shot toward several noble carriages in the center of the convoy.

"It's an ambush!" General Brandon suddenly roared.

Although Gao Jie Ming had already given warning, quite a few unlucky nobles were still shot dead on the spot.

Immediately after, from the depths of the forest came a series of hurried footsteps and beast-like low growls.

An elite orc squad numbering about fifty, clad in simple yet tougher leather armor and holding short spears and sharp axes, actually launched an attack from the swamp depths and the forest flanks against the carriages of the core nobles.

These orcs were different from the wolf cavalry encountered before; their movements were more concealed, and their tactics more clear-cut.

They abandoned attacks on ordinary guards and rushed straight for the carriages of Count Rheinhardt, Baron Fabio, and General Brandon.

"Fabio! Protect the Count!" General Brandon roared, drawing his longsword and charging toward the orcs.

The guards and adventurers resisted with their lives, but facing this well-trained elite orc squad with clear tactics, they quickly fell into a disadvantageous position.

The tips of the orcs' spears carried a faint green glow; once stabbed, the victim immediately collapsed to the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth.

The nobles inside the carriages were so frightened their faces turned pale and their bodies trembled. Baron Fabio screamed: "How is this possible?! How could they know our exact location? How could they know which carriage we are in?!"

Count Rheinhardt gripped the inner wall of the carriage tightly; his old face twisted with fear, a terrifying light flashing in his eyes as he looked toward the distant direction of the royal capital:

"This cannot be a coincidence—these beasts know our movements inside out! There is someone in this convoy leaking information!"

Fortunately, Gao Jie Ming, who had just dealt with the giant beast, had already rushed back; he instantly charged into the midst of the elite orc squad.

Boom!

Gao Jie Ming threw a straight punch, smashing the head of an orc vanguard who was attempting to jump onto the carriage, sending red and white matter flying onto the ground.

Blood splattered through the dense forest, severed limbs flew everywhere, and screams of agony rose and fell in succession.

Soon, this elite orc squad of over fifty men was entirely slaughtered by him.

When the last orc had its neck snapped by Gao Jie Ming and crashed heavily to the ground, an eerie silence once again fell over the woods.

General Brandon reacted the fastest; disregarding his own injuries, he carefully inspected the condition of these orcs.

Quickly, he yanked a blood-soaked parchment scroll from the waist of one orc.

The drawing style of this parchment scroll was clearly the work of a human!

It clearly marked their route of march, as well as subtle features regarding the appearance of several carriages!

"This—" Count Reinhardt's expression turned ugly, "There is a traitor in this convoy!"

"Damn it! Who could it be?!"

"We must move quickly, otherwise it will be even more troublesome when the orcs behind catch up!"

News of the traitor's existence soon spread throughout the convoy; watching the somewhat chaotic nobles, Gao Jie Ming stood leaning against a tree with his arms crossed, his face expressionless.

However, no one noticed that the corners of his mouth curled up slightly when he saw that parchment scroll.