From the patterns on these people's clothes and the way they addressed each other, it was clear they were the relatives of Count Reinhart, Baron Fabio, and others.

Their eyes flickered with greedy light as they discussed how to "rightfully" inherit the titles and wealth held by the exiled nobles.

This assassination squad was indeed commissioned by the relatives of the royal capital's nobles to ambush after confirming the whereabouts of these fleeing nobles, with the intention of creating an "accident" so they could then rightfully claim all the inheritance.

When the assassin breathed his last, Jeming also stood up expressionlessly.

The intelligence he had just seen did not surprise him at all; he had already anticipated it before leaving the city.

In fact, it wasn't just Jeming; the moment these assassins appeared, the present nobles all immediately considered this possibility.

"We cannot enter the city anymore! No city is safe!" Count Reinhart suddenly grabbed Jeming's coat hem, his old face filled with despair, and his voice hoarse with trembling, "Those wolves in the royal capital, they'll devour us alive! They know our location, they know everything about us! We must avoid all towns and go directly to the royal capital!"

The other nobles echoed in agreement, preferring to face exposure to the elements in the wilderness, endure hunger and exhaustion, rather than step into any potentially trapped city.

Jeming nodded: "Then you all return first, let the guards go and purchase supplies."

"Yes! Yes! Hurry!"

The nobles hurriedly left the scene of chaos, assigning a few stewards to negotiate with the city's nobles before leaving the city to return to their entourage outside.

This forced decision to forgo entering the city for rest made the atmosphere in this noble's entourage unusually oppressive.

...

...

As the first ray of morning sunlight struggled to penetrate the dense mist, the team led by Jeming had already delved into a region at the boundary between mist-covered wetlands and dense forests.

The air here became unusually humid, the smell of decaying leaves and earth, mixed with a cloying floral fragrance of some plant, causing a slight discomfort.

Tall trees twisted and turned, obscuring the sky, leaving the advancing group with no warmth from the sunlight, only dim light dancing in patches through the forest.

"Stop!" Jeming suddenly raised his hand.

The team behind him halted at the signal, horses nervously whinnied, wheels stopped turning, leaving only the heavy breathing of the guards and the pounding of hearts.

Everyone felt an inexplicable oppressiveness, as if some terrifying thing was hiding behind the mist, watching them.

At this moment of dead silence...

Splash!

A loud noise shattered the tranquility.

The calm surface of a distant swamp suddenly exploded, mud and water flying everywhere.

A giant beast, immense to the point of suffocation, rose from the earth like a small hill, breaking through the water!

It was a giant serpent!

Its dark green scales were covered with repulsive slime, reflecting a cold glow in the dim light.

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

Foul saliva dripped from its gaping maw of fangs, corroding the ground it touched, with sizzling white smoke rising.

The moment it emerged, it unhesitatingly opened its huge mouth and lunged at the nearest noble carriage, its venomous fangs capable of shredding a horse and its carriage to pieces in an instant.

The guards raised their weapons in terror, but their bodies trembled slightly in fear, appearing so small and helpless in face of this colossal creature.

Just as the giant serpent's massive head was about to collide with the carriage, Jeming had already appeared ghost-like at its side.

He concentrated his strength in his right leg, focusing all his energy into one point, delivering a thunderous kick to the side of the giant serpent's enormous head!

Boom!

An ear-shattering explosion resounded, like a thunderclap on a clear day.

The giant serpent's massive body shuddered violently, its hard skull visibly dented by Jeming's kick.

Thick blood mixed with brain matter gushed from the wound like a fountain, staining the surrounding mud and water a startling dark red.

The giant serpent let out a pained and piercing roar, its enormous body thrashing wildly, sending water splashing in the swamp and causing trees to shake.

Its huge tail swept across like a whip, snapping the surrounding trees one by one with a series of cracking sounds.

Yet, Jeming clung to the giant serpent as if he were glued to it, unfazed.

Without giving it a moment to breathe, Jeming thrust his hands into the neck of the giant snake.

"Open for me!"

With a fierce exertion, his muscles bulged, and his arms swelled like steel rods.

Rip!

Under the astonished gazes of everyone, the huge head of the venomous swamp snake, larger than a carriage, was forcibly torn from its body by him!

Accompanied by gushing foul blood and mucus, the head of the venomous swamp snake was violently ripped into two by Jeming.

The enormous headless corpse bounced in place for a moment before crashing to the ground, raising a storm of mud and crushing the surrounding bushes and trees.

All the nobles and guards were pale at this moment, their eyes filled with incredulous fear and awe.

However, just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the snake's death, relieved that the danger was over, Jeming suddenly restrained his smile and looked in one direction.

"Not good!" he shouted lowly, "Defend!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The sound of arrows slicing through the air rose sharply!

A sudden, dense rain of arrows glinted coldly as it aimed precisely at the center of the noble carriages.

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

Although Jeming had given a warning, several unlucky nobles were still shot dead on the spot.

Immediately afterward, urgent footsteps and bestial growls came from deep within the forest.

A squad of about fifty elite beastmen, clad in simple yet tougher leather armor and wielding short spears and axes, launched an attack from the depths of the swamp and the flanks of the dense forest on the core noble carriages.

These beastmen were different from the wolf cavalry encountered before; their actions were more covert, their tactics more precise.

They abandoned attacks on ordinary guards and directly targeted the carriages of Count Reinhart, Baron Fabio, and General Brandon.

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

The guards and adventurers fought desperately, but against this well-trained, tactically clear elite beastman squad, they soon found themselves at a disadvantage.

Their spear tips glowed ominously green, and once pierced, the victim immediately fell to the ground convulsing, foaming at the mouth.

The nobles inside the carriages were pale with fright, trembling all over. Baron Fabio screamed, "How is this possible?! How do they know our exact location? How do they know which carriage we are in?!"

Count Reinhart clung tightly to the carriage wall, his old face twisted with fear, glaring in the direction of the distant Royal Capital:

"This can't be a coincidence... These beasts know our every move! There's a traitor in this convoy!"

Fortunately, Jeming, who had dealt with the giant beast earlier, had already rushed back; he instantly plunged into the elite beastman squad.

Bang!

Jeming's straight punch exploded the head of a beastman vanguard trying to leap onto the carriage, red and white matter splattered, landing on the ground.

Blood splashed in the dense forest, limbs flew, screams and wailing alternated.

Soon, this squad of over fifty elite beastmen was completely slaughtered by him.

When the last beastman had his neck snapped by Jeming and fell heavily to the ground, the forest returned to an eerie silence.

General Brandon reacted the fastest, disregarding his injuries, he carefully examined the state of these beastmen.

Soon, he pulled a blood-soaked sheepskin scroll from the waist of one of the beastmen.

The style of this sheepskin scroll was unmistakably the handiwork of humans!

Clearly marked on it were their travel routes and subtle features of the carriages!

"This..." Count Reinhart's expression grew grim, "There's a traitor in this convoy!"

"Damn it! Who could it be?!"

"We must move quickly, or we'll be in even more trouble if the beastmen catch up with us later!"

The news of a traitor quickly spread throughout the convoy, and amid the somewhat chaotic nobles, Jeming stood expressionless with his arms folded against a tree.

However, no one noticed the slight upward curve at the corner of his mouth when he saw that sheepskin scroll.

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