Chapter 126 Flesh Devourer

Ring—

The sharp, urgent ring of a triggered trap pierced the air. A few nameless birds frantically flapped their wings, taking flight from the treetops.

Close behind it came several short, exasperated guttural snarls from the dense woods.

They no longer bothered to hide. Amid the harsh snap of breaking branches, a flurry of rapid, heavy footsteps suddenly thundered toward them.

"Get ready!"

Adeline, who hadn't slept since jolting awake from her nightmare, roared.

She already had her two heavy iron hammers gripped tightly in her hands.

Beside her, Berg had been on edge ever since they found Iron Hand George's corpse. Now that the other shoe had finally dropped, the anxiety vanished from his face.

Longbow in hand, he quickly retreated, his sharp gaze sweeping the rest of the camp for an ambush.

He displayed the true professionalism of a veteran adventurer.

Abi jerked awake at Adeline's roar. He was bleary-eyed, but seeing everyone's battle stances, he didn't need any explanation to grasp the situation.

Fortunately, sleeping out in the wilderness required keeping their undershirts and armor on, which saved him a lot of time.

He hurriedly threw off his blanket, rubbed his eyes, and snatched up the weapon at his feet. Taking two quick steps forward, he raised his wooden shield and planted himself in front of the others.

As for Xia Nan, it went without saying.

His highly concentrated Perception and focus from practicing [Gravity Compression] made him the first in the squad to sense the danger.

By the time a squinting Abi scrambled over to his side while adjusting his clothes, Xia Nan was already gripping his Decapitating Longsword, his body tense and fully prepared for battle. None of them moved.

Among the members of the Greenblood squad, only Berg actively fell back to put distance between himself and the threat, fitting his role as a ranged archer. The others, including Adeline who had shouted the warning, stopped moving entirely once they took their positions.

The enemy was hidden in the dark while they were exposed in the light. With the pitch-black Misty Forest surrounding them, a hasty retreat would only break their formation and put the team at a severe disadvantage.

At the very least... they needed to confirm the enemy's true identity and see if it matched their theories from the corpse's remains before deciding their next move.

"Rustle..."

The shadowed bushes shook violently, faintly revealing several blurry silhouettes approaching at high speed.

Xia Nan's heart hammered in his chest, but his expression remained calm, his dark eyes reflecting the dancing firelight.

And just as the flurry of footsteps grew louder—to the point where they could even see the bouncing fur on the dark silhouettes—

The first thing to burst out of the brush and enter their sight was a chilling glint of metal reflecting the campfire.

"Swish!"

A sharp arrow tore through the mist, whistling through the air as it dragged shredded leaves and grass seeds in its wake.

It was impossibly fast!

Xia Nan felt a sudden, piercing gust of wind surge toward his chest, and he subconsciously raised his greatsword to block.

"Clang!!"

Sparks scattered.

Metal shrieked against metal, sparks dancing across the flat of the blade.

In a split second, a heavy impact shuddered through his greatsword, and a fierce gust of wind brushed past his ear.

The arrow that had been aimed dead at his chest deflected off the blade, its trajectory skewed. Carried by its remaining momentum, it embedded itself into the trunk of an oak tree behind him.

"That accurate?"

A chill shot down his spine. Before he could think any further, the enemies—whose approach had been exposed by the team's preemptive traps—charged straight out of the tree line.

"Yee-gah!"

Mixed with the thick stench of blood and filth, sharp, eerie, and excited shrieks tore through the air.

Thick, yellowish-brown drool dripped from the barbed tongues lolling out of their mouths. Their flared, black snouts were damp, puffing out jets of scalding air with every labored breath.

They had deformed skulls that looked like a grotesque cross between a hyena and a human, with sunken, twisted foreheads that violently bulged at the back of the head. Refracting a sickly green glow in the dark, their bloodshot, bestial eyes were entirely consumed by savage brutality.

These were five lean, ferocious gnolls!

And leading the pack was one individual visibly larger than the rest of its kin. Without a doubt, this was the very threat that had migrated from the Western Wasteland to the edges of the Misty Forest, the dangerous monster that had slaughtered multiple human villages and earned a massive bounty from the Adventurers Association—

The Gnoll Flesh-Eater!

Xia Nan's expression was utterly focused. The impending battle caused him to grip his sword hilt so hard that his knuckles turned white.

His gaze remained locked on the gnolls, who were charging on all fours like hyenas, their faces twisted in fanatical zeal.

In his mind, however, he found the situation more than a little strange.

First of all, the number of gnolls here was nowhere near the "tribe" level mentioned on the Association's bounty board. A group this small completely lacked the numbers to raid a village.

'Did they split off to set up an ambush around the rest of the camp, or have they already lost most of their numbers fighting other adventurers?'

Secondly, although these gnolls were all wearing a few pieces of ill-fitting armor—obviously stripped from dead adventurers—their bodies were littered with various wounds.

The gashes from swords and spears only made up a small fraction of them. What was truly obvious were the pitch-black scorch marks covering them from head to toe, as if they had been severely burned in a great fire.

Even the Flesh Devourer leading the pack was no exception.

He immediately recalled the mangled, bloody corpse of Iron Hand George.

'Did his squad do this?'

These chaotic thoughts surfaced, only to be instantly wiped away by the echoing shrieks tearing through the air.

Before the clash even began, Adeline—the leader of the Greenblood squad and the one with the most adventuring experience among them—made a split-second decision!

She secured her left-hand hammer back at her waist and snatched the wooden shield from Abi.

Leaving behind a short, sharp command, she charged violently toward the Gnoll Flesh-Eater.

"I'll hold it back! Xia Nan, the rest are yours!"

In the mere seconds since the gnolls had revealed themselves, she had formulated her plan.

She would pin down the Flesh Devourer, the strongest of the enemy forces and the only one capable of inflicting catastrophic casualties on her squad in a short time. By buying time, she would allow Xia Nan—the most agile member of their team—to seize the opportunity and slaughter the remaining ordinary gnolls.

Truthfully, although they had completed many tasks together, and he had demonstrated strength far beyond an ordinary adventurer during his fight with Gap-Toothed, Adeline wasn't entirely sure if Xia Nan could finish off the rest of the gnolls in the few brief minutes before she collapsed under the Flesh Devourer's assault.

But right now, in the face of such a desperate situation, she could only pin her hopes on this young, reliable teammate with a mysterious past.

Xia Nan had no idea what she was thinking at that moment.

The moment her order rang out, he immediately surged forward.

But his trajectory was slightly different from Adeline's.

His dark eyes locked onto the edge of the camp, staring dead at the dense brush where that stray arrow had just been fired from.

—In a team fight, always take out the backline first.