Inside the village where Zhang Chen and the others were staying.
All the villagers wore gray cloth cloaks that covered their bodies and lived self-sufficient, primitive lives every day. However, they all shared the same habits. If one got close enough, one could see the faces hidden beneath their cloaks, their mouths constantly writhing as they uttered one phrase every three seconds—Ahtu.
Another habit, or perhaps a custom, was that every villager gathered at the center of the village at six every morning before heading together to the black clock tower.
Zhang Chen and the others had left the Faceless Palace at around three in the morning and arrived here just before dawn.
As Zhang Chen and Jia Xin headed to the basement, the clock struck six. Heavy bells rang out from the top of the tower, echoing throughout the village and drawing every villager, whether working or resting at home, out of their rooms and toward the black clock tower.
At the same time, the tightly shut main doors of the black clock tower slowly opened inward as the bells rang.
A rotten, rancid stench wafted out from within the tower, but the villagers had long grown accustomed to it. They lined up neatly and orderly in four columns before the black clock tower, entering in groups of four.
Inside the black clock tower stood an enormous black cylinder, its surface crawling with flies and maggots.
A closer look revealed that the black cylinder was made entirely from piled-up, blackened rotten flesh. The four villagers who entered walked directly to the cylinder, which responded from within. Arms made of black rotten meat grew from its walls and reached toward the four villagers, forcibly tearing chunks of flesh from their bodies and drawing them inside.
Each group of four took