There were still people on the street. Most of the buildings around them had only recently been rebuilt, and were constructed from wood.
The two old men smoking pipes outside the tavern froze, their pipes suspended in midair, their mouths half-open.
The door of the neighboring shop stood half-open, and a woman in an apron had leaned half her body out to look.
Farther down the street, a peddler with a cart was still packing up with his head lowered, his back to them, completely unaware of what had happened.
Bolen was already shouting.
"Night Watchers on official business! Get back inside!"
His voice was loud, echoing through the quiet nighttime street.
The two old men with pipes flinched, but did not move.
The woman peeking out stood there in a daze.
The peddler with the cart finally turned around, but he clearly had no idea what was happening and merely stood there blankly.
Frank and the other two Night Watchers spread out to either side.
They moved far faster than the residents.
As they evacuated people, they also prepared to surround the area.
The positions of the three men had already blocked both ends of the street and the entrance to a side alley.
Every Night Watcher present was a Second Order Eerie Transcendence. None of them were weaklings.
But it was too late.
The man with the mechanical arm stopped. He no longer gave chase.
He stood beneath a streetlamp, less than thirty meters from Lu Yuan.
The tubular structure on his right arm slowly rose, aiming in the direction the people from The Tree were retreating.
Heat began to rise from its muzzle.
At first, it was only a faint wisp, nearly invisible to the naked eye. The slight distortion in the air above the muzzle was