No one asked any questions.
The Night Watchers clutched the Brain Cores and climbed into the residents' carriages, one to each carriage, squeezing into the cabins.
The residents huddled together in terror as a Night Watcher suddenly crowded in, gripping some unknown object, their faces filled with confusion and fear.
Lu Yuan held the last one himself and jumped onto the lead carriage.
He glanced back.
The Eye-Spine Centipede had pushed aside the last row of trees, its entire body emerging from behind the treeline. Its sprawling outline was wider than the entire convoy, and the heads dangling beneath its carapace swayed in the sunlight, their phosphorescence flickering.
The tremors had already traveled from beneath their feet into the carriage cabins.
Lu Yuan grabbed the Communication Inscription Array and roared into it.
"Crush them! Use them now!"
He clenched the Brain Core in his palm, his fingers tightening.
Crack.
The Brain Core shattered in his palm, dark fragments sifting through his fingers.
A rancid, fishy stench seeped from the broken core—faint and chilling, the unique smell of Ghouls. It spread outward from his hand, enveloping the entire carriage.
In the other carriages, the Night Watchers crushed their Brain Cores almost simultaneously.
The same stench seeped from every carriage, converging and spreading until it shrouded the entire convoy. The scent of over two hundred people and the Transcendence fluctuations from the Night Watchers were all suppressed beneath the Ghoul aura.
From the outside, the convoy smelled like a pack of low-level Ghouls wandering along the roadside, not worth the attention of any high-level being.
The Eye-Spine Centipede pushed aside the final patch of trees and closed in.
No one dared breathe.
Inside the carriages, the residents huddled together. Some covered their mouths tightly, while others pressed their children into their chests,