Lou Guanshan raised his hand. A brownish-orange Mark traced itself in the center of his pupils, and as though summoned, the stone on the ground trembled and rose, bringing the unpolluted sand up with it.
As though lifting a gentle breeze, Wan Lan raised her right palm slightly. A softly swirling funnel of wind appeared in it, drawing the floating sand and stone over.
She turned her palm downward, and the gathered sand and stone piled together, forming a heap as tall as a person.
The instant the pile landed, everyone keenly sensed a mass of gazes prickling against their backs.
Kou Ying turned to look. The Calamities that had ignored them just moments earlier had eerily stopped, pairs of eyes staring straight at them.
An indescribable shadow of terror began to spread, like a damp, icy winter wind seeping into the gaps between their bones, chilling them all over.
Wan Lan silently picked up her longbow. "Looks like we found what matters."
Rustling sounds came from the buildings the Calamities were disguised as. The sticky noises were instantly nauseating, as though things were crammed together inside, scrambling to crawl out.
Guan Xiaomei carefully captured the scene, only to see masses of sludge pouring out and spreading toward the center of the square.
"Is that... mud?"
Kou Ying sent out a shadow to investigate, his expression turning grave.
"It's Abyss Filth, the lowest stratum in Calamity territory, beings that can only be sacrificed. When [Those Without a Home] first came into being, more than half the Abyss Filth in the Third Zone dispersed, and the Calamity concentration dropped by a full thirty percentage points. But the concentration here doesn't seem to have dropped."
Kou Ying guessed that either this place had not been covered by the River of Forgetfulness and