After finishing his writing, he closed his notebook and scanned the brothers present.
“Listen up. These corpses carry pollution, so there's no need for a deep investigation, but we can't just leave them like this.”
“The empty stall at the very back of the first-floor stables can be sealed. Drag all the bodies there, pile them up, and seal the door from the outside. For the ones pinned to the wall, use a knife to chop off the tentacles, take them down, and throw them in too.”
“Before we leave, we'll burn them to ashes.”
He glanced at Old Muller.
“Once it's sealed, leave two men to watch the room. No one is allowed near it. By the time I have the residents come down, this place needs to be completely cleaned up.”
Old Muller nodded and called the brothers to action.
The Nightwatchers moved quickly.
Two went to carry the bodies from the common room and the kitchen, two took knives to chop down the dried tentacles embedded in the corridor walls, and the rest began moving the corpses down from the second floor.
Lu Yuan also lent a hand, dragging the bodies one by one toward the empty stall in the stables.
The dead were heavy. The brothers worked up a sweat, their hands covered in dried bloodstains and dust.
The three nuns were moved last. Lu Yuan personally picked up the prayer book that had fallen to the floor, placed it on one of the nuns, and helped carry them over.
After an hour, the entire inn was cleared of corpses. The door to the empty stall at the very back of the stables was secured from the outside with a copper bolt, and the gaps were stuffed tight with straw.
Two Nightwatchers dragged over a bench and sat outside the door, hand crossbows resting on their knees, keeping watch.
The bloodstains in the main building of the inn couldn't be wiped clean, and the stains on the walls couldn't be scraped off, but at least there were no more human-shaped things in sight.
The tables and chairs in the common room were returned to their places, the pots and bowls in the kitchen were tidied up, and the debris on the floor was swept into the corners, making the space barely passable.
Lu Yuan stepped out of the main building, stood in the inner courtyard, and called out toward the archway.
“Bo Er, have them come down. Children first, followed by the women, and the men last. They can rest in the common room and the inner courtyard, but do not go up to the second floor. And stay away from that room over by the stables.”
Bo Er acknowledged from outside and began arranging for the residents to disembark.
Lu Yuan leaned against the stone pillar of the archway, flipped through his notebook, and added the final entry: Weak pollution source. Suspected to be residue left inside the corpses after a massacre by a relatively strong eerie entity. Mechanism unknown. Already concentrated and sealed. Planned to be burned before departure.
He closed the notebook and tucked it back into his waist pouch.
Having reached this point, he had done everything he could.
Yet, that faint, nagging unease did not fade. He didn't know what that weak layer of pollution would lead to. The grey-white text only said “weak,” and the Holy Light Stone only showed “slightly deeper than the base color.” Neither gave a definitive answer.
He would rather err on the side of caution. What could be burned would be burned, and what could be sealed would be sealed. That fire before they left had to be lit.
The residents filed in through the archway one after another.
The children were the first to get off the carriages. Their legs were weak, and they were led inside by the hands of adults.
Having traveled for most of the night and bounced around all morning, several of the little ones were already half-asleep. They were carried in arms, their heads bobbing on the shoulders of the adults.
The women followed behind, keeping their heads down as they walked quickly through the inner courtyard, not daring to look left or right. The men came down last. A few poked their heads around and glanced toward the stables, but they were politely blocked by the Nightwatchers.
“You can't go over there. We're handling some things.”
No one asked further. Since leaving the city, these residents had learned one thing: if the Nightwatchers said not to go near a place, they didn't go near it.
The inner courtyard and the common room gradually grew lively. Some drew well water, while others brought dry rations down from the carriages to eat. A few children ran a couple of steps, chasing each other across the cobblestones, only to be promptly dragged back by the adults.
The Nightwatchers scattered to keep watch in various corners of the inner courtyard. Two of the brothers were watering the horses by the trough. The carriage that had been damaged by the sinkhole was pushed to the side, and someone crawled underneath to tap on the axle.
Apparently, this person knew a bit of carpentry.
The sun rose directly overhead, heating the ground of the inner courtyard. The people, who had been tense all morning, finally relaxed a little. Even the air seemed to carry a bit more of the warmth of the living.
Bo Er walked over carrying a bowl of well water and sat down against the wall next to Lu Yuan. Dunn followed behind him. The bandages on his right arm had been changed once; the new ones were tied tighter, and no more blood was seeping through.
“It'll be fine once we get past these woods,” Bo Er said, taking a sip of water and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Oakwood City is peaceful. Once we arrive, we can get a good night's sleep. These past two days...” He shook his head, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid, though the expression on his face spoke volumes.
Lu Yuan gave a brief grunt of agreement, still holding the leather-bound notebook in his hand, his thumb unconsciously rubbing the edges of the cover.
In the corner of his vision, that line of grey-white text hung quietly.
【Weak pollution source...】
It was exactly the same as before, unchanged, sitting there silently.
He tucked the notebook back into his waist pouch and nodded to Bo Er. “Get some rest first. We leave this afternoon. We need to be out of here before dark.”
Bo Er said nothing more. Leaning against the base of the wall, he pulled his hat down over his face and fell asleep in short order.
Dunn sat nearby, awake. His gaze drifted toward the stables from time to time before pulling back. His right arm rested on his knee, and his left hand unconsciously gripped his trouser leg, his fingers still stained with the dust from moving the corpses earlier.
The sun slowly drifted west, and the shadows lengthened inch by inch.
By around five in the afternoon, both the people and the horses had recovered, and much of the heavy, oppressive mood of leaving home had dissipated.
Lu Yuan stood up from the base of the wall, patted the dust off his clothes, and called out in several directions.
“Assemble! Harness the horses! Let's hit the road before it gets completely dark.”
The Nightwatchers sprang into action, calling out as they led the horses back to the carriages to harness them. The residents followed suit, packing up their things and loading them onto the wagons. Children were lifted in one by one; some spread blankets inside the carriages, while others wrapped up unfinished dry rations and stuffed them back into their pockets.
Lu Yuan walked over to the stables and glanced at the two Nightwatcher brothers watching the room.
The two were still sitting on the bench outside the door, hand crossbows resting on their thighs. They hadn't moved all afternoon.
“Any movement?”
“No,” one of them shook his head. “It's been completely quiet. Not a sound.”
Lu Yuan nodded. The fire hadn't been lit yet; he needed to wait until the carriage convoy had gained some distance before starting it, to avoid panicking anyone with the smoke and flames. Just as he was about to head back to urge the convoy to move faster...
A muffled thud echoed from deep within the stables.
The sound was very faint, like a bone popping out of its joint.
The two sentry Nightwatchers tensed simultaneously, their eyes locking onto the door secured by the copper bolt.
Right on its heels came a second sound.
This time was different. It was the sound of flesh and skin being stretched and torn from within—muffled and wet.
Something slammed into the door from the inside. The copper bolt rattled violently, and a few pieces of straw stuffed in the gaps shook loose and fell.
Lu Yuan's gaze darted to the corner of his vision.
The line of grey-white text that had remained quiet all afternoon suddenly flashed with a new warning.
The words 【Weak pollution source】 vanished.
In their place appeared a new line of text, the characters flickering rapidly.
【Environmental Perception: Pollution intensity rising... Eerie detected...】
His heart sank, but at the same time, a strange certainty welled up inside him.
What was bound to come had finally arrived.
That weak layer of pollution indeed wasn't just residual trace; it was waking up. After lying dormant inside the cold corpses for an entire day, for some unknown reason, the pollution was now turning those dead bodies into eerie entities.
Fortunately, he had prepared for this.
“Back up!” Lu Yuan barked, while waving his hand toward the residents in the inner courtyard. “Bo Er! Get the residents moving faster! No one is allowed to come near!”
Bo Er bolted upright from his nap. Seeing the look on Lu Yuan's face, he didn't ask a single question and immediately turned to yell at the residents.
“Get in the carriages! Everyone, get in! Quick! Don't look, just get in!”
The inner courtyard fell into a brief moment of chaos. Several pale-faced residents ran toward the archway, while the Nightwatcher brothers scattered to usher them out and keep them back.
Lu Yuan could no longer spare any attention for them.
The sounds inside the stables grew increasingly frequent. The wooden door was shaking, the copper bolt rattled incessantly, and an indescribable odor began to seep from the gaps—a mixture of rank blood and rot.
“Keep your eyes glued to that door,” he whispered to the two sentry Nightwatchers. “If they can't get out, let them be. But the moment that door gives, call me.”
With that, Lu Yuan turned and ran toward the ammunition wagon.
The ammunition wagon was parked right by the entrance of the inner courtyard. Wooden crates were stacked on top, and several Nightwatcher brothers had already pried the lids open.
Lu Yuan pulled two molotov cocktails from a crate and grabbed a handful of silver arrows for his hand crossbow, tucking them into his belt.
“Old Muller, take three men and load your hand crossbows. Try not to initiate the attack if you can help it, but the moment that door opens, fire immediately.”
“The rest of you, get your molotov cocktails ready. Wait for my command to light them.”
Old Muller quickly led his men into position. Four hand crossbows were raised, bolts loaded, their silver tips aimed squarely at the door that was being slammed from within.
A crack had already split down the wooden door.
A grey-brown thing wriggled out of the crack. It was twisted, with joint-like segmented protrusions, and its surface was coated in a layer of wet mucus. It slowly squeezed through the gap, probed the air outside, and then suddenly whipped forward, striking the doorframe and sending wood splinters flying.
The sentry Nightwatcher took a step back, raising his hand crossbow to aim at the tentacle.
“Open the door.” Lu Yuan's voice was steady.
Old Muller kicked the copper bolt loose.
The moment the door was slammed open from the inside, the scene within the empty stall rushed into everyone's view.
Twenty-seven corpses, which were no longer corpses.
Supported by the tentacles and mutated limbs bursting from their bodies, they stood up, crowding crookedly into the small stall.
The skin of those who had previously died without wounds had split open. From the gashes protruded twisted, grey-brown tentacles, identical to the dried ones found on the corridor walls, except these were still fresh and glistening with a damp sheen.
Some of the corpses had split open from the abdomen, growing spider-like mutated limbs that propped them up, raising their upper torsos off the ground. Their heads hung to one side, mouths still agape in their post-mortem state, but a cloudy, turbid substance was now turning within their hollow eye sockets.
The moment the door opened, the foremost corpses lunged toward the light.
Four hand crossbows fired simultaneously.
The silver arrows buried themselves into the chests of the first two corpses. The moment the silver touched the grey-brown tentacles, they spasmed and convulsed violently. The movements of the corpses stiffened for a split second, but those behind them continued to surge forward, squeezing past the doorframe as they crawled out.
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