I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

Glock stood in front of the map on the first floor, holding a charcoal pencil, marking something on it.

He looked up when he saw Lu Yuan and Bo Er walk in.

"You're back?"

"I'm back." Lu Yuan glanced at the newly added markers on the map. "How was it?"

"Better than last night." Glock put down his charcoal pencil and wiped the charcoal ash from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Your setup blocked most of the impact; far fewer brothers died tonight."

He traced a circle with his finger between several marked points on the map.

"Moreover, I received information that the other positions have also been largely held up."

Bor leaned against the doorframe and muttered, "The copper wall worked. And those nuns from the church, if it weren't for their blessing last night, we wouldn't have been able to withstand that frontal attack at all."

"The Copper Wall is only one part, and the Church is only one part." Glock glanced at him. "I just received a report from the branch. I have a few things to say, so listen carefully."

He turned around and faced everyone on the first floor.

Besides Lu Yuan and Bo Er, there were four or five other night watchmen who had just rotated back from other positions, cleaning their weapons and changing their bandages in a corner.

Upon hearing Glock's voice, they all stopped moving.

"First thing," Glock held up one finger. "From today onwards, the church will officially participate in the nighttime defense of the North Textile District."

"The four nuns who appeared above our position last night were not just passing by." Glock flipped through the bulletin board in his hand.

"The church took the initiative to contact the branch and offer to assist in the defense. The deputy chief has already approved it."

"The specific arrangement is that the church will send two groups of nuns to cover two positions, one at the North Bunker Collapse and the other in the southwest of the outer city. Each group will consist of four people and will be responsible for blessing and providing long-range fire support. Command will remain with the Night's Watch, and church personnel will not participate in the ground deployment."

One of the night watchmen couldn't help but ask, "Are they really that kind?"

"It's not out of kindness," Glock replied quickly. "It's an exchange. The church is demanding permission to enter the collapse site for a 'purification ritual' after the defense is completed. The branch is still negotiating what exactly to purify."

Lu Yuan leaned against the wall without making a sound.

The church's long-term presence means that the nuns are repeatedly present on the front lines.

The lead nun glanced at him as she left last night. It was a discerning look, not hostile, but more unsettling than hostility.

She sensed something.

Lu Yuan wasn't sure what she was sensing—whether it was the forbidden aura he had accumulated over the years, or something brought from the Sea of ​​Knowledge that was still lurking in the shadows.

Or something else entirely.

However, it is certain that if the number of contacts increases and the distance becomes closer, the probability of being identified will only increase.

Lu Yuan put that thought aside; it wasn't something he should be thinking about right now.

"The second thing," Glock continued, "is that there have been personnel changes on the Ascension side. They lost a reincarnated person last night, and the Ascension are aware of it. They said they would replace them, but they didn't give a specific timeframe."

Glock's tone carried a hint of dissatisfaction. "Also, that gray-haired woman, the coordinator sent by the Ascension Council, is gone this morning. No notice, no handover, she just vanished."

"Gone?" Bor frowned.

"I don't know," Glock said briefly.

Lu Yuan remained silent. But he remembered it clearly.

Last night, the woman crouched down and picked up a core component from the fragments of the newborn, her lips moving silently.

She got what she wanted and left.

As for the one who was torn apart, she never considered him a comrade-in-arms from beginning to end.

"Third thing." Glock turned back to the map. "Daytime cleanup will proceed as usual. Fungal carpet treatment, wreckage removal, barricade repair. Each squad will carry out their assigned tasks as yesterday." He looked around at everyone. "Nothing much has changed. Get everything you can done during the day."

That concludes the report.

The watchmen dispersed to prepare.

Lu Yuan called out to Bo'er.

"After you finish eating, come with me to the front lines."

"What are you doing?"

"Examine the body."

Bor glanced at him again: "Which one?"

"The giant ghouls," Lu Yuan said. "Last night, when the counterattack ended, I had several giant ghoul corpses dragged into the ruins of the textile workshop."

Bohr thought about it and realized he did remember.

During the final stages of the counterattack, Lu Yuan personally directed a few people to drag away the large, charred corpses from the front of the position. At the time, he thought it was to prevent the corpses from blocking the road and affecting the repair of the barricades.

"Did you leave this in advance?"

"The copper surface will continuously corrode the ghoul's tissue," Lu Yuan continued. "If you put it on it, it will rot to dust in less than half a day. If you want to inspect it, you have to move it to a place without copper for preservation."

Bohr then understood. "You were already thinking of investigating back then?"

"That thing isn't an ordinary ghoul." Lu Yuan's eyes darkened slightly as he continued, "Ordinary ghouls don't have that kind of thing on them."

Bohr did not ask any further questions.

He rummaged through the supply box and pulled out two pieces of hard bread and a jug of water, handing one to Lu Yuan.

The two squatted on the steps in front of the alchemy workshop and ate breakfast.

The bread was hard; chewing it felt like grinding your teeth.

Bohr muttered as he munched on his bread, "Those church folks...they really helped a lot last night." He swallowed, then added, "But Bronze City is getting more and more chaotic..."

"Yes." Lu Yuan took a sip of water.

Bohr thought for a moment and said nothing more; the branch had its own considerations.

He broke off the last piece of bread, stuffed it into his mouth, dusted off the crumbs on his hands, and stood up. "Let's go. While the sun is still high."

Lu Yuan also stood up. He glanced down at the edge of his field of vision.

[Rationality: 69/120]

I didn't sleep all night, and my rationality hasn't returned.

But it did not continue to decline.

However, I can drink the Perfect Rationality Potion now. I took out a bottle and gulped it down.

[Sanity: +10...79/120]

"Set off."

The ruins of the textile workshop were located about forty meters to the left rear of the position.

It was a partially collapsed brick and stone building; half of the roof had collapsed, but the walls were still relatively intact.

The key issue is that the ground isn't made of copper.

It is made of ordinary stone bricks and mud.

This is also why Lu Yuan chose this place last night.

The giant ghoul's corpse leaned against the corner of the wall.

There were three bodies in total. After they were dragged here last night, Lu Yuan had them covered with oilcloth.

When the tarpaulin was lifted, the body was in better condition than expected.

Lu Yuan chose the best-preserved body to begin his examination. Last night, Bor's bronze sword had pierced its abdomen, and the holy light had exploded from within, burning the entire body into a huge, charred shell.

But the shell was still there. The outer layer of keratinous armor was not completely broken, like a hollowed-out suit of armor, with its limbs sprawled on the ground at an odd angle.

Because it did not come into contact with copper, the tissue did not continue to corrode.

It's been preserved fairly well.

Lu Yuan squatted down and began to examine.

He looked at the outer layer first.

The cross-section of a keratinous nail has a layered structure, with one layer on top of another. The outermost layers are the darkest and hardest, while the inner layers become thinner and softer.

"This didn't grow naturally." Lu Yuan used a copper blade to remove the outer layer of keratin fragments.

There is a clear dividing line between the innermost layer and the muscle tissue.

The stratum corneum does not grow from within the skin, but rather it is attached layer by layer, as if it has been repeatedly "fed" by something and then deposited.

[Detection Target: Abnormal depositional structures exist in the stratum corneum of the target body surface...not natural hyperplasia...]

Lu Yuan turned the keratin fragments over.

Some extremely fine, grayish-white filaments remain on the inside, almost identical to the hyphae of saprophytic fungi.

It is the hyphae that are nourishing the cuticle.

Something underground is using derivatives of carrion-eating fungi to "cultivate" these giant ghouls.

Lu Yuan put down the fragments and shifted his gaze to the corpse's head.

The skull was mostly broken, but the mandible was still relatively intact.

He carefully pried open the charred muscle tissue with the tip of his knife, revealing the teeth underneath.

Three floors.

The iconic feature of ghouls is their outer layer of sharp, newly grown teeth that curl outwards.

The middle layer consists of smaller transition teeth.

But the innermost layer...

Lu Yuan stopped moving.

The innermost teeth are not canines.

It is a molar.

Human molars.

They are neatly arranged and intact, and you can even see traces of a filling on one of them... A small piece of metal filling has been corroded and turned black, but the shape is still there.

Someone had their teeth filled.

This giant ghoul was once a human.

An ordinary person who has been to the dentist, lives in the city.

Lu Yuan slowly stood up.

He glanced down again at the charred carcass. The body was now a size larger.

A keratinous nail covering the entire body. Three layers of teeth.

Semi-transformation period.

All of these are built upon the foundation of "human beings," piece by piece.

First came the infection.

Then it transforms. Then it is fed, selected, and strengthened.

Until it becomes this thing.

[Taboo Studies - Seeker of Knowledge: +0.3...12.7/100]

You have come into contact with a curse that had been dormant...

Bohr stood to the side, without saying a word.

But he also noticed the repaired molar.

"Is it a person?" Bor's voice was low.

Lu Yuan did not answer immediately.

He walked out of the ruins, came to the edge of the position, and found an ordinary ghoul corpse that had not yet been cleared away.

The body lay on a copper surface, severely corroded, with large areas of skin peeled off and muscle tissue turned into a dark brown paste from the burning copper.

However, the mouth is still recognizable.

Lu Yuan squatted down and pouted.

Two layers of sharp teeth.

No molars remain.

This indicates that the transformation of ordinary ghouls has completely overridden human characteristics.

Perhaps ordinary ghouls aren't actually transformed from humans...

I just hope the Great Ghoul is different, so I'll leave behind traces of humanity.

Lu Yuan stood up and returned to the ruins.

He flipped open the left hand of another large ghoul.

The five fingers were completely deformed, the nails had fallen off, and in their place were black, horny claws.

However, on the inside of the palm, beneath the charred membrane, there remains a very thin layer of human skin texture.

Palm prints.

Everyone's palm lines are different.

The ghoul's palm prints are still there.

"They're all human." Lu Yuan stood up. "At least the Great Ghoul is human."

Bor's expression changed.

He looked down toward the cave entrance, a dark and quiet opening.

What poured out last night wasn't a monster. It was people who used to live in this city.

The forgotten people.

"How long?" Bor's voice was a little hoarse. "How long...have they been down there?"

Lu Yuan glanced at the degree of corrosion of the metal filling on the repaired molar.

It has been corroded so badly that it is almost unrecognizable.

Only a very thin layer of residue remained attached to the molar groove, and the surface was covered with pinhole-sized erosion pits.

If it had been ten or twenty years, it wouldn't have deteriorated to this extent.

Even in the high-humidity underground environment, for the metal filler to corrode to this extent...

"A long time," Lu Yuan said without looking up, "far more than a few decades."

He stood up, his gaze returning to the charred body.

A phrase suddenly flashed through my mind.

On the way to Bronze City, Hermann said...

"It is said that it took tens of thousands of craftsmen and thirty years to build."

Tens of thousands of craftsmen.

Thirty years.

The recipe has long been lost.

The runes were carved by an engraver over a period of ten years.

and then?

Where did those craftsmen go? Tens of thousands of people built a bronze city, and then... they disappeared into history?

Lu Yuan looked down at the remaining molar.

Hundreds of years.

Maybe longer.

Bohr fell silent.

He stayed in Bronze City for ten years.

Ten years ago, he came here from outside and thought it was the safest city in the entire western part of the empire.

The city walls can keep out the strange things.

The runes never went out.

But no one told him what was pressed under the city wall.

"Then last night...those we killed..." He didn't finish his sentence.

Lu Yuan did not respond.

Bohr himself understands this.

He shut his mouth and quickened his pace.

Behind them, sunlight shone on the ghoul remains scattered on the bronze surface.

It is being corroded little by little by copper.

In a few hours, there will be nothing left.

After walking for a while, Lu Yuan spoke.

"Don't tell anyone about this."

Bor paused for a moment, then nodded.

He understands.

Not only were these things originally human, but more importantly, why did these people become ghouls?

Bohr had a vague idea in his mind.

"Where's the body?" Bor asked Lu Yuan. "Is it just there?"

"Let's leave it for now," Lu Yuan said after thinking for a moment. "The floor of the textile workshop isn't made of copper, so it won't continue to corrode in the short term."

He remained silent for a few seconds.

"But there's something I don't understand."

"What?"

"The branch did not order the preservation of the Great Ghoul's corpse."

Bohr thought for a moment, then remained silent.

"We weren't the only positions that encountered giant ghouls last night," Lu Yuan said as they walked. "The corpses were all lying on the bronze surface; they'll be reduced to ashes by noon today. If the branch didn't know their origin, they should have ordered samples to be preserved for testing. But they didn't."

"You mean... the branch knows?"

"It's uncertain," Lu Yuan said. "They might not be able to attend to it. The pressure in the inner city is much greater than ours, and the branch may not have the resources to deal with the corpses in the outer city."

Lu Yuan paused.

"But Klaus isn't the kind of person who would overlook these details."

Bohr did not ask any further questions.

The two walked the rest of the way in silence.

When they returned to the alchemy workshop, there was an extra carriage at the outpost entrance.

It's not a supply vehicle.

They came from the inner city.

Two people got out of the car.

Walking in front was a thin old man, wearing a gray robe with several patches, his back slightly hunched, and holding something in his hand that was either a cane or an iron rod.

[Detection Target: ? (Knowledge Path - Inscriber)]