Heiress Unmasked: Shaking the World With Geomancy novel Chapter 1186

"That's not right." Reginald piped up. "We couldn't escape the village earlier, and the zombies didn't seem like they could either. That means the outside world is still safe."

"Only for now." Shannon continued, "The ghouls haven't fully been refined yet, and their deadly toxin isn't that strong. The half-zombies, like the villagers we just saw, still appear like regular people during the day.

"They only transform into ghouls under specific circumstances. In this case, if the nation and the mystic arts community work together, the situation can be controlled quickly."

The specific circumstances, in this instance, would have something to do with the daylight.

The negative energy thickened at night, activating the toxic influence that turned them into ghouls. By contrast, during the day, they retained their human form.

However, judging by the reactions of those villagers earlier, it seemed they were not far from fully transforming into ghouls. The ultimate sign of becoming a complete undead was the insatiable hunger for the flesh and blood of their own kind.

Once they began losing human consciousness, they would completely turn into ghouls. By then, the mastermind would unlock the barrier around the village and release the ghouls into the world…

"We can't just sit here and wait for them to find out things are off. It'll be too late," said Shannon. "The best way to stop the Decaybringer Array is to locate the mastermind and finish him."

Lexie, too, understood that. "But we're trapped here. How are we going to find him?"

Although Shannon wasn't clear about the mechanics behind the Decaybringer Array, it didn't stop her from making bold assumptions. "Generally, in most situations, the practitioner is either at the center or on the edge of the array; they're never too far from it."

To refine these ghouls, the practitioner would've been observing their changes up close. And to ensure that the Unmelting Bone absorbed the filth energy from all the ghouls, there was no better spot than the center of the array.

Additionally, the black smoke appeared directly within the barrier. From all these clues, it could be concluded that the person behind this was likely inside the barrier, most probably at the center of the village.