When Lucia destroyed one of the anchors it ended up weakening the silencing formation that was currently holding them captive, it gave her the ability to talk to Olivia and Kristen once more.
The carriage wasn't actually that big so it would be dumb to try and fly so Lucia instead stalked around the room, searching for any trace of the core of the formation.
As she walked she felt that the floorboards were thicker near the center of the carriage.
Lucia tested the ground lightly, claws clicking once against wood as her senses sank downward. Beneath the scent of blood and dust, beneath the vibration of panicked footsteps and splintering crates, there it was.
A faintly golden orb, hidden so well she almost missed it.
"Found you," she said, eyes gleaming.
Around her a crunching sound could be heard.
'There must be someone here.'
When she tried to get a sense for the things around her before she had managed to find 4 humans and had already killed two, meaning there was only two more to go.
Lucia didn't hesitate for a second longer, wrapping her qi into her talons and slammed them into the planks.
CRACK!
The wood split apart in a spiderweb pattern. The cores light then faltered and died down.
'Good~'
A blade pierced through the gap she'd created, nearly skewering her eye. She twisted her head aside, the edge slicing a few feathers.
Leaping off the floor she dodged another sharp slash and moved a few steps back. Getting a good look at her attacker, she saw that it was the last cultivator left.
"You beasts really thought you could plunder an imperial shipment?" he sneered, spit flying out of his mouth.
Lucia's gaze flattened.
'So that's what this was, they're not merchants, but a disguised imperial transport.'
Her eyes took in a calculating gaze and she quickly deduced what the human meant, deciding afterwards that his life was now worthless since she couldn't speak the human tongue she rushed towards him and finished him off with one single blow.
..
.
.
Olivia stuck to the walls of the carriage, making sure to keep a lookout for any talismans.
A faint scrape came from behind a stack of crates but she didn't turn her head.
The human lunged forward in one motion.
She pivoted smoothly, wing slicing out. Her wings weren't as overtly violent and sharp as Lucia's, but they were precise enough to deal some damage. The edge of her strike caught his wrist.
CRACK.
The talisman he'd been trying to activate fluttered uselessly to the ground.
Olivia's second strike was to the throat.
Wet silence.
The wall to her right shimmered faintly, a small bit of blood staining it.
It wasn't bright enough for an untrained eye but luckily she knew her way around these things. There were thin slips of paper wedged between planks, their ink almost the same shade as the wood grain.
Pretty subtle.
"Cheap trick," Olivia muttered, annoyed at everything she had to do just to get here.
She unknowingly reached out and found that she could feel Lucia now. A faint flame at the edge of her awareness, the silencing formation had weakened them but it seemed like it was starting to come back.
"Found the core", Lucia's voice brushed against her mind.
"Good," Olivia replied. "Don't break it yet."
If Lucia had blindly destroyed it then the entire carriage might blow into smithereens if they were unlucky.
"Uhhh yeah yeah, sure", Lucia sheepishly responded.
Determining not to focus on why Lucia sounded like she was lying, she inhaled a breath to steady herself and turned back to the wall. There were three talismans arranged in a triangle pattern, the one on the top being slightly higher than the others.
'The anchor.'
She focused on the task at hand, tearing them free in one fluid motion and then proceeding to rip the talismans that the humans had made into shreds.
The papers burnt away into small golden flickers of light.
The carriage groaned visibly.
.
.
..
Across the room, Kristen had finally stopped trying to cling to the net and was instead squinting aggressively at the floor.
'Ughhhh what the hell does a sigil even look like?'
She wandered around, kicking dust up in annoyance. Moving randomly, she finally stepped on the sigil accidentally after a few minutes as it wasn't that large of space.
Beneath her was a sigil a meter long in diameter, it emitted a purple glow and looked like something had drawn in a rush.
The sigil flared defensively, sending a sharp pulse up her leg.
'OW! Rude much?'
Instead of retreating, she crouched lower and began pecking at the carving with sheer pettiness.
Each strike chipped away at the glowing lines.
The formation flickered violently.
'JUST BREAK ALREADY YOU BITCH!!!'
With a final, overdramatic slam of her whole body against it the final anchor was destroyed.
CRASH!
The carved symbol shattered.
The remaining dust in the air collapsed all at once, dropping harmlessly to the ground. The oppressive pressure vanished and the unnatural heaviness lifted from their minds.
Lucia jolted upwards as the area near her started to break and splinter and she sure as hell wasn't going to wait to break along with it.
The carriage suddenly went still.
Lucia pulled her claws free and stepped back onto with a clearer mind just as Olivia emerged from the far side of the room and Kristen stumbled a few meter beside her. There were four dead bodies littered throughout the room as well.
They stared at one another for a brief second, feathers disheveled, speckled with blood and splinters.
Kristen broke the silence first and blurted out something obvious.
"So… did we win?"
Olivia glanced at the three bodies scattered around the carriage, then at the shattered floor.
"Yes," she said tiredly. "But this wasn't random."
Lucia's eyes moved to a massive crate stacked at the very corner of the room. Imperial seals were on them, not the kind you see on everyday things.
"These merchant carriages were either transport," Lucia said quietly. "Or a cage."
Kristen blinked in confusion. "Cage of what?"
As if answering her, the sealed crate shifted and thudded loudly.
BANG!
The sound echoed throughout the room.
Olivia's feathers lifted slightly in fear.
"That," she said softly, "is why they needed a formation to keep this room quiet."