The masses of corpses were gathered together and frozen by Ryan, forming a four-cornered wall of sorts to protect them from any sudden attack.
Each of them sat back-to-back with a certain number of cores in front, which were given after they had divided the cores equally.
There was a certain style and technique that was usually employed during essence absorption from soul cores.
And to keep drifters from copying each other's technique, it was advisable that two drifters should back each other when absorbing soul cores.
Of course, they weren't just backing each other. They were sitting in a circle, but each person's back was faced against another in such a way that it was a bit stressful to look at the person beside them—at least not when busy absorbing soul essence from cores.
Even Shin, Ryan, Alystren, Jeci, and Lynus were involved.
Northern and Dante stood above the wall while they watched the others as they absorbed their soul cores.