Chapter 1166
Hall of the Good Lord
The closer Eivass got to the center of the city-state, the more intensely he felt the dragging sensation caused by the curse’s ripples in the air.
It was like walking by the sea—even if the waves were relatively calm, they would crash against you every few steps. And the deeper you went into the open sea, the more pronounced the feeling of weightlessness became.
The power of the tides hadn’t actually increased; it was mainly because the proportion of oneself submerged in water was increasing, leading to greater buoyancy, and thus an imbalance in the center of gravity.
—This was exactly the sensation they were experiencing at this moment.
It wasn’t that the power of the petrification curse had increased… but rather that their resistance was beginning to wane.
Eivass was relatively fine, only feeling a faint gritty sensation on the soles of his boots. Upon lifting his feet, he noticed his heels were covered in grayish-white debris. Sherlock’s spells were still functioning normally.
But Lixia—who had relied purely on the petrification resistance of her winged lineage to reach this point—was starting to feel the strain significantly.
There were no obvious petrification marks on her, yet every action had become several, even over ten times, more strenuous.
Her steps were noticeably labored and unsteady, as if walking in water, or through mud or snow. Each step required a bit of effort, making her movements appear clumsy.
“Approaching the core area will likely accelerate the petrification.”
Sherlock glanced at Lixia and proactively cast a spell to enhance her resistance.
As a faint greenish glow flashed across Lixia’s body, she let out a small sigh of relief and straightened her back a little.
“It’s still… a bit difficult.”
The proud lady now frankly admitted, “It reminds me of the feeling when suppressed by Law Spell. We may need to make this quick.”
Eivass, however, observed her gait and offered an unexpected conclusion: “I actually think… this petrification might not work on you, Lixia.”
“…Why?”
“Because this isn’t a proper Petrification Spell.”
Sherlock chimed in from the side, “Although the powers of the Twilight Path are generally mixed together, there are always differences between home ground and away ground.”
As a Mage, he recognized the strangeness of this power immediately.
If the necromancy of the Twilight Path—or rather, the Treasure Hoarding Art—came from the Amber Heavenly Envoy, and the Preservation Technique came from Amber, then petrification spells belonged to the power of the Rock Heavenly Envoy.
“Petrification Spell is the art of transforming all things into fragile, powerless, and silent stone,”
Eivass said slowly. “To transform all civilization, all machinery, all flesh and blood into meaningless stones on the wasteland, is to negate the meaning of their existence.”
Whether a King or a thief, a great person or a sinner, all would lose their value and meaning upon turning into the exact same stone.
The ability of petrification to distinguish them was erased, and there was no longer any distinction between high and low, self and other in the world. Whether an Extraordinary of the Fifth Tier or an Ordinary Person, the stone statues they transformed into would be indistinguishable; whether a Dragon with an almost eternal lifespan or a Lizardman whose life lasted only a decade or so, the stone statues would be of the same material.
“After being affected by Petrification Spell, the body is no different from stone. Once shattered, it cannot be restored,”
Sherlock replied from a Mage’s perspective. “In this way, you can defeat any enemy with high physical resistance but lacking magic resistance—like heavily armored knights. By transforming their main bodies into fragile stone, they can be easily shattered.”
“—However, the petrification curse here is not like that.”
Eivass continued.
It didn’t feel like a transformation, but rather a “freezing that isn’t cold.” The petrifying radiance it continuously emitted was gradually turning everything it touched into a state of stillness.
Even sounds, flames, and splashing water could be frozen along with everything else.
In other words, the essence of petrification here was actually an ultimate “solidification” after extreme slowness. It was essentially a deceleration spell taken to its absolute extreme, thus it couldn’t instantly halt Lixia, who possessed the dual lineage of Dragon and Winged One, but it did impose a noticeable restraint upon her.
“So… this isn’t Petrification Spell, but a Stasis Spell?”
Lixia realized something, “And whose domain does this stillness belong to?”
“It belongs to Amber.”
Eivass said solemnly, “But Amber has been in slumber and is completely incapable of responding to rituals.”
Hearing this, the Angel frowned deeply, a righteous anger showing on her exquisitely beautiful face, “In other words, he is stealing the power of a Pillar God?”
“I believe that is precisely the case.”
Eivass said softly, “So we must not be careless… this is a grand ritual involving the power of a Pillar God.”
As they spoke, they had arrived at the entrance to the Hall of the Good Lord.
It was the very center of the city-state, and the source and epicenter from which the petrification ripples were continuously emanating.
—Rather than a residence, it was more like a palace.
It had a completely different style from the noble manors of Star Antinomy, or even Iris Flower. It was closer to a shrine than a “castle” or “manor.”
There were spiraling marble staircases on both sides, and at the junction in the center was an extremely large fountain—which, rather than a fountain, was more like a lake with built-in fountainheads.
It had three levels from the highest to the lowest, resembling a magnificent, delectable cake.
Originally, this water should have flowed from the lake into the underground, circulating through the subsurface water system formed by underground rock slabs, and then into several “Wells of Abundance” accessible to the Free People at any time.
But now, it too had been solidified by the petrification power. The texture of the water could be clearly seen in the petrified fountain.
And the vast lake was originally supposed to flow into the inner hall along the gullies on either side. Entering through a massive door large enough for a Giant to pass, one would see aqueducts made of brass.
The water channel cascaded down like a curtain. This valuable water, completely wasted, would form two water curtains that would block heat, noise, and dust.
They were now petrified as well, turning into stone walls.
And in the center of the main hall floor was a massive stone decorative painting, like an artwork made of various colored pebbles.
It was an artwork resembling a Persian carpet.
It featured a complex geometric pattern composed of blue flowers, brown tree trunks, and green grass blades, forming a breathtakingly beautiful scroll.
Even though it was just a pattern, it didn’t feel like a copy—each flower, each leaf, had subtle differences.
And indeed, that was the case.
It was certainly not a painting made of replicated pebbles.
Because it wasn’t made of pebbles at all—it was a scroll pieced together from molars that had been polished, colored, and oiled.
Human molars, Harpy molars, Troll molars… these molars of various sizes and shapes were combined with unsurpassed craftsmanship to form a painting.
—It was a massive ritual painting composed of eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight molars.
As a Ritualist, Eivass quickly recognized its ritualistic composition.
The water falling from under the two water curtains would flow into the hall through the gaps in the marble. This water would have originally nourished these teeth, making them emit a warm, cyan glow.
And they would have, like a real tree, emitted a natural fragrance, transforming the scorching water into cold, clear stream water, causing these ice-blue flowers to emit frost—
After all, an individual only has about ten-odd molars.
The significance of this large-scale ritual painting was roughly equivalent to an air conditioner and an air purifier. It had a similar effect to the Magic Painting that Janis had given to the Old Queen back then.
—But the materials alone for completing this ritual painting would have required at least seven to eight hundred human lives.
