Chapter 301: 301

Negary didn’t really care too much about that petrified empire, while it might have been able to become a prominent timeline in the future, that timeline hadn’t fully stabilized yet. If Negary destroyed this statue that became the trigger for that timeline’s creation right now, that possible timeline would simply vanish without even leaving any remains behind.

Quite obviously, this Earthbound phenomenon wasn’t the complete form of the timeline remains that created it.

With a flash of his golden patterns, Negary vanished and arrived at the very first location where the Earthbound phenomenon manifested.

The was the location where the informational remains struck this world after being roused from its slumber in the Inexistent world by the [REDACTED] sword.

“I’m sorry, my child. For the tribe, you must go there” a middle-aged man held back his tears while putting a 2-3 years old child, who hadn’t even matured enough to understand what was happening to him, onto a wooden boat and sent it downstream of the river.

The development of human society was naturally accompanied by foolish superstition. Even some of the dumbest and most nonsensical superstitions in the modern era used to be things everyone agreed that humans simply could not go against.

And since tribal life had developed to this degree, there were naturally plenty of superstitious ‘rules’, like blood sacrifices to the River God.

For example, if a virgin boy and girl were not sacrificed every year to the river, a great flood would descend to swallow up the ground and ruin their crop. These beliefs all originated from humanity’s lack of understanding of natural phenomena.

Of course, part of the reason was that the Divine flame was taken back. If it was the same terrifying upright apes who wielded the Divine flame torches in their hands, any River God who appeared would be added to their menu immediately.

However, as the upright apes evolved into ‘humans’, they now understood respect and fear, as well as using intelligence and wisdom to resolve issues, which led to various issues down the line.

Evidently, this middle-aged man could not offer his own son without feeling any guilt, and it was this guilt combined with the informational remains from the Inexistent world that brought the Earthbound phenomenon into existence, spreading through time and took up 10 years of the timeline.

For this 10-year period, anyone who entered this area while holding onto any sort of guilt would succumb to this petrification without fail.

〖 Emotions are the key to this, huh? 〗Negary recalled what he saw within the petrified kingdom timeline. After obtaining the statue, the empire’s alchemists soon discovered that the statue was alive.

Through various sacrifices and rituals, they managed to contact the Earthbound phenomenon itself, noticing that if guilt was the emotion to trigger this petrification, then absolute worship as an emotion could also have done the same thing.

It truly must be said, the alchemists of that era were truly talented, as they managed to change the emotion that corresponded to the Earthbound phenomenon: whenever someone worshipped a certain thing to an absolute limit, they would immediately turn to stone. Furthermore, they even came up with a method to dispel this petrification.

To prolong his own life, the emperor had these alchemists research the Elixir of Immortality, but the refinement process would have taken another three years to complete, and the emperor who couldn’t wait for that long decided to use this petrification ritual instead. With absolute worship towards himself, he became petrified with his army who also felt the same.

Naturally, this now was a ‘technique’ because these statues were capable of mobilization when necessary. The only downside was that due to becoming stone statues, they no longer carried normal human senses like touch, rationality, and thought; they could only to follow the orders of their object of worship.

Unfortunately, the Elixir of Immortality that the emperor waited for was delayed by a few thousand years due to him faking his own death. Even more unfortunately, all of this would no longer occur.

With a swipe of his hand, a certain jet-black mass of gas was trapped in his palm.

Due to this change in the past, the future timeline also changed. The various potential future timelines of the Earthbound statues all began to collapse. This potential future was nothing but temporal changes brought by the informational remains, so the majority of them stayed as information that didn’t affect the real world, only very few managed to become actual entities by combining with matter and energy.

…

For example, the thousands of stone soldiers rampaging through the streets in the modern world of several thousand years in the future. They were currently pursuing a young couple who carried the Elixir of Immortality refined by the alchemists of the past.

By taking back this Elixir, their emperor would truly be revived and rule over this world once more.

“Lin, over here!” a handsome blond young man had just climbed his way to the roof of a building, reaching his hand out to the young woman called Lin behind him. Pursuing them was a horde of stone soldiers madly brandishing their weapons.

Although there were shortcomings of turning into stone, the advantages they gained couldn’t be understated. Due to being stone, they didn’t feel any fatigue, their exteriors were literally as hard as stone; and the stronger their worship was when they turned to stone, the harder it would be to alter their state.

Furthermore, being made of stone didn’t hinder their movements in any form, the running and attacking speed of these statues were not at all lacking compared to a world champion sprinter.

The two young people were soon pushed into a corner, swiftly ending with their capture. However, the statues didn’t kill them right away, instead, they formed a formation to welcome an old-fashioned Eastern-style carriage.

The solemn emperor, despite having been turned to stone, still exuded enough pressure for the two young people to feel hard to breathe.

Receiving the Elixir from a soldier’s hand, the emperor was unusually delighted, he had been waiting 2000 years for this.

After consuming the elixir, the emperor nodded to an alchemist next to him, after which he took out a hollow stone dagger and thrust it into the emperor’s body.

The emperor’s stone body then started to crack then broke off piece by piece, revealing the ancient body residing inside. Under the effects of the elixir, the wrinkled body quickly regained its life force.

“This lively and prosperous world, your sire has returned” the emperor raised both arms up high and made his declaration. However, as the great founder of an empire, the ecstasy of his resurrection only lasted for a brief moment before he forced it back down and turned to the two young people.

“Descendants of the traitors shall be dealt with in accordance with our laws” the emperor gave out his sentence, then boarded his carriage and prepared for the next phase of his plan.

The stone soldiers did not hesitate in the slightest, immediately raising their weapons to kill the couple, but then all the statues abruptly collapsed without any warnings. Even the emperor who had regained his life could not escape this and was similarly crumbling away.

However, the Elixir of Immortality managed to exert its effect, greatly slowing down the emperor’s demise.

He observed his crumbling subordinates, as well as his disappearing self and was a bit stunned, then turned unusually calm.

“This king shall return” the emperor was absolutely confident about this.

The couple closed their eyes tightly, waiting for death to arrive, only to open their eyes again a few moments later to see that their enemies had disappeared without a trace. Having returned from the border of death, the two of them hugged each other tightly.

Immediately after that, blood splattered everywhere. A stone claw with a strange design slowly pulled back as their bodies collapsed onto the streets, a statue carved into a monstrous shape slowly came out from thin air.

…

Observing the constantly changing informational remains in his hand, Negary understood what was happening somewhat.

He had just transferred the emotion of ‘protect’ into the remains, which resulted in a different phenomenon altogether. Newly infected individuals were now turned into stone monsters that could become reanimated, these monsters wandered around their territories and eliminated any living creatures that dared approach them.