Iver reached out and touched the petrified Benefactor, cleansing radiance spilling from his fingertips.
His face was filled with compassion, but that emotion did not come from the petrified Benefactor.
As Iver touched the statue, scale-like fragments flaked off with a rustle, revealing patches of flesh beneath.
The statue's original gray-white color gradually returned.
--But just then, Iver suddenly stopped the treatment. It was as if an operation had abruptly halted halfway through.
But at that moment, the Benefactor of Rock Cellar City had already regained part of his consciousness.
His face twisted in terror, like that of a person slowed several times, even more than tenfold, desperately trying to evade a venomous snake creeping toward him. Not only had he failed to get away, but the snake had also climbed onto his limbs. His expression was much the same as he stared at the snake coiling around his limbs and gradually approaching his heart.
He struggled to move his limbs and break free of the petrification. But he could not do it at all.
Some of the Benefactor's joints could no longer bend because they had been petrified. His instinctively straining limbs gave off a creaking, aching sound, while his joints emitted a teeth-grating cracking noise. With part of his throat still petrified, his Adam's apple unconsciously let out an inhuman roar: "I... help... me..."
This was different from the solidification in Eagle Cape Village.
The petrifying curse brought by the Benefactor of Paradise City did not mean that time had frozen. Those who were petrified could still clearly realize that they had been petrified, yet they could not move at all. They could only maintain that posture and sink into a muddled sleep... until the end of time.
--Rather than "pausing," it was more like "falling asleep."
And