As the yellowish petrification light faded from Rock Cellar City, black thorns crawled over every corner of the city.
In fact, they were Sin Thorns that Iver had "castrated."
Using his ability to control Sin Thorns as a Sin Beast, he had almost completely drained their power, leaving behind only empty shells. Then, through a blessing ritual, he had driven the original form of these "detoxified Sin Thorns" into the stone slab used for the exchange, mixing their power of nihility into the force transmitted by the Amber, contaminating and altering it until it lost its original properties.
Thus, the power of nihility dissolved the petrification. It was like sprinkling salt on a leech.
However, although Iver had filtered out the "poison" of the Sin Thorns as much as possible through the consecration ritual, their harmful effects on transcendents were still unavoidable.
They manifested specifically as weakness—just as the body became weak and feeble after a serious illness.
The diluted power of the Sin Thorns that had entered their bodies along with the petrification power would continuously dissolve their transcendent power. It would take several nights of sleep, along with constant replenishment of mana to flush it out, before the symptoms gradually eased.
The process was like the immune system killing off foreign bacteria. The hosts experienced intense discomfort. Along with the weakness that made it impossible to exert their strength, they would also suffer fever, thirst, and drowsiness until the power of nihility was completely purged.
For ordinary people with no transcendent power whatsoever, however, it did not cause any discomfort.
Based on this characteristic, it instead possessed a novel property—it allowed Iver to easily identify the transcendents hiding among the crowd.
Anyone who had been petrified before would inevitably undergo this test.
Meanwhile, Lily had slipped into the