Chapter 1556: Turning to Stone
Ning watched his hands slowly turn to stone. As it did, many thoughts went through his mind, most of which were questions.
The very first question he thought was him considering if he was being betrayed at the very first moment. He had been all but certain that this leader of theirs was going to accept him, but to see that he was turning him to stone, was surprising.
Another question he wondered was why. Why was he being turned into stone?
The answer for that seemed so simple that he felt a fool to even ask it.
He had just come into this man’s lair and shown him that he could turn anything into Dust. That was a massive attack on this man’s business, and probably even an attack on him as a person.
He did mention trying to create Dust and not being able to.
‘Oh, so he is a Converter too,’ Ning thought. He should’ve guessed that. ‘I should’ve known he had just drunk Spark. I assumed it was Dust.’
He nearly sighed.
His entire hand had turned to stone by now and it was slowly moving to his wrist and up his arm.
As it did, another question came to Ning’s mind. How was this man turning him into stone exactly?
Humans were not supposed to be so easily turned into anything by people who could use Spark. They were supposed to have to eat a lot of Spark to do so.
‘Not only that,’ Ning thought. ‘He also needs a lot of training to be able to turn people into stone. Has he had the time to—”
Ning paused and looked around, looking at the many ‘hangers’ he had seen when coming in. They were filled to the brim with sacks and clothes, but if he were to see their height, they were all about the same height as what a person would be.
Ning looked at the branch-like stone that had been revealed when he turned the cloth to dust and realized that it was someone’s arms.
Ning couldn’t help but sigh. He should have seen that coming. The hints were literally all around him. If only he had bothered to check when he entered, this wouldn’t have happened.
Oh well, what was done was done.
His arm below the elbow turned fully into stone, and it continued moving upward into his elbow and shoulders.
Ning looked at the man who had a maniacal grin on his face, staring directly at Ning with his crazy eyes.
“Why?” Ning asked, making his voice as hurtful as he could. “I was going to help you.”
“I need no help,” the man said. “I can do everything by myself. But… thank you for letting me know it was in fact possible to turn things into Dust using Conversion.”
“I tried it a lot of times, but I couldn’t do it at all. I had given up on it long ago. Now, though, I know I only needed to train with it a little more. That was all I needed.”
Ning had no more words. “You won’t get away with this,” he said. “Someone will know what you did to me.”
“If you think someone will help you, get in line,” the man said, pointing to the many people around the room. “They have all been waiting for someone to find and help them too.
Ning’s chest began petrifying, crawling its way up through the neck to reach for his face.
Ning was about to say something when the man shook his head.
“Do not speak,” he said. “If you speak while your jaw sets, it will fall off. And that will not look very good in my collection. Keep your voice and your questions. It does not matter what you learn anymore.”
Ning’s mouth turned to stone next and then his eyes. Finally, everything of his turned to stone.
Ning was no different than a statue.
The leader moved back from Ning’s statue, breathing a deep sigh of relief. He had been holding a lot of power inside of him to turn Ning into stones, and that had nearly destroyed him from the inside.
He could not do something like that again for a long time. Had it gone on for a while longer, he would’ve 100% turned Sparkless. At that point, the entire operation would’ve come down.
“Let’s go,” the leader said and moved.
As they all moved to leave, the leader stopped and pointed at one of the men. “Place him along with the others before you come.”
“Okay,” the man answered and went back toward Ning, before drinking some Spark.
The earth beneath the frozen Ning moved, pushing him back toward the wall where he stood next to one of the many statues that were here inside this room.
The man came up to Ning and began placing all sorts of sacks and clothes on him. He filled all of Ning before only his head remained.
The man sighed. “I should’ve helped you,” he said softly. “But you shouldn’t have tried to mess with the leader. Damn it, I should let my superiors know about this all very soon.”
He placed the final sack on Ning’s face, covering his body entirely, and left the room as well.
“Oh…” Ning mused to himself. “A superior? Someone besides the leader? Interesting.”
Ning watched the leaving man through a sliver between the sacks and clothes, remembering his face. It was a young man in his mid-20s, around the same age as Karina.
He was slightly larger, which made him look older, but the face was still young enough that Ning wasn’t mistaken.
“Now, what did he mean by his superior?” Ning thought. His first thought was that the man was working for the military, and just like Ning, he had infiltrated this place.
But Ning quickly gave up on that possibility.
Just the fact that he was this close to the ring leader of the entire operation meant that he should have had every evidence to shut this all down. But he hadn’t. Which meant that he was working for someone else.
‘Not the military? But then who?’ Ning wondered. The entire hierarchy of this world was based around military ranks, so not being a military person surprised Ning.
‘No, why am I thinking it can’t be a military person?’ Ning wondered. Just because the person wasn’t good didn’t mean that they didn’t belong to the military.
For all he knew, the person could very well belong to the military, but he was working for his own personal agenda.
‘Someone from the military but trying to profit from the Dust trade?’ Ning thought. Now that was a situation that he couldn’t lightly tread through.
Or… maybe he could.
Ning quickly reverted the petrification on himself and created a statue in the exact same pose as the one he was just in. A replica of himself in stone appeared before him with a stern look and a hand that was held out to be shaken.
“Looks good enough,” Ning thought and put back all the clothes on top of it. Then, he turned invisible and followed the people back out through the door.
They walked through an underground tunnel with no way out and arrived at a dead end that they then opened up using a Carver’s power.
A large piece of the ground had to be moved aside for another opening to be seen on the other side, which led to a large room.
Ning followed them into the room and finally noted that it was a simple bedroom that was supposed to act as a decoy for anyone sneaking around to check on them.
The hole behind them was filled and one by one the people walked outside into a hallway and then took a long walk to arrive at the foot of a staircase that climbed nearly two stories upward.
When they got to the top, it led outside and they were finally blessed with fresh, circulating air.
The leader took a deep breath.
“Go back to your homes now,” he ordered. “We’ll meet in 3 days from now.”
“Yes, leader.”
The group separated, with Karina going along with the leader to somewhere and the other 3 walking away in some other direction.
Ning looked at the leader, intending to follow him. But, this Carver that had moved his statue seemed the much more interesting case to follow here.
If there was a conspiracy happening here, Ning had to find it and report on it to his superiors. Not only Harper, but Redaime would be expecting a lot from him this time around.
He turned around and began following the man through the streets.
The ceiling of the city was dark as night had come long ago. The city was as good as dead with most of the lights being turned off long ago.
It was all silent too, just like the dead of night in any other city on other planets. Only it was even more eerie here as there were not even cicadas making noise, or some random bird chirping.
There was no sound of wind moving through the tree. All there was was a hollow sound that was very much terrifying.
The man walked for a long time, stopping at no location at all. He did not take a second to turn around and see if someone was following him, and at some point arrived at the edge of a city, next to a large opening that led to another city.
Ning looked at the city inside and his eyes narrowed. The opening led to City 0.
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