Chapter 476: Petrification

Chen Chen’s first reaction to this piece of news was fright then it was immediately followed by anger. “Why are angel statues appearing over there? Was the prophecy in the Quantum Deity Laboratory leaked outside?”

“It’s probably not...”

Little X sounded slightly hesitant. “After you left the Quantum Deity Laboratory, I continued to monitor the conversation between the rescue army and their superior and I can verify that the White House was doing as we instructed. Although I cannot confirm that they won’t play the video in the future, I can at least confirm that they aren’t planning to play it at the moment.”

Chen Chen nodded after hearing Little X’s explanations.

It was true. If the video was leaked in the White House, the angel statues should be appearing in the White House instead of the city hall of Los Angeles. Chen Chen’s mistake was not destroying the footage of Adam’s prophecy while he was leaving in a hurry.

When he thought about it again, it was the right choice to leave in a hurry. If he spent any moments longer in the Quantum Deity Laboratory around the killer statues, he might have been killed before he had time to delete the footage.

Chen Chen sighed when he thought of this as his expression grew heavy. “If it has nothing to do with the footage being leaked, then what is it that caused the angel statue to appear in the city hall that is half a city away from the Herrank Warehouse District?”

Seeing that he was unable to come up with an answer no matter how much he juggled the problem, Chen Chen went ahead and opened the brass ring on his finger. He took a crystal pill hidden within the ring and promptly tossed it in his mouth.

With the enhancement of the T-virus along with the gradual effects of the long-term consumption of the drug helping his brain develop, Chen Chen’s mind had been honed to a supreme level that greatly triumphed his form in the past.

This was also why the effects of the drug were slowly lessened as time went on. It was still helpful to take an NZT-48 pill during times such as this.

Within thirty seconds after swallowing the pill, Chen Chen felt his mind being rejuvenated. His ability to compile thoughts was significantly enhanced as well.

This amount of clarity was just enough to help Chen Chen break through and notice the clue that was just sitting inches away from him all this time and connected the dots!

“I see!”

Chen Chen let out a heavy sigh. His tense eyebrow eased into a natural shape when he asked Little X, “You haven’t gone through the surveillance footage in the Herrank Warehouse District, is that right?”

“Yes.”

Little X answered promptly, “The system in the Werrank Warehouse District is severely outdated, dating up to two decades ago so their devices aren’t connected to the Internet. I was going to send the Black Knights to extract the footage manually but the Los Angeles police got to the scene and sealed up the area so I never managed to obtain reliable footage.”

“In that case, that explains everything.”

Chen Chen nodded. “X, we’ve made a mistake without even realizing it. It’s about the prophecy video created by the quantum computer ‘Adam’.

“We were under the impression that the video was the source of a memetic entity and served as a warning to let us know of its memetic qualities. Looking at things now, that may not be the case...”

Little X sounded slightly perturbed. “But it’s a video that poses memetic qualities. It even killed the members in the Quantum Deity Laboratory...”

“What you said is true but it’s not completely true either.”

Chen Chen remarked, “What if I told you that the problem didn’t lie with the video itself?”

“But...”

Little X was having trouble catching up.

“Have you considered that perhaps the video itself wasn’t the problem but lied with the angel statues inside the video?”

Chen Chen went on. “Which means that the angel statues appearing in real life don’t transmit its effects. It’s only when it’s shown in recorded footage or image when it transmits its effects to humans...”

“Ah!”

Chen Chen exclaimed in shock, “Could that be it?”

“The great Sherlock Holmes once quoted that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth...”

Chen Chen reinstated his point with a firm nod as he noted. “This explains why despite making direct eye contact with the angel statues not causing its effects to be transmitted and the city hall still somehow reports appearances of new angel statues! It must be that someone in the city hall has played recorded footage of the angel statues. The video played by this person must possess the same quality as the Adam prophecy. It’s capable of turning humans into angel statues!”

After saying all this, Chen Chen went on the move immediately. He evoked Field and took to the skies above!

Little X quickly asked when he saw Chen Chen departing, “Sir Godfather, are you heading to the city hall?”

“That’s right, I have to prevent more people from being infected by the meme!”

Chen Chen answered as he glided across the skies, “X, your task is very important as well. Before the statues can continue to spread, I need you to take down all uploaded footage concerning the angel statues on the Internet and destroy all of this footage immediately!”

“Understood!”

Little X answered confidently and proceeded to attend to her given task.

The reason Chen Chen went out in full force like this was that he was the only one who understood how dire the situation was.

If the truth was just as he had suspected, that anyone who saw a video of an image of the angel statues would be also transformed into a new angel statue by the memetic force, mankind was potentially facing a crisis that would wipe it out!

With the rising quality of life in the twenty-first century, recording devices and cameras were easily accessible to almost everyone. Was there even anyone who did not have access to a phone with basic camera functionalities at this point?

To a certain extent, the angel statues were the natural enemies of mankind. If these pictures got to the Internet and ten people living thousands of miles saw them, that would result in ten additional angel statues. Once they began their killings, more people would spread the footage...

It would soon spread like wildfire and within days, mankind would be facing an unprecedented, giant calamity. This was especially the case for large cities since the task of locating an untraceable killer statue was extremely daunting in a complex cityscape. The sheer work that would be required to do so was insurmountable.

By the end of it, even if mankind had discovered some way to negate its effects and got rid of the transmission source, there would have been hundreds of thousands, even millions of these statues all over the world. These statues would continue their killing, causing endless chaos.

As the situation worsened, mankind’s civilization would face complete devastation sooner than later!

This was complete genocide that directly affected the life of every living person. This was why Chen Chen treated this event with such urgency and had to step on the field himself. After all, nobody would be free from this calamity. Chen Chen did not want to have to resort to taking his family with him to escape to another dimension like a defeated dog.

When such a drastic possibility surfaced in Chen Chen’s mind, he accelerated to supersonic speed again and cut across the sky above the city district of Los Angeles. A booming sound echoed everywhere he went. People shrank, covered their ears, and looked up to the sky but could not see anything.

Five minutes later, Chen Chen finally arrived at the Los Angeles City Hall and exited his supersonic state. When he looked down at the ground below him, he saw people screaming and crying as they ran out of the city hall. Right by the entrance of the city hall stood an angel statue!

There was a lifeless body by the angel statue’s feet with its neck mangled into pieces...

Chen Chen froze for a split second upon witnessing this scene. When he squinted, an invisible force surged out of his eyes!

It was like a bomb rippling across the air. In an instant, a bolt of shockwave shot outward in a radial shape. There were no visible flames or explosions, only pulsing airwaves that distorted its surroundings in a wave pattern!

The very next second, the invisible force smashed ferociously into the statue and its surrounding terrain. In an instant, cracks formed on the statue and it was quickly obliterated into thousands of pieces!

“Boom boom boom!”

The sound of bellowing thunder rippled across the vicinity as pieces of gravel scattered across the sky and sprinkled over the ground. The handful of the survivors that emerged from the city hall acted as if they had seen a natural disaster. They cried and clambered onto their feet and tried to run as far away as their legs would take them!

After the dust had settled, Chen Chen saw a deep pit formed on the ground as if a meteorite had just landed in this spot. There was hardly a trace of the angel statue. It seemed as if it had diffused itself into the dust!

Chen Chen of all people knew that the statue would not be defeated this easily. As soon as he blinked, the statue appeared in his field of vision again. It sat in the middle of the newly-formed pit, completely unscathed as if it was never damaged in the first place!

Everything went just as Chen Chen had planned. The next second, Chen Chen unleashed Field again and sent mounds of dirt surrounding the pit back into the pit, completely burying the statue.

This time, Chen Chen made sure to take extra precautions. He made sure to fly another hundred meters into the air before he slowly closed his eyes and opened them again moments after.

This time, the statue did not emerge from under the pile of dirt. It seemed that his solution of burying it to contain it worked out!

Chen Chen finally took a breather when he saw this. What came after this was repeated stabs of pain in his mind and a burning sensation in his nose.

Chen Chen rubbed his nose absentmindedly. As expected, his palm was covered in blood.

He had to hurry up...

Chen Chen did not pay any mind to the angel statue buried underground. After landing, he immediately zoomed into the city hall. The inside of the city hall was a chaotic mess. Countless stacks of files and documents were scattered all over the floor along with the occasional dead bodies in different locations.

Chen Chen looked up briefly to survey his surroundings. In an instant, all the surveillance cameras in the lobby burst into flames in a cloud of explosion. After getting this out of the way, Chen Chen advanced into one of the corridors in the city hall.

Everywhere Chen Chen went, the surveillance cameras he saw exploded. He stopped when he arrived at the entrance of the office labeled as the city mayor’s office.

With his supreme sense of hearing, he detected the collective thumps of a person’s heartbeat.

This person’s heartbeats sounded like gongs. It was as if they had been afflicted with a terrible disease...

As soon as Chen Chen pushed the door open, he saw a brilliant flash appearing in front of him. A bullet was aimed at Chen Chen’s chest but its trajectory was promptly cut short by an invisible wall of Field.

Chen Chen put his hand out and picked up the bullet dangling mid-air and looked ahead at the room in front of him. He saw a silver-haired middle-aged man with his face contorted in horror staring right back at him.

“Mr. Mayor.”

Chen Chen stepped into the office and shut the door with his backhand while he greeted nonchalantly, “Is this your way of greeting your guest?”

“There, there are monsters outside!”

Parsons looked at Chen Chen. His trembling right hand immediately gave way just how nervous he was. Smoke was still seeping out of the revolver he held in his hand as he asked, “Who are you, are you here to save me?”

“No, I’m here to settle this matter.”

Chen Chen looked at the hands of Parsons, the only part of his body that was not covered by his clothes. Chen Chen took a lightning step forward, came in front of him, and proceeded to grab him by his wrist.

“What, what are you doing?”

Parsons cried out. He wanted to wring himself free but quickly realized that this person had his hands clamped tightly like iron tongs. He could not shake himself free no matter what!

“Clack!”

The only weapon he had clapped against the ground.

After getting close, Chen Chen noticed what looked like a layer of paint plastered over Parsons’ right hand. It was a strangely textured white paint but this was not the sign of a necrotic disease. It was closer to the texture of marble...

“Has the petrification begun?”

The corner of Chen Chen’s mouth rose to form a smirk. He turned to look at the computer set on Parsons’ desk and noticed the network cable unplugged from the computer.

Just as he expected...

Chen Chen immediately connected the pieces when he saw this. With a swift motion, he forcefully tore the hard drive from inside the computer and summoned it into his hands. He proceeded to swiftly crush it into countless pieces with his bare arms.

After doing this, Chen Chen turned to look at Parsons again. Parsons was baffled by what he had witnessed and only stared at him vacantly. He even forgot to resist anymore.

“Who else other than you have seen the angel statue video?” Chen Chen asked.

“Tech, technical department...”

Parsons stuttered his reply, “The technical department saw the video as well. Are you saying that it’s the video that turned me into this?”

Parsons was anything but a fool as he immediately caught Chen Chen’s meaning and snapped to his senses. He cried out in horror, “Help me, I don’t want to turn into those things!”

Chen Chen frowned. Just as he was about to ask how many people were in the technical department, he saw Parsons suddenly freezing up. He watched as strips of ashy vessels started to crawl across Parsons’ skin like large white worms squirming under the skin!

“Help, help me...”

Parsons wanted to shout, but he was invaded by a numbing sensation that was completely unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He could only muster the strength to stretch his arms out and claw at this mysterious man in front of him!

“Alright, I’ll end your misery!”

Without any hesitation, Chen Chen put his hands around Parsons’ head and squeezed it like he would an egg!

“Clack!”

Chen Chen heard what sounded like rocks crumbling as Parsons’ head burst into pieces!

The only difference was that instead of a mesh of blood and flesh, it was only irregular pieces of rocks that crumbled away.

Parsons’ body became lifeless after his head was crushed. Within seconds, his body turned into a marble stone sculpture. Everything that he had ever known in his life was brought to an end...