My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit

Chapter 553 - 361: Civilization from Hell

Xue Dili confirmed that he did not kill the Petrification Demon; although he often forgets trivial matters nowadays, he still has a significant impression of the demons he has slain.

Even those creatures he dragged out from underground to kill, Xue Dili has certain memory points, knowing what type of demons they were, even if they were as weak as Leather Demons or Crocodile Demons, such insignificant beings.

However, regarding the Petrification Demon, he had no recollection at all.

Either it vanished because it no longer inspired fear, or it was conceptually consumed by similar demons like "Rock Demon."

Now, seeing this pile of rubble, it was most likely the former.

From a distance, Xue Dili looked towards the building and discovered a stone tablet buried in dust and dirt among the rubble.

The tablet recounted many stories. After the translation module left by the Great Sage extracted the text, the translated original soon appeared before Xue Dili.

"The world-destroying giant tree... Artificial God... Crisis response to the world-destroying giant tree..." Xue Dili read the words, and suddenly fell silent.

Although many words had been damaged over time and couldn’t be restored even by the translation module, the surviving text allowed Xue Dili to piece together a story.

In Hell, there had once been an extremely advanced civilization, both in technology and magic. Technologically, they were capable of reaching nearby planets; magically, they possessed Tier Four combat strength, and could even mass-produce Tier Four beings through technology.

This made them very conceited, for a long time believing themselves to be the cosmos’ overlords. Thus, after developing the Teleportation Gate, they constantly attempted to open it to unknown coordinates, seeking other alien civilizations to conquer and colonize.

Until, by random chance, they opened a gate to an Apostle’s Colonization Star within the vast cosmos.

Xue Dili: "6..."

When he saw the record of another planet’s scenery, depicting a barbaric civilization with human corpses hanging on tree branches, Xue Dili’s mouth twitched as he read that they fired at the Divine Tree to prevent such barbaric rituals.

Goodness, if only they had been more timid; upon seeing the situation, had they fled immediately, perhaps the issue wouldn’t have been so severe.

It should have been an Apostle’s Colonization Star they stumbled upon while planting trees when suddenly these cosmic bumpkins fired at its face, prompting the Divine Tree to track them back to their lair.

Then, as Xue Dili had guessed.

They fired the cannon in the morning; by noon the Divine Tree had caught them, by afternoon it had traced their home planet’s coordinates, and the Apostle’s Followers had arrived.

The native civilization of Hell, upon receiving the news, immediately prepared comprehensively, rallying most of its strength for a desperate battle.

Then, in just 7 minutes, Hell’s pre-existing civilization’s main force was utterly annihilated.

It was not a war; it was a one-sided massacre.

But Hell’s prior civilization was not without gains. In the direst moment, they acquired a completely unexpected power, named "authority."

They began their bloodiest experiment, searching for "adapters" fit for various authorities, and after lengthy modification and adaptation, they created a batch of nearly invincible beings on their native planet.

They were named Artificial Gods!

The Petrification Demon was one of the first generation of adapters. It claimed to have a human name, but had forgotten it; afterward, it would only be known as the Petrification Demon.

The story on the stone tablet continued.

The Artificial Gods engaged in a brutal struggle against the invading Apostle’s Followers. Due to their authority, as long as they were on their home planet, each Artificial God was a walking calamity. Gradually, they suppressed the Apostle’s Followers and even counterattacked to reclaim lost ground.

Moreover, during the war, the Artificial Gods discovered they were almost immortal. The Petrification Demon, for instance, controlled an authority called "Petrification," allowing soul transfer in any region it petrified.

As long as there existed a petrified entity in the world, it could not die.

Similarly, the one controlling the "Hurricane" authority could revive through the wind, no matter how many times it was killed, to continue battling the Apostle’s Followers to the death.

After prolonged fighting, the Apostle’s Followers seemed to deem the world too troublesome.

Like the proverbial "stone in the latrine, both stinky and hard," they abandoned the world, finding no solution to the horde of immortal, relentlessly attacking monsters; the only way was to destroy the world from outside.

But the Apostles were there to harvest populations, not to destroy worlds for amusement.

So after harvesting a population segment, they departed, ceasing their fight with the Artificial Gods.

The Artificial Gods and native humans won, though at an extremely heavy cost. This war with the Apostles reduced their population to just a tenth of its original size, stalling their technology and magic, leaving the world scarred and most of its land barren.