As Perfikot’s alchemy was activated, the wooden stakes used to bind the convicts all came to life.
They seemed to sprout again, instantly transforming into sharp and terrifying claws, emerging from the bodies of those convicts bound to them, like a carnivorous flower.
The convicts screamed and howled in horror, no longer able to curse Perfikot.
Because at this moment, their tongues and mouths were all pierced by the newly grown branches, making them appear as if impaled upon a tree, or rather like a tree had grown out from inside of them.
Yet despite this, the convicts were still alive.
This is the terrifying aspect of what Perfikot had done; even gutted by a tree, they were still alive, not dead.
Perfikot wanted them to live, using their lives and screams to warn everyone in the city, making them dare not rebel again.
"Miss!" Seeing the scene before him, Foster looked at Perfikot with concern.
He knew clearly that Perfikot was not such a cruel person; everything before him was merely a tactic she used to intimidate those with ulterior motives.
But such harsh measures, coming from a fourteen-year-old girl, truly made Foster both worried and heartbroken, concerned about whether Perfikot could bear the impact of all this.
"I’m fine, and it’s not over yet!" Perfikot’s hand spun again atop her staff, a swath of gray-white spread from her feet, quickly climbing up the piled heads and erected stakes, turning them and the people impaled on the branches into gray-white.
Everything turned to stone, but even as stone, those wailing people did not die, even able to make sounds, blood tears flowing from their eyes.
Looking at these completely petrified and fused human heads, branches, and wailing bodies, Perfikot painfully said, "If Mom knew I used her research results for such things, what would she feel?"
The transformation of flesh, Perfikot’s mother’s former research result, combined with her father’s research, is the most forbidden human transmutation in alchemy.
Inherited from her parents’ research results, Perfikot mastered these techniques, able to turn a person into stone or revert them back.
This was originally a battlefield emergency technique her mother developed, capable of preserving life and inhibiting injury deterioration by transforming wounded soldiers into stone and undoing it at a place with sufficient medical conditions.
Perfikot’s mother was granted the title of Alchemist Master for her research on this technique.
But this technique originally intended for saving lives is now turned by Perfikot into the cruelest punishment in the world as she used the Philosopher’s Stone to petrify those yet-to-die people impaled on branches.
They wouldn’t die, nor could they escape, continually feeling endless pain and emitting anguished howls.
And because Perfikot used the Philosopher’s Stone, no other alchemist could undo her magic unless they also possessed the Philosopher’s Stone.
"Miss, Madam will understand you." Foster could only gently comfort Perfikot, hoping her heart wouldn’t become heavier from bearing all this.
"Forget it, let’s go back; we’ve lingered in this city too long." Perfikot said no more, turned around, and returned to the White Gem.
Meanwhile, the knights and guards had already received Perfikot’s orders, even after dismantling the barricades, they all returned to the White Gem as well, with only a few knights guarding Perfikot.
They now followed Perfikot, becoming the last batch of passengers back to the White Gem.
Not long after, this ship seen as hell by New Shaker City’s populace set sail, gradually leaving the port’s docks.
Though Perfikot had left, the "decorations" she left behind remained in New Shaker City, and even the Governor couldn’t think of a good way to handle all this.
While understanding Perfikot’s intention to suppress the Independent Faction, he never imagined Perfikot’s methods could be this cruel.
Now he found himself neither advancing nor retreating, utterly unable to conceive the severity to dismantle nor willing to dismantle the massive petrified statue.
"Forget it, it’s just three years, we’ll discuss any issues after that." Ultimately, the Governor opted not to offend Perfikot now, letting these things continue to remain at the port’s docks.
It’s just three years anyway, after that... whether or not to dismantle doesn’t matter anymore.
On the White Gem, having finally left the bloody and putrid port, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Even Perfikot herself couldn’t tolerate the nauseating smell, often vomiting several times a day, and unable to sleep at night.
If it wasn’t for alchemical potions to sustain her body, she might have collapsed from the stress already.
But even then, she pushed through to complete all this.
Now finally leaving the shattered New Shaker City, Perfikot herself also breathed a sigh of relief.
"Next is a proper scientific exploration; hopefully, no more fools will emerge, I’m truly unwilling to kill any more." Lying on the bunk in the cabin, Perfikot prayed desperately.
Yet no Divine came to answer Perfikot’s prayers.
And she herself knew clearly that such things were likely unavoidable.
As the plan commenced, constructing the sanctuary would later require sacrificing countless lives, her hands soaked in blood, unable to wash clean.
Perfikot was long prepared for this, just didn’t expect having to slaughter the Independent Faction in the colony before brutally suppressing the sanctuary’s workers.
One can only say, destiny is indeed enigmatic, like a capricious woman, never revealing what the next moment might be.
"Sigh..." Ultimately, Perfikot could only sigh deeply, burying her head into the pillow.
Not having slept for an entire week, she finally could not resist the drowsiness and fell deeply asleep. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the NoveIＦire.net