Chapter 532: The Witch Trials

The main hall of the Papal Palace.

This is the main hall, which only the Pope and his entourage are allowed to enter, and which is guarded by guards so thick that not even a mosquito can get in for a day, and at this time of the Pope's assassination, is lined with all sorts of mechanisms and guards for witches.

The closely guarded Pope was now huddled in his seat with fear on his face, his chest heaving violently, panting so hard he was about to vomit.

The fear of having escaped death at the hands of the Queen of Hearts still hung over him like a sword, as she stepped on his head, looked at him with the indifference and hatred of an ant, and said to him with a lowered head.

"What on earth gave you the confidence to say the words you are my father?"

The Pope, who had never been threatened with death so close to him again after the Witch's Heart trial, looked up in a trance, opposite the mirror, the mirror in which Hearts had stopped moving after one look.

Just as he was about to kill himself under the compulsion of the Hearts, the Hearts stopped moving as if frozen in time and were taken to the bottom of the cell.

-- like the enemy killing you is even more frightening because you don't know why the enemy spared you.

The Pope shuddered in fear and closed his eyes, but couldn't help thinking - it was all right, the prison at the bottom of the Sky was so hard there was no way a man could get out of it!

But at the same time, it occurred to him in some trance -

What was it that made his own child, whom he had judged by his own hand, so powerful, and what was it that spared him?

Is it because he's his father?

If the Pope had asked this question and Phoebe had heard it at the door, she would have laughed out loud at the sheer hilarity of what he said and broken her pretense of innocence.

If there were 10,000 bad revenge stories in the world about poor children of their biological scum fathers who show mercy to their fathers and let them off the hook in revenge, there would not be one with a protagonist named Hearts.

--This is a guy who can keep his adoptive and biological fathers and twenty-three stallions in heat together.

A man who makes a fool of himself with Hearts can only get himself killed.

The bottom cell of the Sky City.

Hearts' arms and legs were suspended by two thin, long white bone chains from the loops on either side of the cell, his shoulders pulled straight and immobile by this drawn-tight chain, his long crimson hair sliding down the back of his scarred, naked neck in front of his blade, the ground shuddering as blood dripped down the ends of his hair to the ground.

He slowly lifted his head to look at something directly above him, unable to resist a lazy grin on his face.

"No wonder I was told that the prison at the bottom of Sky Island was the best prison in the world for men and that I would never be able to get out, it's because of these things."

"It's quite a trick to hide the male eels and make a prison out of it."

Above Hearts' head is a huge, transparent glass pool filled with millions of tossing male eels, the sides of which are set into the rocky crevices of Sky Island, and it is at the bottom of this pool that Hearts is imprisoned. He could look up and see through the glass bottom the grey bodies of the eels writhing and tangling, like noodles coming to life, tumbling in the pool's boiling water.

The bone chain in his hand could not have trapped him, but the loops on either side of this chain were stuck to the glass, and if he ripped it off, this whole pool of male eels would have tilted and fallen on top of him, drowning him and wrapping around and climbing up his body.

Eels are pervasive, and male eels in particular - a monster that is said to be digestible only by the intestinal fluids of males.

If he did not want to swallow the digestive eel in reverse, then he had better not act rashly - the bishop who had brought Hearts here threatened him so viciously, but at the same time there was fear and hesitation hidden in his eyes.

Although the word was that this was the one place in the world that was sure to hold a man, no one knew if this place could keep an eye on Hearts, so the cardinal watched Hearts' expression carefully and found that instead of being angry, he had a vague smile on his face and snorted very softly.

"A prison that's sure to hold men? Are you sure?"

The Cardinal was stunned for a moment when he saw Hearts turn his head and look up at the top of the cell, his purple pupils reflecting the boiling, writhing eels in a light, sarcastic tone.

"Aren't there more women locked up on this island?"

Cardinal Buming White Hearts was trying to make a point as he continued to threaten in a stern voice: "You will not escape! In addition to this layer of organs, the pool of male eels, we have another layer of organs that are naturally formed on this island, and you will never get away!"

"What organ?" Hearts cocked his head on his arm in boredom as he looked over at the Cardinal, a smile on his face that actually held an indescribable sense of seduction, "I've lived on this island for so long, I'm surprised I didn't know there were no naturally occurring mechanisms?"

"Will you tell me?"

The Cardinal quickly looked away, breathing heavily - it took less than a second of looking directly into that overly beautiful face, those purple eyes, before his heart began to tremble and his mind was turned upside down, what a terrible witchcraft!

"The island was sold to the Pope by a very mysterious gentleman." It was clear that at this moment he was supposed to be leaving after imprisoning Hearts, but his mouth uncontrollably continued to explain at Hearts' questioning, the resulting fear and fascination on his face twisting into an eerie expression as his voice trailed off, "That gentleman, when he sold the island to the Bishop, told the Pope that it was an island that would never hit the ground, that would forever be suspended in the air, a city in the sky for all to look up to."

The expression on Hearts' face faded and he looked at the Cardinal with a slight inclination of his head, "And?"

"Did he say anything else? Like why the island was being sold to the Pope?"

The Cardinal shook his head, "No, none of us know the transaction, only that the gentleman sold the island to the Pope."

Hearts stared at the other man: "How high did the gentleman he ...... bought the island for?"

--He had always known that the island had been sold by Bai six, but he Buming white and didn't understand that the other man, who was obviously a god and had spent a huge amount of money and expenses taking him out on a casual trip, didn't look like someone who was so short of money that he needed to sell the island, or such a bizarre island in the sky.

Although ...... he himself knew that without this island in the sky, there would be other islands in the sky to bear the ugly desires of these men, this island was Bai six just the trafficker, he did not know what would happen afterwards, he was just an outsider.

But in those four years, after Hearts had learned that the island had once belonged to Bai six, when a thunderstorm raged outside, Hearts couldn't help but look out of the window and wait for the peculiar masked guest to step onto the island, and something else was uncontrollably mixed in with the anticipation.

...... is like Bai six - the god who was the first to take him off the island, the guest who took him to see the sea, to see the sky, to see the earth, the friend who held out his hand to him, who gently smiled and answered all his requests and said yes, the friend who was supposed to bring him the brightest joy memories, is also using this territory, once his own, to bear the pain he has felt for over ten years.

Hearts couldn't help thinking, "Why, Bai six, why sell the island?

Is it really just about the money?

"That gentleman didn't ask for money." The Cardinal replied to Hearts, "He made a deal with the Pope that had nothing to do with money."

"A deal?" Hearts repeated those two words word for word as he slowly looked up, "What deal?"

"That gentleman said that he had come in response to the Pope's desires and wishes, that he had come to grant the Pope's wish, to sell and give the Pope an island that floats in the sky, that can do anything and will not be easily discovered, and that only those you allow on the island will be allowed to do so." The Cardinal took two steps back with some trepidation at the momentary hollow look in Hearts' eyes and stumbled over his words, "But, but as the price for granting the wish-"

"That the Pope should henceforth be sacrificed for all the suffering produced by himself and those around him, and for all the suffering produced on this island."

[Are you ...... making a wish at God Xiang?

The guest smiled at the fourteen year old Hearts: [Yes, I will grant all your wishes].

[But the price is that henceforth you and all those around you who suffer because of you shall be sacrificed to me].

Hearts blinked very slowly and his fingers, bound up in bone chains, twitched spasmodically.

...... For so long, he had avoided himself in general and hadn't been able to ask the question when he met Bai six on that occasion at the age of eighteen, knowing he was dreading the answer.

But the answer really came without fear, and his emotions, his brain, and even his soul seemed to turn into a blank, an infinite blank.

The island is first sold to his father, who exploits everyone on the island according to his own desires to cause suffering, and then chooses him to mutilate those who exploited him back then again in the course of his rebellion, causing suffering a second time and inducing him not to kill them, prolonging the suffering of both sides indefinitely by means of a trial.

-a rather beautiful reckoning, doubling, oh no, infinitely multiplying the painful sacrifice.

From start to finish, it was what he expected.

He was just one piece of the game that the bad gods had devised in the world.

Hearts looked laxly ahead of him, a gap in the rock, through which he could faintly see that it was raining outside the island, with a slight pattering that calmed all boiling emotions, like the night he had wished for Bai six.

[Is the price I have to pay for granting my wish a sacrifice of pain to you? Hearts asked him softly, "Is it important to you to sacrifice pain? Does it mean that you don't exist if no one offers pain?

[No, if I really ceased to exist because of it, I would be delighted by it instead]. The guest sighed softly as if in sorrow.

Hearts queried: [Then why do you need me to sacrifice pain?

[Because ......] the guest smiled and answered him, [It is the soul that bears the pain that is interesting and beautiful.

The guest with the peculiar mask smiled, extended his hand and said to him, "This time, will you come with me to see the earth?"

They went to the crowded train, where the guest smiled and said to him, [I put a bomb in that man's mirror].

Hearts looked curiously at the man in the carriage holding up a huge mirror and asked: [Why did you put a bomb in that man's mirror?

The guest laughed a little: [Because this is the game I designed].

[Wouldn't a lot of people die if it exploded like that? Hearts wondered, "Why was it designed that way?

The guest laughed and answered him-

-- [Don't you think that's an interesting design?