Chapter 533: The Witch Trials

The Bishop froze abruptly as he saw Hearts' head drop abruptly into silence, and he scanned Hearts' expression carefully.

There was nothing on Hearts' face, no sorrow, no joy, no anger, no fear, not a glint in those purple eyes that had been so bright, and he lifted his head slightly to look at the crack in the rock at the bottom of the island in the Sky, where the storm had poured in, the cool, moist wind blowing against his dry face, causing him to blink, and then to smile very softly.

Then, he wept.

The bishop was stunned and, out of surprise, his words stuttered: "You, you're crying?"

In all his time on the island, the Bishop had seen thousands of women cry on the island, but he had never seen Hearts' tears, not even on the night Hearts came to the island at the age of twelve.

All the men who ordered Hearts complained that no matter how much they tossed it, they never cried, that face was so beautiful, those eyes were so brimming, how charming they were when they cried, why didn't they cry?

Later, Hearts' tears, along with his beauty, became a legendary feature of the island, and the men who came to the island were always drunk, asking Hearts with fascination and longing in their eyes - Why don't you cry? I would have to give my life for you to cry for me?

Hearts just raised his eyes with a lazy smile, "Tears are a sign of pain."

"If I weep, I will shed one less pain, and I will not shed a single tear for you mortals, for the sake of the God in whom I believe."

"You're not worth it."

"Did I cry?" Hearts asked back in a daze, "So it was me who cried?"

"I thought it was the rain from outside the island through the cracks, blowing water down on my face."

"...... gap? There's no gap here where the wind can blow in ......" The Bishop followed Hearts' gaze, then looked puzzled, "That gap?"

"Look a little closer, Hearts, that gap isn't a crack in the rock, that's a doorway."

With the Bishop's reminder, the rocky crevice was instantly transformed into the slightly open slit of a silver-blue door with an endless stream of silver-blue light stars inside, and the crack in the rock that Hearts had just seen was like an illusion.

The bishop looked to Hearts: "This is the second organ of this prison and the secret of the island's ability to float."

"The reason why the Sky City never falls and floats in the sky is that it relies on the wind currents blowing out of the very bottom crevice of this island."

"The gap was left by the gentleman who said that the chasm was a doorway he had left on purpose, that the other side of the door led to the abyss and sin, and that he told us not to look directly behind the silvery blue glow of the doorway, which would cause those who looked directly to see beneath the ecstasy, and that what was on the other side of the door would slowly suck us into the other side of the door and then never come out. "

"It's an unsightly, unspeakable chasm, and we purposely built the sky prison on the opposite side of the chasm; you have to pass through it to leave, and with the pool of male eels, no one has ever managed to get out from underneath it."

The bishop condescendingly pronounced to Hearts, "Don't struggle, you will be trapped on this island for the rest of your life."

When the bishop in charge of Hearts emerged from the bottom of his cell, he soon received a phone call from the Pope, which he respectfully answered with the Pope's heavy question, "Have you locked him up?"

"Locked up." The bishop spoke in a submissive tone, "Hang him for a couple of days, and when he is weak, we will interrogate him properly, making sure to get to the bottom of how he acquired these sorceries."

"Well." The Pope was silent for a moment, "There is no need to be too harsh with him, may God protect us all."

Borrowing from the Pope's words, he asked, "...... What did he see at the bottom of the cell, when he looked straight into that gap?"

Hearts was not the first prisoner they had put in the Sky Island, a prison that, apart from being tightly held, was the equivalent of a lie detector and a truth-teller, as the slit had the effect of confusing the mind and allowing one to see what one's heart desires most, as well as having the effect of being a good interrogator of prisoners.

All one needs to do is to imprison the prisoner in it, and the prisoner will say what he sees when he looks up and sees the chasm, to learn what is in the prisoner's heart - even the most stubborn, even the senior fraudster who has fooled himself, will have to face his innermost desires and truths in the presence of this chasm.

The Bishop was not surprised that the Pope asked this, for Hearts had surprised everyone by not laying a hand on them today, and was waiting to see the outcome of Hearts' interrogation after the chasm.

But there is clearly no way to please everyone with this result.

" Hearts ...... saw a cleft in the island." The bishop replied hesitantly, "He said that he opened out through the cleft and saw that it was raining outside the island."

"The seam does not deceive us." The Pope was silent for a long time as he slowly repeated the Bishop's words, "So the Queen's heart yearns for ...... a rift in an island where it is raining?"

Papal Palace, main hall.

The Pope and Phoebe came face to face with the bishop who had brought Phoebe, whose eyes were cloudy on his sagging face and whose tone was slightly shaky, not like a powerful pope, but like an ordinary old man on the verge of decaying into the ground.

"I ordered the Cardinal to hold my attacker at the very bottom of the Sky City, where there was absolutely no way he could escape."

"But this incident is also enough of a wake-up call."

The Pope's eyes, which had been cloudy, suddenly sharpened as he spoke in an abruptly low tone, "The Island of the Sky! This pure land that belongs to me and to God, that a witch's power could go up there!"

He lifted his heavy sceptre and pounded it into the ground, causing it to shake with anger and rebuke, "How negligent you who watch over the ground have been in allowing witches to ascend the stairway to heaven, allowing the only Noah's Ark of mankind to be polluted by the evil that has spread upwards!"

"Twenty-one cardinals have died, and even I have been threatened." The Pope shook his head sorrowfully, "These are all men of merit who have tried countless witches in the midst of the witch trials, and they actually died in the safe zone delineated by the Holy See, what do you make the people think of us? If word gets out, won't the prestige that the Holy See has so easily built up be destroyed overnight?"

"We can't even defeat a group of rabble that defected from the Inquisitorial Court led by a Holy Maiden Patrol leader who defected from the Holy See, and we're talking about clearing out all the witches!" The Pope jerked his scepter to the ground, "Where is the captain of the escort guarding the stairs to the island? Punish them severely!"

The bishop who had led Phoebe in had shaken his shoulders and reported in a very low voice: "Your Holiness, we have kept the news under strict lock and key, and it should not get out."

"And the Stairway to Heaven ......" the bishop paused as he raised his head slightly to look at the scepter in the pope's hand, swallowing a mouthful of saliva and reminding in a whisper, "My Lord Pope, are you forgetting? You are the only one who can open the Stairway to Heaven."

Phoebe, who had been keeping her head down, looked up with her at the moment, followed the gaze of the bishop next to her, looked at the sceptre in the Pope's hand, and then raised an eyebrow.

The sceptre looks ancient and heavy, like it was carved from some extremely old wood, with an uneven surface, in the shape of an octopus with its tentacles ringing upwards. There is some cottony detritus, but none of this is the first reason why this uniquely shaped sceptre catches the eye -

--This jewel has a faint layer of silvery-blue light in its centre, and with the sceptre shape of the tentacles, and the suspended head of the jewel, it looks like a ctenophore glowing in the ocean.

The bishop carefully raised his hand to indicate to the Pope to look at the scepter in his hand, "My Lord Pope, the stairway to the island can only be opened by the scepter that can be held in his hand."

"You begged the gentleman who sold you the island, saying that you wanted the floating island, the [Sky City], to be well hidden, that only those you wanted to go up could go up and those who didn't could not, that you wanted the island to be like your home and that only you had the key to the island."

"The gentleman agreed to your request and literally made you a key to the city of the sky."

"He wrapped a small section of the rift with a gemstone, making the light coming through the rift mild and safe, so that nothing would happen if you looked directly at it, and then placed this gemstone on your scepter, gifting you as the key to the island; the rift wrapped in the gemstone is of the same origin as the rift in your gemstone, so only the scepter in your hand can open the ladder to the island, regardless of whether the escort Captain guards the ladder or not, as long as the scepter is still in your hand and the [key] to open the island is still there, it is unlikely that any witch will be able to get to the island and contaminate it."

The Pope looked to the jewel on the sceptre and fell into silence.

After a long, long interval, the Pope spoke, "You are right, as long as the sceptre is in my hands, no one will be able to board the island."

The bishop, who thought he too would be severely punished, let out a long breath.

"The chasm encased in the sceptre jewel that that gentleman gave me ......" the Pope fell into a memory, and he whispered in a trance, "possessed such great strength that a chasm so short, less than a metre, at the bottom of the island, could hold up an island floating for more than ten years without sinking, so dangerous and sharp a crevice, and yet that gentleman was able to easily wrap it into a safe jewel, which was easily gifted to me as a key."

"I have wondered about the material of this gem, like the scepter I hold, and have used many hard, unbelievable materials to try to wrap the gap at the bottom of the island, and I have tried every gem in the world, and none of them have been able to resist the strength of that gap, but in the blink of an eye, they are ashes."

"In the end I couldn't help my curiosity and I asked the gentleman what kind of stones and materials would encase and fill the chasm under the island."

"That gentleman laughed and told me that there is no gem or material on this earth that can fill the gap that leads to the abyss."

"I held up my scepter and asked him, "And what is this jewel in my hand?"

The Pope paused for a moment as he said in a trance, "The gentleman smiled and answered-"

"- is the heart of a suffering soul congealed."

"Only a jewel condensed by a soul in enough pain after leaving the body can close the door to desire and the abyss."