Witch trials

The Bishop sees Heart hang his head in sudden silence, he carefully scans Heart's expression and freezes abruptly.

There was nothing on Heart's face, no sadness, no joy, no anger, no fear, not a trace of light in those violet eyes that had been so wide, he raised his head slightly, looked at the crack in the rock at the bottom of the island of Sky City where the wind and rain had poured in, and those cool, moist winds blew against his dry face, making him blink, and then smile very softly.

Then he wept.

The Bishop was stunned, and in his surprise, his speech stuttered: "You, you're crying?"

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

All the men who ordered Heart complained that they would not cry no matter how they were tossed around, that face was so beautiful, those eyes so brimming, how charming they were when they cried, why didn't they cry?

Later, Heart's tears, along with his beauty, became a legend on this island, and there were always drunken men who came to the island and asked Heart, with mesmerized and yearning eyes, why don't you cry? Why don't you cry? I have to give my life for you to cry for me?

Heart just smiled lazily with his eyes up, "Tears are a sign of pain."

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

"You're not worth it."

"Did I cry?" Heart asked rhetorically, out of nowhere, "So it was me who cried?"

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

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

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

With the bishop's reminder sound, that rocky crevice instantly turned into a silver-blue door slightly open slit, with endless silver-blue light stars flowing inside, and the rocky crack that Heart had just seen was like an illusion.

The Bishop looks to Heart : "This is the second organ of this prison, and the secret of the island's ability to float."

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

"The crack was left by the gentleman who said that the rift was a doorway he had left on purpose, and that the other side of the door led to the abyss and sin, and that he had told us not to look directly at the silvery-blue glow behind this doorway, that it would cause those who looked directly at it to see underneath 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 we would never be able to come out again. "

"It's an unbecoming, unspeakable chasm, and we purposely built the Sky Prison on the opposite side of the gap, which you have to pass through in order to leave, and coupled with the male eel pools, no one has ever managed to get out from underneath it."

The bishop condescendingly pronounced judgment on Heart, "Don't struggle, you'll be stuck on this island for the rest of your life."

When the bishop, who was responsible for holding Heart, emerged from the bottom of the cell, he soon received a phone call from the Pope, which he respectfully answered, and on the other side of the line was the Pope's heavy voice inquiring, "Have you locked him up yet?"

"Locked up." The bishop's tone was deferential, "Hang him for two days, and when he's weakened, we'll interrogate him properly, and be sure to ask him all about how he acquired all this sorcery."

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

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

Heart was not the first Sky Island prisoner they put in, this prison, in addition to the tight confinement, because that gap has the role of confusing the heart, can let people see their hearts desire the most flourishing things, is equivalent to a lie detector and spit truth, and there is also a very good interrogation of the prisoner's efficacy.

It was only necessary to imprison the prisoner inside, and when the prisoner looked up and saw the rift and said what he saw, he would be able to learn what the prisoner's innermost thoughts were - no matter how stubborn, or even a high-level swindler who had fooled even himself, in the face of this rift, he would have to face the desires and truth of his own innermost being.

The Bishop wasn't surprised that the Pope inquired about this, as Heart had surprised everyone by not laying down the law today, and were waiting to see the results of Heart's interrogation after seeing the rift.

But there's obviously no way to satisfy everyone with this result.

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

"The chasm does not deceive us." The Pope was silent for a long time as he slowly repeated the Bishop's words, "So what the Queen's heart longs for is ...... a crevice on 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, his eyes cloudy in his aged, sagging face, and his slightly trembling tone of voice made him sound not like a powerful Pope, but like an ordinary old man on the verge of rotting into the ground.

"I ordered the Cardinal to imprison my attacker at the very bottom of Sky City, where there is absolutely no way he can escape."

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

The Pope's originally cloudy eyes suddenly sharpened, and his tone abruptly lowered, "The Island in the Sky! This pure land that belongs to me and God can actually have the power of witches able to go up there!"

He raised his heavy scepter and pounded it into the ground, causing it to shake, and rebuked angrily, "What a dereliction of duty on the part of those of you who guard the ground to allow the witches to ascend the ladder of heaven, and to allow mankind's one and only ark, Noah's Ark, to be tainted by the evil that spreads upward!"

"Twenty-one cardinals died, and even I was threatened." The Pope shook his head sorrowfully, "These are all meritorious people who have tried countless witches in the midst of the Witch Trials, and actually died in the safe zone that the Holy See has carved out, what do you want the people to think of us? If the news gets out, won't the prestige that the Holy See has managed to build up with great difficulty be swept away overnight?"

"We can't even defeat a group of renegade rabble from the Inquisition led by a Holy Maiden Patrol Leader who defected from the Holy See, and we're still talking about clearing out all the witches!" The Pope violently shook his scepter to the ground, "Where is the captain of the escort guarding the stairway to the island? Punish him severely!"

The bishop who led Phoebe in shook his shoulders and reported in a very low voice, "Your Holiness, we've tightly blocked the news, it shouldn't get out."

"And the heavenly ladder ......" The bishop paused, he slightly raised his head to look at the scepter in the pope's hand that was not light in weight at first glance, swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and reminded in a small voice, "Your Holiness, are you forgetting? You are the only one who can open the heavenly ladder."

Phoebe, who had been keeping her head lowered, raised her head with it at this moment, and she followed the gaze of the bishop next to her to the scepter in the Pope's hand, then raised an eyebrow.

The scepter looked ancient and heavy, like some ancient wood carved from an extremely long period of time, the scepter surface was uneven, it was an octopus tentacles embracing upward, at the very top should be the position of the octopus head is a huge gemstone, amazingly, this gemstone is not engraved but suspended in the scepter, the gemstone is the size of an adult's fist, it's not translucent, but a little cloudy, you can see some lint-like debris in it. Some cotton wool-like debris, but all of this was not the first reason why this uniquely shaped scepter attracted the eye-

--The center of this gem is slightly translucent with a layer of silver-blue light, and with the scepter shape of the tentacles, and the suspended head of the gem, it looks like a pecten glowing in the ocean.

The Bishop carefully raised his hand to signal the Pope to look at the scepter in his hand, "Your Holiness, the ladder to the island can only be opened by the scepter in Noh's hand."

"When you first begged the gentleman who sold you the island, saying that you wanted this floating island, the [City in the Sky], to be well hidden, that only those you wanted to go up there could go up there, and those who didn't want to go up there couldn't go up there, and that you wanted it to be like your home, and that only you would have the key to get on the island."

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

"He wrapped a small section of the fissure with a gem, making the light coming through the fissure so gentle and safe that nothing would happen if you looked directly at it, and then placed the gem on your scepter, gifting it to you as the key to the island; the fissure wrapped in the gem and the fissure in your gem are of the same origin, so only the scepter in your hand can unlock the heavenly stairway up to the island, regardless of whether the escort Captain guards the ladder or not, as long as the scepter in your hand is still there, the [key] that opens the island is still there, it's impossible for any witch to be able to go up to the island and pollute it."

The Pope looked to the jewel on the scepter and lapsed into silence.

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

The bishop, who thought he was going to be severely punished as well, let out a long breath.

"The fissure ...... wrapped in the scepter jewel that that gentleman gave me," the Pope fell into a reminiscence, whispering in a trance, "possessed a very strong and powerful power, that short, less than a meter fissure 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, yet that gentleman was able to easily encase it into a safe jewel that was easily gifted to me as a key."

"I had wondered what the gem was made of, and like the scepter in my hand, I used many hard and unyielding materials wanting to try and wrap around the crevice at the bottom of the island, and I tried all the gems in the world, and none of them were able to resist the strength of the rift, but in the blink of an eye, they went up in smoke."

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

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

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

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

"-is the heart of an agonized soul congealed."

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