When the bishop saw Hong Tao suddenly lower her head and fell silent, he carefully glanced at her expression and suddenly froze.

There was nothing on Hong Tao's face, no sadness, no joy, no anger, no fear, and there was no light in those purple eyes that used to be moving. He raised his head slightly, looking at the rock crack at the bottom of the sky city island that let in wind and rain. The slightly cool and moist wind blew on his dry face, making him blink, and then he smiled lightly.

Then he burst into tears.

The bishop was stunned. He was so surprised that he paused for a moment before speaking: "You, you are crying?"

Having been on the island for so long, the bishop has seen thousands of women crying, but he has never seen Heart's tears, not even on the night when Heart came to the island at the age of twelve.

All the men who have chosen the red heart complained that no matter how much they tortured her, she would never cry. That face was so beautiful, those eyes were so bright, and she would be so charming when she cried, so why didn't she cry?

Later, Hong Tao's tears and her beauty became a legendary existence on the island. There were always drunken men who came to the island and asked Hong Tao with infatuated and longing eyes: "Why don't you cry? I have to sacrifice my life for you to cry for me."

Hong Tao just raised her eyes lazily and smiled: "Tears are a symbol of pain."

"If I cry, the pain of paying the tribute will be reduced. For the God I believe in, I will not shed a single tear for you mortals."

"You're not worth it."

"Did I cry?" Hong Tao suddenly asked, "So I was the one who cried?"

"I thought it was rain outside the island blowing through the cracks and falling on my face."

"...Gap? There is no gap for wind to blow in here..." The bishop followed Hong Tao's gaze and then his expression froze. "That gap?"

"Look more carefully, Peach. That crack is not a crack in the rock. It's a crack in a door."

Following the bishop's reminder, the crack in the rock instantly turned into a slightly opened gap of a silver-blue door, with endless silver-blue light and stars flowing inside. The rock crack that Hongtao had just seen seemed like an illusion.

The bishop looked at Heart and said, "This is the second mechanism of this prison. It is also the secret of why this island can float."

"The reason why the city in the sky never falls and floats in the sky is because of the wind blowing out from the crack at the bottom of this island."

"This crack was left by that gentleman. He said that this crack was a crack in the door that he left on purpose. The other side of the door leads to the abyss and sin. He told us not to look directly at the silver-blue light behind the crack, as it would make people see a psychedelic scene. The thing on the other side of the door would slowly suck us into the other side of the door, and we would never be able to get out again."

"This is a rift that cannot be looked at or described. We purposely built the Sky Prison on the other side of the rift. If you want to leave, you must pass through this rift. Plus the male eel pond, no one can successfully get out from here."

The bishop looked down at Heart and pronounced: "Don't struggle, you will be trapped on this island for the rest of your life."

After the bishop who was in charge of imprisoning the Red Heart came out of prison, he soon received a call from the Pope. He answered the phone respectfully, and the Pope asked in a heavy voice: "Have you locked him up?"

"Lock him up," the bishop said respectfully. "Hang him up for two days. When he is weak, we will interrogate him thoroughly and find out how he learned these witchcrafts."

"Well." The Pope was silent for a moment, "Don't be too harsh on him. May God protect us all."

Taking advantage of the Pope's sudden change of subject, he asked: "...what did he see when he looked straight into the crack at the bottom of the prison?"

Hong Tao was not the first prisoner from Sky Island that they had locked up. Besides being a strict prison, this prison also served as a lie detector and truth serum, as it could confuse people and allow them to see what they desired most. It was also very effective in interrogating prisoners.

All you need to do is lock a prisoner in there and tell him what he saw when he looked up at the crack, and you will know what he is thinking deep down in his heart. No matter how stubborn he is, or even a high-level swindler who has deceived himself, he will have to face his inner desires and truth in front of this crack.

The bishop was not surprised by the Pope's question, because everyone was surprised that Hearts did not kill him today, and they were all waiting to see the result of Hearts' interrogation after the crack.

But this result obviously cannot satisfy everyone.

"Hearts...saw a crack on the island," the bishop replied hesitantly. "He said he drove out through the crack and saw it was raining outside the island."

"Gaps will not deceive us." The Pope was silent for a long time, and he slowly repeated the bishop's words, "So what the Queen desires in her heart is... a crack on an island where it's raining?"

The Papal Palace, main hall.

The Pope, Phoebe and the bishop who brought Phoebe were face to face. His eyes were cloudy on his old and sagging face, and his voice was trembling slightly. He didn't look like a powerful pope, but rather like an ordinary old man who was about to decay and be buried in the ground.

"I ordered the Cardinal to imprison the man who attacked me at the bottom of the Sky Castle, where he would never be able to escape."

“But this incident is enough to wake us up.”

The Pope's eyes, which had been cloudy at first, suddenly became sharp, and he spoke in a low voice, "Sky Island! This pure land that belongs to me and God, actually has the power of witches able to go up there!"

He raised his heavy scepter and slammed it heavily on the ground, causing the ground to shake. He angrily rebuked, "You who are guarding the ground are so negligent that you actually let the witch climb the ladder to heaven, allowing the only Noah's Ark of mankind to be polluted by the evil that spreads from above!"

"Twenty-one cardinals died, and even I was threatened." The Pope shook his head in grief. "These were all meritorious officials who tried countless witches during the witch trials, but they died in the safe zone designated by the Holy See. How do you want the people to think of us? If the news gets out, won't the prestige that the Holy See has worked so hard to build be wiped out overnight?"

"We can't even defeat a group of people who defected from the Inquisition and were led by a captain of the Holy Maiden Patrol who defected from the Vatican, and you still say we're going to wipe out all witches!" The Pope slammed his scepter to the ground, "Where's the captain of the guard guarding the ladder to the island? Severe punishment!"

The bishop who brought Phoebe in trembled and reported in a very low voice: "Your Holiness, we have strictly blocked the news. It should not be able to get out."

"And the ladder..." The bishop paused, raised his head slightly, looked at the heavy scepter in the Pope's hand, swallowed his saliva, and reminded quietly, "Your Holiness, have you forgotten? Only you can open the ladder."

Phoebe, who had been keeping her head down, also raised her head at this moment. She followed the bishop's gaze, looked at the scepter in the Pope's hand, and raised her eyebrows.

The scepter looked ancient and heavy, as if it was carved from some very old wood. The surface of the scepter was uneven, and it was shaped like an octopus with tentacles embracing each other upward. At the top, where the octopus's head should be, there was a huge gem. The magical thing was that this gem was not inlaid, but suspended on the scepter. The gem was the size of an adult's fist, and it was not transparent, but a little cloudy, and you could see some cotton-like debris inside. But all this was not the first reason why this unique scepter attracted people's attention.

——The center of this gem has a faint silver-blue light. Combined with the shape of the tentacles and the suspended gem head, it looks like a comb jellyfish glowing in the ocean.

The bishop raised his hand carefully and motioned for the Pope to look at the scepter in his hand: "Your Holiness, the ladder to the island can only be opened with the scepter in your hand."

"You begged the gentleman who sold you the island, saying that you hoped that this floating island, the [Castle in the Sky], would be very private, so that only those who wanted to go up there could go up there, and those who didn't want to go up there couldn't go up there. You hoped that this island would be like your home, and that only you would have the key to land on it."

"That gentleman agreed to your request and really made you a key to the Castle in the Sky."

"He used a gem to cover a small section of the crack, making the light from the crack gentle and safe. It would not cause any harm if you looked directly at it. Then he placed the gem on your scepter and gave it to you as the key to the island. The cracks covered by the gem and the cracks in your gem are of the same origin, so only the scepter in your hand can open the ladder to the island. Regardless of whether the captain of the guard team guards the ladder or not, as long as the scepter in your hand is still there, the [key] to open the island is still there, and no witch can go to the island and pollute it."

The Pope looked at the gem on the scepter and fell silent.

After a long pause, the Pope finally spoke: "You are right. As long as the scepter is in my hand, no one can land on the island."

The bishop, who thought he would also be severely punished, breathed a sigh of relief.

"The crack covered by the gemstone in the scepter that gentleman gave me..." The Pope fell into recollection and whispered in a trance, "It has a very strong power. Such a short crack at the bottom of the island, less than one meter wide, can support an island to float for more than ten years without sinking. Such a dangerous and sharp crack, but that gentleman was able to easily cover it into a safe gemstone and gave it to me as a key."

"I was curious about the material of this gem. Just like the scepter in my hand, I used a lot of extremely hard materials to try to cover the cracks at the bottom of the island. I tried all the gems in the world, but none of them could withstand the strength of the cracks. In the blink of an eye, they were reduced to ashes."

"Finally, I couldn't resist my curiosity, so I asked the gentleman what kind of gems and materials could cover and fill the cracks under the island."

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

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

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

"——It is a heart condensed from a tormented soul."

"Only a soul that is in enough pain and condenses into a gem after leaving the body can close the door to desire and the abyss."