Chapter Ninety-Four: First Rule Out a Correct Answer

Inside the Ancient One’s chamber, the place was now packed with people. Morley and Blaze stood in the front row—one the first to discover the scene, the other the one who had come to inspect the body.

“The Ancient One is indeed no longer breathing, and her body has been heavily corroded by some kind of energy. As for the sword wound in her chest, unless there were special circumstances, it should be the fatal one,” Blaze said as he rose to his feet, his tone grave.

What kind of person could kill the Ancient One in her own stronghold without making a sound? It was nothing short of impossible.

“Morley! How did you notice something was wrong?” Wang drew a deep breath and asked.

“Because of the smell of sulfur. I came to see the Ancient One to discuss some matters, but no one answered no matter how I called. Just as I was about to leave, I caught the smell of sulfur,” Morley briefly explained what had happened.

“Sulfur? Could it be a demon?” Wang murmured. “But even if Mephisto had slipped in, there’s no way he could have assassinated the Ancient One so silently...”

“Oh, right! I smelled a similar odor on Casilius yesterday. But since it wasn’t very strong, I first mistook it for the smell of gunpowder and thought he was carrying explosives or something,” Morley added.

“Casilius...” Wang muttered, then turned and shouted, “Has anyone seen Casilius? Where is he?!”

While the mages began searching for the murderer, Blaze stood off to the side in silence. No matter how he thought about it, something felt wrong. Even if Casilius had been an inside man, this should not have happened. The traces on the Ancient One’s body showed that she had never resisted from beginning to end. That was simply too absurd for a Sorcerer Supreme.

A few minutes later, the mage conducting the inspection came rushing back with new information.

“Casilius is gone! But in his room we found an extremely dense demonic aura. The building materials around it have all been tainted by that power!”

Hearing this, Blaze flashed straight to Casilius’s room. Sure enough, just as the inspecting mage had said, the place had already been completely eroded by hell. And Blaze, whose perception had already touched the threshold of law, could even feel a trace of rule-borne power here that did not belong to this world at all.

Casilius was missing. Hell’s traces were found in his room. Hell’s traces were also found on the Ancient One’s corpse. If one ignored the difference in combat strength, the truth was actually easy to guess.

Casilius had been seduced by Mephisto and became an inside man. With him as an accomplice, the Ancient One was caught off guard and assassinated by Mephisto, dying in her own chamber.

Yet even with the truth laid bare, Blaze still could not quite believe it. He put himself in the Ancient One’s place and thought it through from another angle. If the one who had been bewitched were his own disciple, Fina, then yes, he might very likely be assassinated in a moment of surprise. But there was no way there would be no trace of resistance at all.

And yet the Ancient One was dead in the end. She could not possibly have killed herself.

Blaze rubbed his rough face and flashed back. Having eliminated all impossibilities, whatever remained must be the truth. The Ancient One had simply been too careless, or perhaps she had trusted her disciple too deeply, and that was how this had happened.

“What are you pretending to be doing there? Your Clock Tower must take responsibility for this!”

Suddenly, one of the mages turned his spear toward Blaze. “If you people hadn’t taken the Eye of Agamotto, none of this would have happened!”

“Shut up!” Wang snapped. “If losing the Eye of Agamotto would likely lead to her own death, the Ancient One would never have handed it over!”

That mage was left speechless. If he kept pressing the matter, there were only two explanations left: either the Ancient One had wanted to die herself, or the Clock Tower had wanted her dead. Neither fit reality.

After silencing the troublemaker, Wang walked up to Blaze and looked up at him. “Although this matter has little to do with you, could you return the Eye of Agamotto? We need it to determine who the culprit really is!”

Blaze looked at Wang, who was unusually stern, and said slowly and deliberately, “Whether it can be returned is not something I can decide. I have already reported the matter through our internal network, but you may need to prepare yourselves. The Eye of Agamotto may no longer be in this world.”

“What do you mean by that?” Wang asked with a hint of accusation.

“As the two greatest factions, our responsibilities differ from yours. We focus on exploring other parallel worlds vertically, searching for better paths of development for the entire Earth. Right now, the Eye of Agamotto may already have been taken to another world. We wanted to understand its structure so we could build similar artifacts according to the characteristics of different worlds,” Blaze explained. As a Morning Star Mage, he had once assisted on this project before making a mistake.

“This...” Wang was at a loss for words.

“What are you arguing about?” Morley looked coldly at the others. “Casilius is missing. Even if the Ancient One wasn’t killed by him, he is still definitely a key figure!”

“If you still have any conscience at all, come with me and help bring him back!”

“I think, on this point, you will help me...”

As Morley spoke, he looked toward Blaze.

“We will.”

Just as Blaze was about to speak, a teleportation circle lit up in the room, and Heimerdinger stepped out first.

Behind Heimerdinger came Lin Zhengying and Artoria in turn.

The three of them represented the Clock Tower, the Heavenly Court, and the top combat power currently on Earth.

Under the gaze of all the mages, the solemnly dressed Heimerdinger walked up to the Ancient One’s corpse. In his right hand he took out a pocket watch and pressed the button on top.

Click.

Time around them froze completely, yet to the mages’ surprise, their minds remained perfectly normal.

“The Eye of Agamotto is indeed not in this world, but it is not the only thing that can peer into time.”

As he spoke, Heimerdinger began turning the hands of Zilean’s time watch. As the hands spun backward, everything around them started to flow in reverse, and the scene quickly returned to the instant Morley had discovered the body.

Heimerdinger gave Artoria a signal. What came next would involve Mephisto, and people like him usually had ways to resist temporal inspection.

If Mephisto were to strike back from that point in time, it would be no surprise at all.

Artoria nodded. Avalon fully unfolded, enveloping the entire area, while the Sword of the Vow of Victory in her hand was already poised for attack.

Lin Zhengying silently connected to the Heavenly Court network. This time, after making one extra jump, he entered the affiliated Netherworld network and borrowed the power of the ghost envoys who guided souls onward.