Ophelia remained calmly smiling.

Saul believed that beneath those crimson lips, she wasn't gritting her teeth in rage.

But the Sky City Lord still remained silent for several seconds before continuing, "Yes, Crum did indeed find a way to evade my surveillance within Sky City's White Glass Palace."

She looked at Pei'er with her mouth covered. "But I also thought of a countermeasure. Would you like to hear it?"

Pei'er widened her eyes and made two muffled sounds.

"But I don't want to tell you."

Ophelia's single sentence made Pei'er's eyes flash with menace again.

Saul stepped forward to block Pei'er. "Do you want me to continue helping you research the Water God biography that Crum was reading before his death?"

Ophelia shook her head. "Although you're a genius, Water God knowledge isn't your area of expertise. Having you help me research would be worse than finding a few ordinary scholars. In fact, I only found the first half of the biography on the dead Crum—he hid the second half."

She couldn't help but raise her head a bit, revealing that soft, snow-white, curved neck that just didn't look like a neck.

"I'm currently secretly searching for the second half of those biographies while sealing most exit routes from the city and monitoring the entire island for anomalies. So I currently have no way to cooperate with you."

"I understand what you mean." At this point, Saul finally knew what Ophelia was busy with. "Investigate Crum's cause of death and retrieve the hidden biography. Once these are complete, can you help me contact Pei'er in the Prismatic World?"

Ophelia finally nodded.

"Then our transaction can begin." Saul nodded and bowed, then turned to leave. "Please have someone take me to the location where Crum died."

Saul walked to the great doors, which were opened by invisible hands.

Outside sunlight tentatively shone in.

Ona, the female wizard who had led Saul here, still stood by the door like a serene statue.

"Ona, you'll temporarily serve as Saul's assistant. Except for top-secret information, everything can be accessed by him."

Ona, who had been able to naturally bow to Ophelia's clones before, trembled all over, then stiffly bent her knees. "Yes, City Lord."

Saul looked back, but only the white porcelain bottle remained on the throne—the Sky City Lord inside had vanished.

She had probably burrowed back inside.

The great doors immediately closed after Saul left the main hall.

"Lord Saul, what do you need to do now?"

"I want to see where Wizard Crum died."

Ona was stunned, and her smile wasn't as pleasant as before.

"So the City Lord entrusted this task to you."

Saul observed Ona's expression. When she was almost sweating, he said, "Does Crum's death have anything to do with you?"

"No, it doesn't." Ona lowered her head, and was not panicking.

However, she was nervous and afraid about something else.

The place where Crum died was in a room inside the White Glass Palace.

This area was rather remote, mainly used for storing infrequently used materials and goods.

As soon as Saul and Ona approached, they felt a cold air.

He discovered a small room ahead with thick frost on the inner side of the door. The cold air was emanating from inside the room.

Saul didn't enter immediately but looked around. "Although this room can block City Lord Ophelia's surveillance, wouldn't appearing in such a remote place arouse suspicion?"

"No. There are many similar places in the castle." Having walked this far, Ona had organized her emotions and answered Saul with a bright smile. "Many wizards live in the White Glass Palace. Most are scholars very skilled at research, but they also have very eccentric temperaments. Sometimes they just like to run to strange places to research and read, saying it inspires them. So the castle has many rooms specifically to provide research spaces for them."

Saul nodded slowly. "Plus the City Lord can monitor the entire White Glass Palace and even sense the entire Sky City, so she doesn't care where these wizards research. She just didn't expect someone to use an ice-sealed room to block her surveillance."

Ona's face paled slightly, unconsciously lowering her voice. "So we've been secretly investigating Crum's cause of death and where he took the stolen items. Normally, this place can't be entered unless I brought you here."

Recalling the journey here, Saul hadn't noticed any facilities preventing others from entering—not even mental suggestion devices.

But he quickly understood how City Lord Ophelia prevented others from entering.

Because while they were talking, an Ophelia in a sea-blue gown walked out from that ice-sealed house.

"City Lord." Ona immediately bowed.

Facing the dress-wearing Ophelia, her emotions weren't as tense as before.

She seemed to treat the Ophelias commonly seen throughout the castle and the Ophelia in the main hall with only her head and neck exposed as two different people.

"Mm, wait outside." The blue-gowned Ophelia didn't smile, but she also didn't have the oppressive feeling of the Ophelia in the white porcelain bottle.

"Hello, City Lord." Saul stepped forward and spoke actively.

The Ophelia before him still nodded elegantly, then turned to enter the ice-sealed room.

"Come in and talk."

Saul followed her in.

The room's door immediately closed, turning this place back into a frozen world.

The ice-sealed room could block Ophelia's surveillance, but she couldn't possibly let Saul investigate without monitoring his movements.

So this blue-gowned Ophelia was specifically left in the room—a more precise, independently transmitting surveillance probe.

"It seems you know why I'm here? Is this your previous preparation, or a message transmitted from the main hall?" Saul asked curiously.

The Ophelia before him showed no significant emotional change. "Are you asking whether information transmission between different Ophelias is synchronized?"

Saul held his chin, not denying it.

"But I have no obligation to tell you." Ophelia said while walking to one side of the room, clearing the inner space and letting Saul see the corpse in the inner rest room.

Although dead for over two days, the body lying on the ground was still fresh, without the bloodless pallor typical of the deceased.

Saul crouched down and pressed Crum's skin with his fingertip—it was soft and elastic, completely unaffected by the ice-cold air here.

Saul lifted his hand and pressed down again, but this time his fingertip became semi-transparent gray skin.

The skin immediately sank into the corpse upon contact, with only the bone remaining outside.

The blue-gowned Ophelia stood behind Saul, quietly watching his actions, not hiding her surveillance intentions at all.

Saul slowly closed his eyes.

"Glub glub..."

He heard the sound of bubbles in water.

After a moment, Saul opened his eyes and stood up again, facing Ophelia. "His body indeed died from drowning, but the water in his body is different from the stored water here."

Saul was somewhat puzzled. "The water has high salt content and some algae. It seems to come from the deep sea."

He turned back to look at Crum's corpse that appeared alive on the surface.

"His soul only retains a little consciousness—the main body has disappeared. In his remaining consciousness, I heard the sound of water."

(End of Chapter)