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Tick-tock, time flowed backward, returning to the moment when Casillas had just entered.

Mephisto continued relentlessly pursuing Casillas, determined to kill him no matter who came. "Whoever comes today, Casillas is dead!" he declared.

Chapter Ninety-Three: I'm Actually a Creditor!

Time has turned round and round, and Kaecilius has died countless times in the clashes between Mephisto and the Ancient One.

He is now like Schrödinger's Casillas, never reaching the end of death.

After so many attempts, Mephisto realized that the Ancient One was determined not to let the show fall apart.

So, in the midst of this entanglement, Mephisto also pondered whether there were other solutions.

Although Mephisto hasn't fully figured out the Ancient One's script yet, he can basically guess one thing: the Ancient One wants to shift the blame onto himself in a normal and natural way.

This means that if he doesn't leave some trace, it will be quite difficult for the Ancient One, and her plan may encounter many problems because of it.

Realizing this, Mephisto looked at Casillas, the man who was the biggest trace he had left behind. But he couldn't deal with the man now, so he could only try to remove the hellish power from Casillas's body.

As the ruler of Hell, Mephisto was quite knowledgeable. He knew that there was only one way to achieve this against the Eye of Agamotto: to draw upon its power and thus use its own power against it.

With this in mind, the hellish power within Kaecilius's body began to weave together, forming an extremely simple law of hell, which then clashed with the time law of the Eye of Agamotto.

Time travel!

The Ancient One immediately reversed time again, but the power consumed when the laws of hell clashed with the laws of time could not be recovered.

The issue of the laws of time is relatively easy to resolve. Everything is in a cycle, and the Eye of Agamotto can mobilize the power of time throughout the universe, replenishing itself at any time regardless of space in a certain sense.

However, the power of Hell is more troublesome. Now that the laws have manifested, it is difficult to replenish the energy of Hell. The special powers of Hell are all in Hell, which is the territory of Mephisto's true form. If the Ancient One goes there, she might not be able to come back.

This is also why Mephisto suddenly changed his methods. If this happens a few more times, the power of Hell will be completely exhausted, and the Ancient One's hopes will be dashed.

After this happened three or four times, the Ancient One finally turned around. Her expression was very calm as she slowly walked to the front of the statue.

"What? Planning to surrender? If you're willing to surrender, I might as well give him some more energy." Mephisto spoke with complete confidence.

The environment of Earth's universe does not have the necessary conditions to synthesize Hell Energy, which is why the Ancient One was able to accurately capture Mephisto every time. His appearance here is like a drop of ink falling into a pool of water, as obvious as it gets.

Ancient One looked at Mephisto and suddenly laughed. She stretched out her right hand, waved it in the air, and a ball of pure hellfire ignited from her fingertips.

Mephisto's entire avatar was shocked. The energy of this hellfire was brand new, the kind that had just been "taken" from hell! It wasn't energy gathered from the surrounding area and reused!

This means...

The Ancient One knew that Mephisto understood, and put her hands behind her back. "That's right, you are also one of my creditors. Thank you for your support in protecting the Earth."

"I'll give you a piece of my mind!!" Mephisto's mouth was full of words that had to be censored; he was truly furious this time!

He didn't even know when he lent his "power" to the Ancient One. It's likely that many weaker rule-holders from other dimensions were taken advantage of by the Ancient One in this way.

“Actually, I’ve always been quite troubled by this.” Gu placed a hand on the statue. “How can a Lord of Hell, or an incarnation of a Lord of Hell, not master some kind of law of Hell?”

"Now that we have the rules, although there aren't many, they're enough. Thank you for your cooperation."

As she spoke, the Ancient One took a step forward, and her hand, which had been resting on the statue, passed directly through the material and landed on Mephisto's avatar.

After weaving together some of the laws of hell, Mephisto's avatar was extremely weak. He had exhausted most of his power in all aspects, and under these circumstances, he was simply unable to resist the power of the Ancient One.

They were sent straight back to hell.

After throwing the scapegoat along with Mephisto's avatar into the Hell dimension, the Ancient One grabbed at Kaecilius, pulled out the fragmented, illusory power of law, and placed it into the statue on Kaecilius's chest.

This wasn't an unnecessary move by the Ancient One. Kaecilius's body simply couldn't withstand the power of the laws. If the laws remained in Kaecilius's body after the Eye of Agamotto was removed, the Ancient One could witness a spectacular display of flesh and blood.

After doing all this, the Ancient One borrowed fresh energy from Hell and poured it all into Kaecilius's body, then deactivated the Eye of Agamotto.

Once time returned to normal, Casillas collapsed to the ground with a thud, his body convulsing uncontrollably. He had absorbed too much energy, and his body needed time to adjust.

The Ancient One grasped Kaecilius's hand, and the longsword in his hand shone even brighter, instantly filling the entire room with the smell of sulfur.

Immediately afterwards, Gu pointed the tip of his longsword at his chest and stabbed it down without the slightest hesitation.

Blood gushed out, staining the surrounding ground red. Gu Yi closed her eyes and fell backward, crashing onto the floor. Her breathing gradually stopped, and her body began to cool down.

A few minutes later, Kaecilius recovered from the chaos, glanced at the Ancient One on the ground, and then at the longsword in his hand.

I... killed the Ancient One...

I... killed the Ancient One?

I... killed the Ancient One!

Casillas went from doubt to excitement, but also felt an overwhelming fear. Driven by these emotions, Casillas opened a portal without saying a word and escaped.

QQ QQ…

"Ancient One, are you there?" Morey knocked on the door. He was also looking for the Ancient One, just like Kaecilius, but for completely different reasons.

QQ QQ…

I knocked on the door again, but there was no response.

Morey was about to turn and leave when he smelled something strange.

This time the smell was quite strong; it was clearly identifiable as sulfur, not gunpowder.

Knock knock knock!

"The Ancient One!"

After calling out but receiving no response, Morey gritted his teeth and kicked the door open!

The Ancient One's corpse came into view.

"Ancient One!" Morey rushed to the body, his hands trembling as he touched Ancient One's pulse. The pulse had stopped!

"Help! Something's happened!!!"

Morey's voice echoed throughout the entire monastery!

Chapter Ninety-Four: First, eliminate one correct answer.

The Ancient One's room was now packed with people. Morey and Blaze stood at the front; one was the discoverer of the scene, and the other was there to examine the body.

“The Ancient One is indeed no longer breathing, and her body has been severely corroded by some kind of energy. The sword wound in her chest should be fatal unless there are special circumstances.” Blaze stood up, his tone somewhat heavy. What kind of person could kill the Ancient One in her own stronghold without making a sound? It’s simply impossible.

"Morey! How did you realize something was wrong?" Wang took a deep breath and asked.

"I came to talk to the Ancient One because of the smell of sulfur, but no one responded. Just as I was about to leave, I smelled sulfur!" Morey briefly recounted the situation.

"Sulfur? Could it be a demon?" Wang murmured. "But even if Mephisto infiltrated, he couldn't possibly assassinate the Ancient One silently..."

“Oh, right! I smelled a similar scent on Casillas yesterday, but because the scent wasn’t very strong, I initially mistook it for gunpowder and thought he was carrying explosives or something,” Morey added.

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

While the sorcerers began searching for the culprit, Blaze stood silently to the side. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Even with Kaecilius as an inside man, this shouldn't have happened. The marks on the Ancient One's body indicated that she hadn't resisted at all, which was simply too outrageous for a Sorcerer Supreme.

A few minutes later, the surveying monk returned with the information.

"Casillas is gone! But we found an extremely strong hellish aura in his room, and the surrounding building materials were all infected by this power!"

Upon hearing this, Blaze immediately teleported to Casillas's room. Indeed, just as the surveying mage had said, this place had now been completely corrupted by hell. Moreover, Blaze, who had already reached the threshold of the laws, could sense an aura of laws here that was incompatible with the current world.

Kaecilius disappeared, and traces of hell were found in his room, as well as on the Ancient One's body. If we disregard the difference in combat power, the truth is actually quite easy to guess.

Kaecilius was manipulated by Mephisto into becoming an inside agent. With him acting as an inside agent, the Ancient One was caught off guard and assassinated by Mephisto, thus dying in the room.

But when the truth came out, Blaze still couldn't quite believe it. He put himself in the Ancient One's shoes and tried to put himself in her shoes. If the person who was bewitched was his disciple Fina, he would indeed have a high probability of dying unexpectedly from the assassination, but it was impossible for him to have no trace of resistance.

But the Ancient One is dead after all; she couldn't have committed suicide!

Blaze rubbed his rough face and flashed back. Having eliminated all the impossibilities, what remained could only be the truth: the Ancient One had been far too careless, or perhaps too trusting of her disciple, which led to the current situation.

"What are you pretending for! Your Clock Tower is responsible for this!"

Suddenly, a mage turned his attention to Blaze, saying, "If you 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 my death, the Ancient One certainly wouldn't hand it over!"

The sorcerer was speechless. If he continued to press the matter, there would only be two explanations: either the Ancient One wanted to die, or the Clock Tower wanted her dead, neither of which seemed realistic.

After reprimanding the troublemakers, Wang walked up to Blaze, looked up at him, and said, "Although this matter has little to do with you, we need to return the Eye of Agamotto to determine who the murderer is!"

Blaze looked at the extremely serious king and spoke slowly and deliberately, "Whether it can be returned is not something I can decide, but I have already reported the matter through the internal network. However, you may need to be prepared that the Eye of Agamotto may not exist in this world."

"What do you mean?!" Wang asked, sounding somewhat accusatory.

"We and the Heavenly Court, as the two largest forces, are responsible for different directions. We are exploring other parallel worlds vertically to find better development space for the entire Earth. Now, the Eye of Agamotto may have been taken to other worlds. We want to understand its structure so that we can build similar products based on the characteristics of different worlds," Blaze explained. As a Morning Star mage, he had also assisted in this project before making the mistake.

"This..." Wang didn't know what to say for a moment.

"What are you arguing about?" Morey looked coldly at the others. "Kaecilius is missing. Even if he didn't kill the Ancient One, he's definitely a key figure!"

"If you have any conscience at all, come with me and bring him back!"

"I think you'll help me with this..."

Morey looked at Blaze as he spoke.

“We will.” Just as Blaze was about to speak, a teleportation array lit up in the room, and Heimerdinger stepped out first and spoke.

Following Heimerdinger, Lam Ching-ying and Artoria walked out in turn.

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

Facing the gazes of all the sorcerers, the solemnly dressed Heimerdinger walked to the body of the Ancient One, took out a pocket watch with his right hand, and pressed the button on the top of the watch.

*Snap!* Time around them was frozen completely, but all the mages were surprised to find that their thoughts remained normal.

"The Eye of Agamotto is indeed not in this world, but it is not the only one capable of peering into time."

As Heimerdinger spoke, he began to turn the hands of the pocket watch in Trickland. As the hands turned backward, everything around him began to flow backward, and the scene quickly returned to the moment when Morey discovered the scene.

Heimerdinger gestured to Artoria, indicating that they were about to deal with Mephisto, as people like him usually had ways to evade time-peeping.

It wouldn't be surprising if Mephisto launched an attack on them at that point in time.

Artoria nodded, and Avalon fully expanded, completely enveloping the area, while the Sword of Victory in her hand was ready to attack.

Lin Zhengying silently connected to the Heavenly Court network, this time making an extra jump to enter the affiliated Underworld network, where he borrowed the power of the soul-collecting ghost messengers.