“Indeed, bringing White Bear along was the right decision,” Angel said with a smile, not expecting that in the end, it would be White Bear who scared Eulica away. If he had known, he would have let White Bear go in from the start and spared himself that fight.
“White Bear, you mean the guy in the strange outfit just now? Who exactly is he?” Lyon, who had been listening to their conversation, was completely baffled and asked curiously.
Angel: “You came in with White Bear earlier. I thought you two had already met.”
Lyon shook his head: “After you were carried back to your room yesterday, I stayed outside the whole time, and that… White Bear, he was nearby too but didn’t speak all night. When I knocked on the door earlier, he followed me in. I thought he came with you, so I didn’t stop him.”
“White Bear, his name is Hobson Sile. Eulica used to use the name ‘Ms. Sile’ in public,” Angel paused: “So, if everything is as I suspect, White Bear and Eulica should have some kind of blood relationship.”
For this answer, Lyon also felt somewhat bewildered, and it took him a while to respond: “I had seen Lady Eulica often gazing in a certain direction with a somewhat melancholic expression. I had thought she was missing Mentor Suise. However, even after the mentor returned, she would occasionally still stare into the distance in a daze. According to the mentor, Lady Eulica was longing for her kin.”
“It seems now that she was missing that ‘White Bear’ all along?”
Angel also remembered that when he first met Eulica, and she learned he was from Barbarian Cave, her eyes had shown complex emotions, and she seemed hesitant to speak, only saying later that she had an old acquaintance in Barbarian Cave.
It must have been White Bear she was referring to.
And it probably was for this reason that Eulica had so readily accepted his presence before she knew of his identity as an Alchemist.
After Lyon had ruminated for a while and was somewhat back in the moment, Angel asked, “By the way, what’s the deal with Eulica? How did she go mad?”
When Angel brought up this question, Lyon’s expression instantly turned grave: “It was the red light; it was caused by the red light.”
The red light? Angel looked puzzled at Lyon.
“Last night, you were initially on the upper hand, but then you suddenly fainted. What did you see at that moment?” Lyon asked.
Angel was taken aback and replied instinctively, “Red light.”
Lyon showed an ‘I knew it’ expression: “Exactly, that red light. Lady Eulica usually stays up in the Cloud Island, but around half a month ago, she suddenly returned to the stilted building. In the early hours of the morning, the stilted building was enveloped in a fierce red light. Ever since then, Lady Eulica went completely insane.”
“Yesterday, when I saw you also devoured by the red light, I feared you would end up like Lady Eulica. Thankfully… you are okay.”
Angel furrowed his brows: “Was Eulica influenced by the red light? And since the red light comes from the Crimson Authority, could it be that… the cause of all this might be the Crimson Authority?”
Angel looked toward Sanders, hoping to get an answer from him.
Sanders was also thinking deeply, and after a while, he said to Angel, “You mentioned earlier that Eulica had shown signs of change long ago, which means she had been affected for a long time. And since the Crimson Authority has always been by Eulica’s side, it is indeed possible that the Crimson Authority is the source.”
Angel: “If we knew the effects of the Crimson Authority, we might be able to tell if it’s the source of the trouble. However, I still don’t know what exactly the effect of the Crimson Authority is?”
Sanders: “The Crimson Authority is the supreme treasure of the Gumman Kingdom. King Gumman only revealed its existence, but never its purpose.”
“However, since you were enveloped by the red light yesterday, I do have some speculations,” Sanders looked at Angel. “Tell me about your experience last night.”
Angel was momentarily confused by what Sanders was asking until Sanders mentioned―
“The Abyss of Corruption.”