Titania rubbed her eyes and took a closer look, only to discover that James was gone from the cage.
She was instantly stunned. "Iver, did you eat James?"
"W-what?"
Grace was shocked as well.
Iver merely shook his head. "Of course not, Your Majesty. He had something to do and left first. Thank you for your protection."
Although James had never told Iver why he had stayed so quietly in the birdcage,
Iver had already analyzed James's motive from those scattered hints—
Cardinal Loki had once taught James the Observation Secret Rite. This mysterious art allowed James to know about many events that had already occurred in the present era, and it also left many secrets with nowhere to hide.
Iver was not certain what form James had taken after the destruction of the world, or how he had returned to the beginning of the "Cicada Shell."
But judging from the fact that he knew the true names and secrets of some Pillar Gods, as well as the nature of several Source Rivers, it was at least certain that he no longer had a physical body and had instead returned to the Dream Realm.
According to this world's basic rules, any sapient supernatural creature capable of existing in the Dream Realm for a long time could be called a phantom demon. Although no one knew which domain he survived in or whether he existed in a waking or sleeping state, it was at least certain that he had not died in the Dream Realm and become a Phantom Demon Egg.
The young James who had learned the Observation Secret Rite from Cardinal Loki had still been a firm and gentle person in his youth. It was only after he met "Anna Kingsford," the founder of the Golden Dawn, that his