Lin Ze The moment he reached out and touched the stone slab of the arch, he subconsciously retracted his hand.
Then he looked down and saw that his fingers were covered with a thin layer of silver-white frost, which turned into water droplets within a few seconds of contact with the air.
"Something's wrong." Lin Ze said with a frown.
Mia walked up to him, the tip of the wand lightly scratched the stone slab, and the fluorescence from the tip of the wand climbed up along the vertical lines of the stone slab.
"It seems to be absorbing magic." Mia said and took the wand back.
Sirius squatted on the ground and tapped the stone foundation at the bottom of the arch with his knuckles. A series of dull echoes came from the water.
"What do you think is behind this thing?" Sirius raised his head and said.
Lin Ze shook his head, put his hand up again, and let the coolness creep up from his palm to his arm.
Dragon scales emerged from the wrist uncontrollably, covering the entire forearm.
The silver-white light in the vertical lines of the arch lit up again, and Lin Ze felt that the magic power in his body was being sucked away.
The crack slowly opened from the middle to both sides, and the sound of peeling stone fragments was fine and dense.
Piece after piece of debris fell into the water and sank to the bottom.
In less than a minute, the arch was opened to a width of more than a foot.
It was very dark inside and the scene inside could not be seen with the naked eye.
"I'll go first." Lin Ze said.
"Pull him down quickly." Sirius pressed his shoulders and squeezed to the front.
"I'm too old to do this kind of job for you."
He didn't wait for Lin Ze to retort and walked directly in.
The next moment, the whole person disappeared directly.
Lin Ze's heart skipped a beat, but before he had time to react, a hand stretched out from the darkness and hooked his fingers at them.
Sirius's voice came from inside, with an unnatural echo, as if it was coming from several directions at the same time. "Come in, it's not bad inside."
Lin Ze and Mia looked at each other and squeezed in one after the other.
The world in front of me suddenly became different. Under my feet was a smooth and smooth blue-gray stone road.
There is no mortar between the stones, and they fit together as if they were carved from a single piece of stone.
There is an arcade above the head, with skeleton-like ribs extending deep one after another, evenly spaced, like the ribs of some giant creature.
The zenith between the arch ribs is connected by a uniform gray-white halo.
There is obviously the sea outside, but the air inside is very dry.
There is no salty smell of sea water, no damp smell of stones, all smells disappear here.
Lin Ze sneezed, and the echo bounced around the arcade six or seven times before it was completely dispersed.
Lin Ze walked to the edge of the arcade and took a look outside.
There are open flat areas on both sides of the arcade, and the ground is paved with the same green and gray strips of stone, spreading out as far as the eye can see, with no edges visible.
Further away, there is a uniform gray-white color, which blends with the halo above the head, making it difficult to tell where is the sky and where is the earth.
"How big does this place have to be?" he asked.
"You ask me, I'll ask who is going." Sirius patted his knees and rolled his eyes.
Then he raised his hand and pointed deep into the arcade, "There are steps over there."
Lin Ze Looking along, the arcade extended into the depths for about thirty or forty steps before the ground suddenly broke off and a broad downward stone step appeared at the end.
There are no handrails on both sides of the stone steps, and each step is shorter than normal steps. Stepping on them will make people speed up their steps unconsciously.
The three of them walked along the arcade, their footsteps echoing on the stone slabs.
As several people walked down, slowly, a faint halo of light appeared on the steps, and there was a soft silver line on the edge of each step.
Mia's wand tapped lightly on the nearest step.
The silver thread flickered and she withdrew her wand.
"If this is the structure of World Tree, then we are standing on the horizontal line at this moment."
She pointed her finger downward, "And if we go down, we will go in the direction of the roots of the tree, so what we are likely to go towards is..."
"Underworld?" Sirius suddenly trembled, and his eyes glowed with excitement.
"Not necessarily. In the Northern Europe myth, the roots of World Tree lead to three places, one is Niflheim, Land of Mist, one is Muspelheim, Land of Fire, and one is Hel Underworld." Mia shook his head slightly and corrected Sirius's guess.
The three people walked down the stone steps.
Soon the steps came to the end.
What comes into view is a circular stone platform, about three feet square, with four sides hanging in the air.
A dead tree stood in the center of the stone platform. The trunk was too thick for two people to hug each other. The bark cracked and fell off, revealing the gray-white wood inside. There was no leaf. The bare branches stretched out in all directions, like a broken umbrella.
"Merlin's shampoo! Is there really World Tree?"
Lin Ze circled the tree several times. As he moved, the dead tree suddenly trembled slightly, and a palm-sized piece of bark peeled off at the root of the tree, revealing a narrow crack inside.
Lin Ze took a closer look, and saw that the inside of the crack was hollow, extending downward, and you couldn't see the bottom.
"Hey, there's another passage." He straightened up.
"Get in?" Sirius rolled up his sleeves.
Mia stopped him, squatted down and swept around the edge of the crack with his wand.
The cyan halo stayed at the crack for a moment, and there was no abnormal reaction. Then she nodded towards Lin Ze and Sirius.
Sirius was the first to get in sideways.
Lin Ze lets Mia take the lead, while he takes the rear.
The inside of the crack is wider than it looks from the outside, barely allowing a person to bend down and move forward. The inner wall of the passage is made of wood, with a clear texture like a freshly cut tree trunk, but it feels dry and warm, like a layer of skin attached to a living creature.
The further you go in, the narrower the passage becomes, and finally it narrows into an opening that can only be passed sideways.
Sirius squeezed sideways and then stopped.
"What's wrong?" Lin Ze asked from behind.
Sirius didn't answer, but just stepped aside to make room for the two people behind.
Lin Ze turned sideways to squeeze out the hole, and when he straightened up, he was stunned on the spot.
Outside the opening is an open underground space with an extremely high dome, so high that the top cannot be seen.
There is an endless shallow pool on the ground. The water surface is as calm as a mirror, reflecting the scattered silvery white light spots above the dome, like an upside-down starry sky.
The bottom of the water is paved with stone slabs, and the stone slabs are engraved with circular characters that have the same origin as the copper plates, one circle inside another.
There is a stone wall standing in the center, standing alone above the water, about two people high. Directly in front of the stone wall, there is a thin layer of mist floating on the water. The mist rotates slowly and condenses into a vague human-shaped outline.
"Xie Te! What is that?" Sirius's voice was very low.
The human figure formed by the mist floated motionless one foot above the water.
Lin Ze took a step forward lightly and stepped into the water with his toes. The ripples spread out in all directions, hit the stone wall and turned back, causing a thin echo pattern at the intersection in the middle.
The human figure suddenly shook slightly, and the next moment it disappeared into the air.