That makes sense. Lothar stood there, muttering to herself. He looked up, and all he could see was the massive wooden tissue, the thick synapses that stretched upwards, as if they were going deep into nothingness. The problem is that the branches, which do not grow like this. The Count had seen many trees, tall and short, thick and thin, but regardless of their species, their branches were extended to absorb sunlight, not to pierce the sky, so that no matter how tall a tree was, it would not grow taller blindly, and even its own branches would grow upward.

So how do we explain the giant tree in front of us? How do we explain its unconventional growth structure? After all, there is not even a sun in this wasteland, so what is the point of it growing taller? Unless, it is not for the purpose of growing taller. In other words, Lothar had discovered that what was in front of him was not the part of a tree that grew out of the ground, but on the contrary, the tall landmark that towered over the wasteland should actually be the root of a tree.

In this way, it makes sense that the reason why he mistook this huge mass of roots for a tree at the beginning was that the parts of the roots that had just protruded from the wasteland were entangled together to form a part of the trunk-like structure, and above this false trunk, each of the roots the thickness of an adult's waist spread out again to form an upward crown. But why, is this happening? Why is there such a tree in this wasteland that exposes its roots?

Looking away from the roots of the tree to the rods that had become more and more dense around them, a guess had already appeared in Lothar's mind. That's because it's never a wasteland, it's underground. And the rods he saw sticking out of the soil were the ends of the knots that stood on the surface. This conjecture made the Count bow his head, and he was looking at his feet. If this is really underground, then why does he, and the water in the river behind him, stick to the surface instead of falling into the void above?

And, if this was underground, what was the nothingness above his head, which was not even dark, the entrance to the abyss? or something else, something more obscure? In just a few breaths, the wasteland became dangerous again in his heart, and the sense of urgency and crisis, diluted by the appearance of his daughter, caught up with him from behind, like a shadow in the river. Fortunately, the knight of the Greylion never gave in, and he tightened his clothes with a battle axe, intending to get closer. If the tree had grown all the way from the ground, he might have found a few gaps in it and made it back to the surface.

"Boom!" the earthquake, sudden, shook from the soles of Lothar's feet, forcing him to lower his center of gravity so he barely fell. The Count didn't know, but then the huge roots in front of him began to shake slowly. The tendrils of different thicknesses resembled awakened serpents, writhing their palpitating bodies. Something woke up because of this earthquake.

Lothar knew that whatever came out of the roots of the trees was no match for him, so he quickly found the denser branches that jutted out of the ground around him, and opened his wet clothes to cover himself and his tomahawk. Of course, such a disguise is crude, but no one would think that there would be such a person in this wasteland, would they?

The tooth-sour sound of "crunching" was accompanied by the smell of decay, coming from the inside of the roots. Lothar, who was hiding under his clothes, peeked carefully, but the roots were too tall for him to see directly from his vantage point. But even so, the Count imagined the source of the sound, the sound of thousands of feet trampling next to each other on a plank, and he unconsciously thought of the parasites that Cheese had picked out of the body of the child in the Schaller, the multi-legged worms. Cold sweat slid down the ends of his hair.

"Uh-huh!" a chaotic roar came from the treetops, a sound more terrifying than any beast or man Lothar had ever heard, his heart beating uncontrollably faster, and his hand gripping the edge of his clothes trembled. He wanted to breathe heavily, but he was afraid that the sound of the gasp would attract the thing's attention, and for a few moments, Lothar had the idea that instead of being so frightened, he might as well pick up the battle axe and hit his neck. Fortunately, the tattoos on his body also woke up in this low roar, and they suppressed the Count's fear and other negative emotions.

The imaginary sound of the giant worm moving continued, and it was getting closer and closer, and the thing that had emerged from the roots of the tree seemed to be coiling around the roots of the tree like a snake and gradually descending into the wasteland. Lothar could see a large gray-white shadow swaying from underneath his clothes, and he didn't know what part of it was, or what its purpose was. He just watched, and he could only look at this indescribable giant, and that alone had exhausted all his energy. If it weren't for Helen's voice in his heart, Lothar would have succumbed to fear at this time.

The gray-white shadow slowly stopped moving, and in contrast, a large black shadow obscured the land of the wasteland, including where Lothar was. The Count was bold and carefully adjusted his direction, he wanted to see what this thing was trying to do. As he lifted his clothes more, more parts of his gray-white body appeared before him, it was a creature larger than the Sea King and the multi-headed eel demon he had seen in Heartless Bay, its appearance, Lothar couldn't see it all, but judging by the claws that were so numbing to the scalp that there were dangling, the giant worm's conjecture was probably correct. The tip of the giant worm was beyond Lothar's sight, and he could only roughly deduce that one end of the worm was perched above the river.

Just as he was wondering what the thing was going to do, a waterfall fell from the sky and smashed into the river, making a massive splash! It's just that judging from the texture, those gray-green substances are probably not liquids. What are the worms pouring into the river?, a bad guess loomed in his mind, and Lothar thought of the place where Cheese had found the worm larvae before, in the human body. Is this worm pouring similar parasites or eggs into the river? But is it uninhabited? What does it do by dumping here? Or does the river actually lead to the ground?

Wait, I drank a lot of water from that river, didn't it?