231 Chapter 31, Black Hole

English Channel.

The deck of the battleship Scharnhorst.

A row of crew members and a group of children knelt on the ground with their heads in their hands, and behind them stood a group of heavily armed soldiers with guns. As the strong sea breeze passed by, the ropes and iron plates on the helmets on the soldiers' heads collided with each other, making a pleasant sound of clinking.

"one two three four five six seven"

A pair of black short boots stepped in front of them. He counted while stepping on it, counted to the end, and counted again from the end to the beginning, "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven"

middle of the deck.

Mullermans sat on a chair with a blank expression on his face, looking at the kneeling sailors and the men he counted with dark eyes. The sound of counting idly gave him a headache. These damned wizards are so stupid, they line up in two lines to solve things that can be solved at a glance, but they have to form a long line, God knows if they have learned mathematics.

"Seven eight nine eleven twelve"

The voice pulled him into the vortex of memory, he remembered the black robe rustling in front of him, and the pale hair of the robe owner.

It was a cold winter three years ago, and he was ordered to set off from the elite troops in Munich to perform a special mission in Berlin. He vaguely remembered the line of hundreds of people he saw after he got off the Opel truck.

And in that dark hall, Grindelwald did the same, casually counting the number of people, he still remembered the other party's icy cold fingers across his forehead, like an ice skate, counting while counting, one or two Three four five six seven eight.

From the beginning to the end, no one wanted to look directly at his face, only his voice could be heard floating in the dark night sky.

".I don't care whether you are Muggles or wizards. However, before choosing someone, I want to know the quality of your souls."

The guy said casually: "Thiefs, robbers can talk about souls. Porters, boatmen can talk about souls, rich businessmen, politicians can talk about souls, soldiers, killers can talk about souls, Muggles and wizards can talk about souls. But what exactly is a soul? , who can answer me?"

The long line fell silent under his cold fingers.

"No one answered. It seems that it is too early to awaken. The flowers living in the greenhouse will not understand what a soul is, let alone need a soul. Only when people have nothing can they understand what a soul is. Only life is suffering. Only when you are humble can you touch the essence of the soul. I think everyone has the potential to awaken their own soul, and the key to awakening this potential is pain, no pain, no soul, so...in order to find the one I want. "

He took out his black wand and smiled.

"Critical carpal bone."

A red light flashed past.

"My lord." The call next to him awakened Mance from his memories, and he raised his head slowly: "Have you counted clearly?"

"Thirty-seven."

he whispered.

"Only thirty-seven."

"Yes."

"What about them, did you find them?"

"No, we searched all places within a radius of twenty nautical miles, including the bottom of the sea, but found no trace of Flamel and Bach."

"That's it." He sighed, and seemed to be talking to himself: "How stupid of me to catch thirty-seven Muggles at the cost of two Association wizards."

"What should we do next?" the subordinate next to him asked anxiously.

"Go directly to the British mainland to prevent LeMay from absconding before us."

"No, I mean what about Aldo and Anker?"

The black robe's question made Mance frowned. He stood up, came to the edge of the deck, looked at the vast ocean and rolling white clouds in the distance, and remained silent. The group of captured Muggles trembled around him like planks in the waves, not knowing their fate.

"Let them go." Mance finally said, "We have tried our best, and even if we can't find them, we must keep the damage within an acceptable range."

After he finished speaking, the black robe beside him looked at him motionlessly.

"Why, didn't you hear my order?"

"Mr. Mance, there is something I must remind you." The black robe leaned over and said, "Aldo is fine, but Anker, Anker belongs to the Kleist family, the most famous wizard in Europe One of the wealthy families, their family is very famous not only in the wizarding world, but also in the Muggle field. Anker's father is also one of the high-level members of the association. If you can't find him, I'm afraid."

"I'm afraid my life is in danger, isn't it?"

"Probably."

The weirdness and changeability of the dream once again exceeded Anker's expectations. The cave just now was still full of rubble, but it was complete in a blink of an eye. There wasn't even a crack in it.

He touched the wall and murmured, "Are you still making sense?"

Hoffa thought that there would be ghosts if he had to reason in his dreams.

Although he felt inexplicably dark seeing Anker being deflated, the real uneasiness in his heart couldn't be dispelled no matter what.

It has been almost two days, and he has no idea where his real body is now. It may be floating in the sea, or it may be caught by others.

The worst part is that he still has no way to store even a little bit of magic power, and he has no control over the current terrible situation.

Chloe behind him suddenly shouted, "Hey, you two, look this way!"

The two turned around and saw Chloe pointing to the ground with a confused look on his face. They walked to where Aldo had fallen and saw another trail opening five meters away.

The path was in the shape of a hole, and inside it was a broken staircase all the way down. It was dark and deep, like a dog hole leading directly to hell. A breeze blew out from inside, blowing on the three blank faces, making the three sober people in the cave confused.

Anker swallowed his saliva, "Why is the wind blowing out from the ground? This, these are a few meanings."

Hoffa: "You ask me, who should I ask? But depending on the situation, there is something that wants us to go down."

He grabbed a pebble and threw it in. The pebble made a pleasant ding-ding-dong-dong sound, and never came back, without any intention of touching the bottom.

"I refuse to go down." Anker didn't even think about it, "God knows what's down there."

"No one is forcing you down." Hoffa sat back and sat next to Chloe, his expression looked calm.

"snort."

Anker also sat down. He looked at the inexplicably extra hole with heavy thoughts, and looked at Hoffa beside him with suspicion, his eyes rolling around.

In this cave of less than 30 square meters, Chloe couldn't help but grab the arm of the young man beside her, she was really terrified.

Feeling the tense palm on the elbow, Hoffa felt a little uncomfortable. If it was normal, he would be very happy that Chloe finally confessed and was willing to reconcile with himself, but now, what is the point of reconciliation.

After sitting for a while, Anker stood up restlessly. He looked at Aldo who was still unconscious, "There is no way out just sitting here." He repeated: "We have to find a way to leave."

Hoffa sat cross-legged by the fire and said calmly, "I didn't force you to stay here."

"Is this your cooperative attitude?"

"I didn't force you to cooperate with me."

"Okay, okay. Are you and this Mademoiselle Flamel going to sit here and die?"

"That's not bad. I think at least she's quite pretty. It's not a loss for me to be buried with her."

(hands on arms let go)

Anker's teeth itched with hatred, because the cave was dark, Hoffa couldn't see his expression clearly, he could only hear the sound of his teeth grinding, but he reckoned that the other person's forehead was already bruised, but he also felt the other person clearly idea.

"Anker, no matter what you say, I will not take the initiative to work hard for you to find the way." Hoffa said softly: "Besides, I remember that our agreement just now is for you to collect information, and I will find a way to guide you out, right?"

"you!?"

"Or you just said it casually."

Anker's face changed again and again, and finally, he stretched out a fist and said grinningly: "Guessing fists, this is the most fair way, whoever loses will go to explore the way."

Hoffa smiled: "No."

"Fuck you." Anker strode towards Hoffa.

"Anker."

"what?"

"Have you thought about one thing? If Aldo wakes up later, what will he think of you? Let's talk about whether you can't go out, but at least now, in our small group, which is not too big, you may change You have to be alone."

Anker stopped, and he took a deep look at him, the murderous intent in his eyes almost burst out.

"You won, Bach."

He stretched out his hand and pulled out a torch from the fire, and strode towards the entrance of the cave. When he reached the entrance of the cave, he said coldly: "In this case, I will go to see the way, and I hope you are still safe when I come back." Live in a cave."

After finishing speaking, he walked down the dark stairs without looking back.

Hoffa lay on the edge of the hole, watched the figure of the guy holding the torch disappear into the darkness, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Let's go." He said to Chloe.

It was the first time he'd been sitting alone with Chloe in days, and if you didn't count Aldo, who passed out, he thought they needed to talk.

Chloe sat by the fire, looking at him coldly, "Is it fun to calculate?"

What he just said about being buried with him offended the nun. Even in such a weird and changeable environment, she didn't look good. Maybe she didn't intend to reconcile with him from the beginning.

Hoffa: "Are you still mad at me?"

Chloe: "Is there any reason not to be mad at you?"

Hoffa: "Don't you feel ashamed? If you weren't so impulsive at the time, why would I have worked so hard?"

"Okay, it's my fault too, everything is my fault." Chloe turned her head away, angrily.

"It's nice of you to think that way."

Hoffa replied indifferently, not wanting to quarrel with her, but just looked at the cave where Anker disappeared.

For some reason, he felt faintly worried.

If it was in the normal world, he would wish the black robes of the Imperial Wizards Association to die, as many as they come, these people are Grindelwald's lackeys.

Especially Anker, this guy had the attitude of putting himself to death from the very beginning when we met. Even in this situation, what he thought was that a dead fellow Taoist would not die a poor daoist.

But at this moment, he more or less hoped that Anker would return safe and sound, and then told himself that this was a door leading to the real world.

After thinking about it, he felt that he was really stupid. The probability of this kind of thing happening was about the same as when Tom Riddle became a charity when he grew up, and Chloe became a chainsaw killer.