"Holy Mothers? Ah, you mean the ones who're the highest in the Church?" Caelus asked.
"Indeed, they are descendants of the ones who first made it, the ones who were taught by the very Lord we serve, or I should say I serve, since you seem to have no interest," Tellus replied, turning to the crack, entering it, to which Caelus followed suit.
He wanted to know more than just what she had explained, but he didn't want to disturb her about it, so he'd simply check with Aphro or the books on the history of this world.
Once within the space, the space behind them formed a barrier, blocking them from leaving unless they broke it, so they couldn't escape until they finished what they needed to do here.
"We must either destroy the realm's Mana Core to stop its production of these Undead, so that people have a safer time travelling between The Holy Tianyun Empire and the Marou Dynasty," Tellus spoke. "...Wait, did you even know the name of the Empire you were in?" Tellus took a second, realizing Caelus wouldn't have known until now.
"Nope. Thanks for telling me, though. I assume it's the first one because of Holy in its name."
"...Indeed, it is annoying how you guess that properly." She was a bit annoyed, but still alert. Soon enough, a Skeleton crawled up, its bones disintegrating slowly, weakened, and barely able to fight... And yet, in that moment, it rushed over, holding a blade and a shield, along with that leather across its body that hadn't even begun rotting.
A slash flew down, and Tellus simply moved her eye to the side. A blade of Mana formed, clashing with it. She had no time to deal with something as weak as this.
But, right then, the blade of Mana dissipated, like it couldn't hold its form. Caelus already felt it; his Mana was forcefully being disrupted, meaning they had to fight with their hands, or at least try to. Killing them would only need them to use it for the split second it would be allowed to activate.
"Watch out." Caelus's tail flew as it smacked the skeleton in the head, the scales cutting, and being long enough, it could wrap around the entire skeleton's body, but he didn't do that. The strike was strong enough to make it lose grip, even though it shouldn't even have had one due to being a skeleton.
"What the hell is-" Tellus spoke, having not dealt with this, from what Caelus saw from her reaction.
"It's probably made so it's harder to stop whatever is causing this; it's suppressing the usage of Mana, but seeing as it can't stop Mana usage fully, it's weaker. I'd assume a stronger one would be able to simply crush us." Caelus told Tellus that he found this idea best suited to the situation.
Caelus looked around, using Mana quickly, he spread it as far as it could go in every direction, including up, and into the ground, to see whatever was nearby, reaching over a hundred meters within the realm, seeing nothing but dirt and hundreds, and hundreds of what smelt like burning and rotting flesh, along with bones from skeletons, so they had to rush.
"We have to go." His Mana was quickly disrupted, closing in and returning to his body. As he did the same, he found no use in fighting it, since brute force wouldn't have been a good idea.
Tellus followed Caelus, both of them moving at incredible speeds, "Alright! I've been told the Core is usually in the most vulnerable position, but far from where it arrived. My teacher said to me that the closer we are, the stronger the enemies will get, but it wouldn't be stronger than the Core itself."
She spoke, looking around while still holding her sword. Right then, below her, a creature broke the ground, grabbing one leg, only for her to turn and slash its arm, cutting it off as she went to remove it. Throwing it away, so it had to go after it to reattach, they couldn't regenerate since the dead had nothing to regain but life.
"You okay, Tellus?" Caelus asked, continuing to run but slowing down till she caught up, while making sure she was okay and suppressing many unnecessary noises and even the sense of taste so he could feel the change in the ground.
As soon as more and more climbed out of the ground, surrounding them and chasing them, Caelus sped up as he grabbed Tellus's arm to make sure she didn't get out of his grasp. Finally stopping as they were surrounded by the beasts, Caelus came to a skidding halt, the rocks being crushed under his foot and becoming small and barely noticeable, like gravel.
Caelus let go of Tellus, looking at her, who was entirely red because he was holding her hand for so long, not red as in embarrassed, but surprised and feeling his body warmth, which was ten times higher than hers, even if she could handle it. But Caelus didn't know that. "Oh, wait, was I too close? Was that something intimate in this world?" Caelus shook his head to get himself together.
"Alright, so we know which way to go because of the ground, just make sure not to lose track," Caelus spoke, not paying much mind to that, though having a little bit of a feeling that he did a bit too much by doing that. But he didn't mean it in the sense of wanting to be with her; it was way too early.
Tellus listened and quickly calmed herself, holding her sword up, pointing towards the enemies behind Caelus, but not close enough to be hit by his tail, which was swinging around rapidly, hitting anything close to it.
Caelus moved his staff, realizing he could release small beams of Mana in a short burst since the realm took time to notice if someone was using Mana. He also wondered if he could use it if he enhanced his own body, or if it would be hostile to that.
"No, I'll just focus on fists first and save my Mana for when we're closer." Caelus thought that wasting it right now would be a misuse of it; hence, he moved his hand back and launched it forward, punching a zombie right in the head, using his Mana to coat his hand. After all, it was an energy, and he assumed it couldn't be destroyed.
Caelus's punch created a shockwave strong enough to push the horde of enemies back and make a small area he could get through, if he moved fast enough, but he needed to get Tellus too, so it closed before he could try getting through.
Tellus, on the other hand, swung her sword, cutting through the enemies with ease. They were about Caelus's level in Cultivation, being at Foundation, so it was a lot easier for her, especially since they weren't as smart as he was.
Caelus continued to use his fists, bashing them into the zombie-like creatures in the face, without much hesitation. Caelus felt there was no need to show mercy to them since they weren't very much alive.
For a moment, Caelus felt a sharp cut on his palm, opening his arm as he moved back. He noticed his hands were scaly, and remembering... He was a Dragon; he didn't need to just punch like a human. His hands moved forward as he cut ahead, the slash going right through the skeleton's body, practically destroying its bones. His claws were sharp enough that they could break the bones of enemies, even with the lightest of scratches.
"No wonder it felt painful for me to punch... Maybe I should be more careful with that." Caelus thought, getting a little distracted, only for his tail to swing around, going in front of him and grabbing a Skeleton, wrapping around it and crushing it till its ribs broke.
Tellus, on the other hand, cut through thousands of the undead, destroying them as much as she could while avoiding wasting any extra movement. She was trying to buy enough time or break through until Caelus could leave with her. "Caelus, are you waiting for the right time to start flying or something!?"
She didn't know why he didn't, but unknown to her, Caelus didn't know either, but was reminded by her that he could do that, realizing how dumb it was not to do that, he froze, turning lightly red, his tail moving and wrapping around Tellus now, lightly holding her so she didn't get crushed, his wings spread out, bigger now, A single flap as a burst of wing forward sent the undead flying away.
They weren't struggling yet. Caelus began flying with Tellus, surprised by the sudden movement. After realizing it was him, she calmed down, though she was still annoyed, and waited till they could land so she could actually do something; she didn't want to fall down from just being mildly annoyed.
"While we have time, I wish to ask, Caelus, why do you act like you're hiding something big?" Tellus spoke.
"...? What do you mean by that? I'm just being myself. If I were hiding something, I wouldn't talk to someone." Caelus questioned; he didn't know why someone hiding something would even get close to people until they forgot what they were trying to hide, so they didn't need to look like they were hiding it.
"Okay, wow, you do not know how humans act, okay, first thing, we can't just talk, that's a lot more suspicious, at least to others," Tellus replied. "...Oh, wait, you're a Dragon, never mind, sorry. I keep forgetting, I'm not used to talking to people who aren't human."
"It's fine, okay, we're going down since the ground is clear for now.. And I can see some sort of glowing thing in the distance. But we're also going to get attacked by a lot of stronger undead since we are closer." Caelus spoke. falling as his wings stopped flapping, Tellus, on the other hand, panicking due to the fact. They were falling.
Caelus's wings flapped a few seconds before they landed, with tons of undead slowly crawling out of the ground, only for him to miscalculate and land, causing a lot of pain to his legs, only for him to ignore it due to his body being unusually used to falling. His human brain was panicking, but his Dragon brain, which controlled most of his reactions, kept him calm and even helped him handle it.
The shockwave from landing on the ground completely eviscerated the undead that were still climbing out, while those fully out were knocked back and sustained moderate physical damage.
Caelus's tail unraveled and let go of Tellus, who felt the shockwave and handled it pretty well, using Mana in her body to send it into the ground.
[Good thing! If you grab the Mana Core, the Monsters will stop attacking you! And probably disappear, too. If you destroy it, you'll be teleported out and go to an entire Realm higher because of how powerful it is. Hence why she wanted to go get it. But it has to be proportionate to your strength. Good thing, since both of you are together doing about equal contributions, the growth will be equal, meaning you'll reach the Next Realm soon enough!]
"...And is there any bad news?" He expected a catch; he knew there wasn't such a thing as only Good.
[Bad news, the Church is going to keep an Eye on you now since you're in the realm where you can actually fight back against their weakest members, excluding normal Believers.]
"Well Shit, I guess I'll have to lay low... Is there any way I could maybe stop that? Or is there no way Aphro." Caelus sighed, but his face showed he was really worried.
[...It's bad news for a reason, no, you can't :3]
"...Please do not make that type of face when telling me bad news." Caelus felt drained; he didn't want to deal with the Church.