As Anise keeps pulling Xania, a large destroyed kingdom slowly starts appearing in sight.

  “Wow.” Xania pulls her arm away from Anise.

  “Yep, it's amazing isn't i—”

  “It's so destroyed that the fact the walls and castle are still standing is amazing…” Xania says, looking genuinely surprised, leaving Anise confused if she should get annoyed or take it as a compliment.

  “My lord… let's just go…” Anise drags Xania in as she keeps looking.

  As they reach the gate, Anise destroys what's left of a flickering shield.

  “There was a shield here? How did It last so long?”

  “It absorbed mana from the surroundings to maintain and fix itself though it seems it was about to break completely anyways.

  “Oh, could we do that for ours?”

  “No need, it'll make the shield weaker and we've got a great mana source anyways.”

  “Which is… what?”

  “You.”

  “...” Xania prepares to smack Anise.

  “Hey, stop that or I'll leave you here. Teleportation doesn't work since the core is damaged so mana is messed up too.”

  “Dammit.” Xania reluctantly stops trying to smack Anise.

  “My lord, just deal with what I'm about to do.”

  *Hu—” Anise grabs Xania's arms aiming at the castle and looks over at Xania, expecting her to shoot.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes seriously, get to work.”

  Xania sighs, shooting the castle and letting Anise use her arm as a gun.

  The castle half an hour later turns into ruins, completely. An empty spot where the castle was.

  “... Anise, can you tell me the point of this?”

  “Simple, there is a basement under the castle, but it's hidden and a massive pain to find but… if there's no castle, it can't be hidden.” Anise shrugs.

  “... Screw it.”

  Xania follows Anise as they look around the area where the castle was, finding a small trap door amongst the ruins.

  “...” Xania looks at the oddly ominous seeming trapdoor.

  “My lord, I know how this looks but you gotta trust me a bit.” Anise kneels down, slowly opening the trapdoor, showing a completely dark area underneath.

  “...”

  Anise starts trying to push Xania into it but fails completely.

  “My lord! You're like a goddamn statue! Move your ass!” Anise scolds as Xania sighs.

  “Fine.” Xania starts heading down, using light magic and revealing some stairs as she walks down, brightening up the whole area.

  “Well, at least light magic still works.”

  As they progress further down, they find themselves in a clearly very old room, old torn scrolls all around.

  “Anise, which is it?”

  “How am I supposed to know? We just gotta keep looking.

  “Fine…”

  Anise starts looking around for the correct scrolls while putting others in her bracelet as Xania just leans against the wall.

  “My lord, some help would be appreciated.”

  “Appreciated? It means I don't have to help then.” Xania keeps leaning against the wall.

  “You're helping me.”

  “No, you gave me a choice. I choose n—”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “You're helping!” Anise shouts, interrupting Xania.

  “Fine.”

  As Xania tries to stand up, her head presses on something against the wall, causing the wall behind her to disappear, nearly making her fall down.

  “What's that?

  “My lord, how do you expect me to know the answer?”

  “Stupid.” Xania says.

  “Idiot.” Anise retorts.

  As they keep arguing, they suddenly start hearing noises from the place which opened up, catching their attention.

  Xania uses light magic while pushing Anise closer to the entrance in the wall as a chest lies there.

  “Ummm… Anise, should we…”

  “I'd suggest not.”

  “Yea… but aren't you curious?”

  “A bit I suppose.”

  They both slowly inch closer to the chest as Xania uses wind magic to open the chest, revealing scrolls inside.

  Anise starts checking the scrolls, finding the one amount reaching the core which is also the one they need.

  “My lord I got it!” Anise looks back excitedly as Xania backs away nervously, finishing Anise.

  “What are you…” Anise shrugs, putting the rest of her scrolls in her bracelet and looking up, finding a person's face there.

  “Fff—” Anise and Xania run away with Anise collecting all the scrolls Into the bracelet including the one she's holding on the way out due to not needing any actual physical contact to store it.

  “Anise! What the hell was that?!”

  “My lord, calm down and shut the trapdoor first!”

  Xania uses magic to bind the trapdoor shut before turning to look at Anise.

  “Well my lord… that was just a type of undead which looks severely like a ghost.”

  “So it is basically a ghost anyways!”

  “... Maybe? I might have forgotten it existed in the underworld.” Anise admits sheepishly.

  “My lord, we should probably get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Where there's one, there's many more.” Anise points behind Xania at about a dozen more.

  “Oh…”

  Xania and Anise immediately start flying with the ghost-like creatures following.

  “They can fly?!”

  “Yep.”

  “... Tsk.” Xania shoots an attack infused with divinity at them, obliterating them and a huge part of what's left of the kingdom behind.

  “My lord… nevermind, that works too.” Anise pulls the scroll out her bracelet

  “Alright… to get through the shield we must… use… divinity… hey my lord? You still got enough left right?” Anise looks over at Xania whose fidgitting nervously.

  “Seriously?”

  “Come on! I do still have divinity, it's just well… probably not enough to get through.”

  “...”

  As Anise sighs, the whole underworld suddenly starts shaking as Anise quickly starts pulling Xania.

  “My lord, we gotta go!”

  “What?!”

  “The core got damaged too much, we gotta get out of here or the portal back will be destroyed!”

  “Calm down, I can just make another!”

  “No you can't, which you would know if you had listened to my teaching!”

  “What? Screw it.”

  Xania grabs Anise, flying towards the portal as fast as she can.

  “My lord, we won't reach in time.”

  “Oh shut it Anise, always so negative.”

  Cracks slowly start forming In the nearby spaces, cracks that lead straight to a location like the abyss.

  “Anise, can't we just enter the cracks and let me swing my scythe out of here?”

  “No! If the underworld becomes completely cracked, it'll become a brand new abyss, one your scythe will have no effect on! Better fly fast unless you want to spend the next hundreds of years in there!”

  “No way we'll reach in time.” Xania starts forcing herself to fly faster despite straining her wings.

  “Screw it Anise, trust me, I'll try something. Give me my scythe.”

  “My lord, I already said, you ca—”

  “Just give it!”

  “Fine.” Anise passes the scythe to Xania while complaining.

  Xania starts flying upwards, imbuing her scythe with mana and the rest of her divinity as she aims for the shield at the top of the world.

  “My lord! You don't have enough divinity!”

  “I'll compensate with mana, and the whole world is going to hell, no way the barrier is still in perfect condition.”

  Anise sighs as Xania slashes the barrier, a massive crack forming as it shatters, allowing Xania to fly through, pulling Anise along.

  A bright light flashes as they get teleported to a different location.”

  “My lord?” Anise pulls away from Xania who is looking around, causing Anise to do the same thing. Finding themselves in a blueish blackish area, with seemingly no walls, going on for an eternity. A massive orb in front of where they were teleported.

  “My lordddd, you thereee?” Anise shouts around as somebody suddenly grabs her from behind, covering her mouth.

  “My lord, screw off, you're not funny.” Anise jabs her staff backwards.

  “Ouch, that wasn't nice.”

  “Neither was what you did.” Xania says, letting go of her.

  “Anise, what's that weird thingy there?”

  “I assume the core? It doesn't look damaged though.”

  Xania walks up to it, using her mana to probe it but gets sent flying backwards into Anise.

  “My lord, couldn't you just have gotten hurt by yourself without me?” Anise stands up, pushing Xania off her as she walks to the core.

  As she walks to the core, Xania sits up, watching her go and pushing it, trying her luck randomly as she suddenly pushes something in, her arm getting sucked in too but not able to do so as her body won't fit.

  “Ummm.. my lord? Some help here would be appreciated.”

  Xania sighs, walking up to Anise and pulling her out.

  “Anise, why is there a hole?”

  “The core is hollow in some places apparently. I assume it tried to fix itself by moving some bits of itself towards the outer parts.”

  “Oh, so how do we fix it?”

  “To my knowledge just fill it up with mana as much as possible. It'll solidify.”

  “Sure?”

  Xania puts her hand close to the hole, her arm getting sucked in, with her tail also accidentally getting sucked in, bending her body.

  “Ahhhh, Aniseeeee, help me!!!”

  “...”

  Xania quickly starts infusing all her mana in, the core rejecting it at first wig the core trying to push her out but failing due also also pushing her in.

  After a while, Xania finally uses up most of her mana, fixing the core enough to the point it isn't hollow and spitting Xania out.

  “My lord, you okay?”

  “...”

  “Well, the core will probably need daily maintenance but it'll be okay for now. Let's go back.”

  “How?”

  “Oh well… well… uh….” Anise starts thinking how to go back before pulling out the scroll again.

  “Ok, it says to… use… divinity. Would you perchance have any left?”

  “Well, I have some since I recovered a bit. Like the minimum amount.”

  “Let's just try it.”

  Xania infuses her scythe with most of her remaining mana and all of her remaining divinity as she hits the ground, the ground immediately cracking as she falls through. The bright light occuring once again as they get teleported back, falling through the hole in the barrier which Anise repairs, albeit temporarily.

  “My lord, we gotta…” Anise turns to Xania who is fainted due to using all her divinity twice in a row.

  “Oh.” She carries Xania in her back, bringing her back to the overworld where she teleports into the bedroom, tossing Xania onto it.