Veils of energy were erected around the area, to prevent any unwanted eyes from prying at what was happening.
Milo stepped upon the seemingly unbreachable slab of steel, and focused golden mana into his right fist, the gold made no differences between beings and what was animated, this mysterious element was most bizarre, it wasn't the element of gold as in the precious metal, it simply seemed like his mana changed colour, and was granted incredible power, he had no idea what the true name of this element even was, but he did know one thing, there was nothing that it could not bare its fangs at.
Bringing his fist down, the magnificent radiance sunk into the alloy alongside his arm, piercing right through without much resistance as the defences of the steel were rendered null and irrelevant, and as the mana spread throughout the slab, he was able to pull the hole wider.
"As expected, that element of his can just chew through anything like paper" Antieeld muttered to herself, it was a shame that no one but him seemed capable of wielding it, normally, even someone without the correct affinity could learn to use a little bit of an element, but it was not the case for this one, it simply seemed unique to him.
"What do you see in there?" asked Toby, and Milo channelled some mana into his eyes to see better, Helena blew the surrounding steam away to allow more emerald light to flood in, giving her husband a better idea of what laid down below.
"It's… A very deep pit to begin with, full of silver pipes and wires that go everywhere- Say Cassi, you really didn't see anything suspicious when you dug to the underside of the realm?" he asked, and the redhead nodded strongly.
"Nothing weird, just a big old, two-headed spider" she replied, and for once, she had actually paid attention to more than just the most noticeable thing, so she wasn't spouting nonsense.
"Then we have a problem, I think the inside is distorted and expanded via some spatial means" he announced, no matter how Milo could cut it, the depth he was staring into went far beyond what should be possible, the Emerald Realm was like a huge, floating island in the green void, although wide and solid, it was far from being very deep, case in point, Cassi had been able to get all the way down in very little time by just smashing the ground with her kanabo.
Not that it was normally of much importance, the amount of beasts that moved underground was derisory and then hardly went very deep, and the realm was sorely lacking in minerals and the likes, so there was no point in even digging, the stone they used was sourced from the spots that would be naturally regenerated thanks to this realm's special cycle of life and spirit life.
"Spatial? The fact that they can do it isn't surprising, but that they could get it to work in the conditions of this realm is rather unexpected, do you sense space mana or something similar?" asked Helena.
"Nothing of the sort…" hearing the answer, she stepped closer and allowed some wind to flow down into the seemingly endless pit, it was allowing to travel around and sense the surroundings without interference.
'If I didn't know better, I wouldn't even suspect that this place is artificially made larger, it's all coherent and there is nothing getting in the way of my mana-' or so it was until she reached the bottom and tried to get through a hallway filled with burning hot pipes, then, it was like her wind hit a wall, the mana was not simply wrenched out of her control, but utterly dominated and turned into something, or someone else's mana.
"It isn't as deep as it seemed, there must be something preventing vision part way through… But the place is clearly tightly protected, I haven't noticed any enemies, but it makes no doubt that their hideout is teeming with them, probably full of elites, and perhaps even beyond" spoke the mage, and everyone rubbed their chins, they all wanted to storm this place and destroy it, but it was also painfully obvious that this would be an awful idea.
They would be throwing themselves in the wolf's maw by going inside, the invaders were commanded by the undead, and the corpses would not have assumed that this place was impossible to breach, as the ones with seemingly the most knowledge of the worlds and its abstract rules, they would know that there could exist no certainty.
And although no one present knew of it, the undead were also architectural lunatics, and although not directly present, this place would undoubtedly be filled to the brim with traps and contraptions, as well as a variety of rooms and structures that made little to no sense.
"The steel is slowly expelling my mana" commented Milo, although greatly struggling, the slab was indeed cleansing itself of the golden infestation, and once that was done, it would regain its full defences and regeneration.
"As tempting at it might be, we should probably not go in there- I'll send one of my fighting spirits instead" Antieeld swiftly manifested a translucent, humanoid figure, a man dressed in white and wearing a mask, which actually looked a bit like how the invaders dressed, wielding a sword, sleek sword.
"Is that a fallen death hunter?" wondered Échalas, recognising the design of the garments as those worn by death hunters that specialised in dealing with the more common undead varieties.
"I feel like I have seen this guy before…" Latir-e-se crossed her arms.
"Same here" concurred Tappduur.
"That's Ilmael, he went missing inside of the chrome dungeon a while back" Rummy was the one with the right answer.
"Oh… Can he still use the life arts ?"
"To a minor degree only" replied Antieeld, sending out the translucent apparition into the guts of the mysterious hideout, seeing through its eyes, sensing everything it could sense.
They allowed the hidden base to seal itself again, and for the stone to regrow to what it once was, everyone keeping guard around Antieeld as she focused on the link that she shared with the fallen death hunter.
Descending down, she felt ignited by curiosity, watching all of the strange things around her, pipes forged out of different materials coming in and out of the walls, some hot enough to make one's skin fall off, some cold enough to freeze someone down to the bone.
Soon, the death hunter reached the ground.