“Find cover! Go! Go! Go! Go!” called out Oliver. He and Mikel crouched behind the crumpled remains of an overturned fridge, providing cover fire for the team as they retreated from an encounter that had been just a hair too intense for their group to handle.

“Where the hell are Andrew and Miss Sophia?!” said Mikel. Sounding out of breath after using his [Aegis of Winter] to wear down the defense of two ashen-commandos. Powerful undead the strength, discipline, and cunning of a trained elite of the astral navy.

“They’re around. They said that they were going to try and take down the King-Spider,” said Olivia. Joining up with her brother and cousin, to help them make their own retreat as they suppressed the monster horde bearing down on their position.

“By themselves?! That’s suicide!” said Mikel. Looking mortified. Afraid of what the Oddvar-Luce clan would do if its two scions were lost.

“No...They can do it...I’ve already seen a little of what Andrew can do and Miss Luce had always been part of our old academy’s honor-class regardless of whether its the academic curriculum or the martial curriculum.”

Past the fiftieth floor, the levels of the house of a hundred candles changed in layout, makeup, and theme.

The forest was replaced with a strange art-deco catacomb. A complex maze of garishly wallpapered walls and grave markers. They’d gone from being inexplicably outdoors, to being indoors again.

Instead of wax, the floors were heaped high with hills of ash. The deluge of wax was placed by a choking smog and an endless downpour of ash that fell from the ceiling like dingy gray snow.

Last but definitely not least, the monsters changed. The wax-men and wax-beasts that prowled and patrolled the higher floors were replaced by metal monsters that housed burning husks.

These were creatures of ash and charred flesh that piloted mechanized suits. Cunning beasts that not only could think, but also knew how to savor a kill and prolong their victim’s suffering.

The King-Spider was a fourteen-foot tall monstrosity of rusted steel. It looked more like a crab than a spider thanks to the two arm-mounted laser-cannons it had, and beyond its pure unrestrained strength, and high-defense, the creature inside the machine seemed to possess some very powerful pyrokinetic capabilities.

Sophia and Andrew faced off against the creature, and its powerful, exo-suit wearing cohorts, on their own. They’d lead the group of monsters away from the rest of the group, leaving only a few of the small fry to the others.

“Do you want to deal with this? Or should I?” said Andrew.

“I can handle this, hoheit. You make sure that our companions are okay,” said Sophia. Smiling in a carefree manner.

“Nh...Yes, ma’am,” said Andrew. Nodding as he turned to go check on the rest of their team.

The monsters in this level of the hidden realm were beyond what most ordinary students could handle. They were beyond what most ordinary soldiers could handle.

Yet, the eidolon couple could handle the creatures with ease for the most part. Enough ease that they could carry their team and use the monsters as fodder to hone their teammates’ strength.

As Andrew left his position at her side, seeming to vanish into thin air after only a few steps, Sophia took a deep breath. Her golden eyes began to glow as aether was channeled through her body.

The air around the woman’s body shimmered and shook as a cloud of glowing white nanomachines emerged from within her aura. The mechanized particles solidified forming an elegant exoskeleton with eight long blade-like limbs. Around Sophia’s head, there was a halo, a crown of alabaster radiance that pulsed and surged with energy.

Where there’d once been a woman there was now an angelic, silver-white, spider. Surrounded by plasma rifles and machine guns that were held aloft by pristine snow-white wings.

This was Sophia’s power. The [Praxis of the Automaton Sovereign]. This was the color the pale eidolon’s vast stores of power chose to dye themselves.

According to what she’d reported of her very broad list of capabilities, it was a power that allowed her integrate machines into her body and utilize them as if they were a part of herself.

A deeper dive on the part of the Novem government would discover that it was actually a high tier ability to comprehend, improve, embody, and produce any piece of machinery or technology she came in contrast with.

If necessity was the mother of Invention. Sophia was Invention’s spoiled and boundlessly affluent daughter. A humanoid singularity, advancing forward in capabiltiy with each passing second, each new hurdle, and each new encounter.

The charred ghoul inside the king-spider roared. Bellowing a challenge at the interloper. Then the two spiders clashed, the shock waves so forceful that many of the weaker charred-undead were killed off by the shockwaves alone.

Sophia’s bladed limbs sank into the King-Spider’s carapace. The energy on the edges and points of her limbs, piercing the weaker metal with ease. She carved through the creature’s steel shell, while her feathery, flying, firing squad dealt with the exo-suit wearing ashen-commandos that had fought beneath the King-Spider.

Once it found itself exposed, the charred-ghoul that piloted the King-Spider responded by releasing a powerful outpouring of hot-white flame. Sophia’s response to ghoul’s response was more fire. Her halo pulsed and throbbed as she caught and amplified the heat energy released by the charred-ghoul’s flames and then channeled them back into the King-spider. Cooking the ghoul inside till it was reduced to a fine white powder.

Elsewhere, Andrew was taking a walk. Or rather, ‘an’ Andrew was taking a walk. He’d been right about to rejoin the rest of his party when he felt something. A tug on his mind that he couldn’t ignore. Something, or someone, had just lashed out at him. It felt like something that should have been a threat but was so weak it just ended up making him curious instead.

Thus Andrew duplicated himself creating an energy clone. The clone rejoined the party cutting down the remainder of the charred-undead that were firing on his group. Meanwhile, the original Andrew went and investigated the source of the attack.

Andrew found a crystal. A large, prism-shaped, object made of hardened wax and solidified aether. Andrew’s senses extended themselves as he drew on the data surrounding and belonging to the crystal. He realized that the crystal was a cocoon. The dormant form of a being not-unlike himself.

Andrew realized that he’d stumbled upon one of the number of would-be lords that dwelt within the House of a Hundred Candles.

Having satisfied his curiosity, Andrew was inclined to just walk away. However, as he did so, the creature lashed out at him again.

“Oi...Little one. Just because I look easy-going doesn’t mean you can push me as you please,” said Andrew. Growling in warning.

He turned to leave again but felt another jolt from the strange creature inside the wax cocoon. This too was an act of fear, but it was an act of attraction rather than repulsion. A psychic supplication from the creature inside the cocoon.

Andrew sighed.

“Oof...Seriously now? First, you try to send me away, now you don’t want me to leave. Make up your mind will you?”

The psychic plea repeated itself. This time it was accompanied by a strand of data that had Andrew quirking his brow.

“Are you serious?”

The plea was repeated a third time.

A still hesitant Andrew considered simply destroying the lesser-eidolon before him. Then some distant pang of conscience made him wait. He sent a query to his wife to see what she thought he should do, because depending on his actions they might be in for some trouble and a very, very, long commitment.

Annoyingly enough, Sophia’s mental network breezily answered that she’d sport whatever he decided. This left Andrew grumbling beneath his breath about the heaviness of truly unconditional love and, her appreciated, but unhelpful, supportiveness. Then Andrew tossed a mental coin in his head.

When the coin toss came up wrong, urging an unacceptable result, Andrew swore beneath his breath. Andrew then went ahead and made the decision he’d known was the only choice for a person like himself and dreaded having to make anyway.

“Nhn...W-, Well, I can help you but that won’t come for free...You’ll need to offer me four...no...five hundred million years of fealty and service in exchange for my protection.” said Andrew.

His words were answered by a sound of reluctance from within the cocoon, but eventually, the creature released a pulse of assent and a strand of core data from its soul to seal the bargain.

Andrew then snapped his fingers and made the cocoon vanish into the space within his core. Then he vanished as well. His original body dissipating into energy and flowing over to the clone that had just become the new original.

“Whew…” said Andrew. Bending at the waist after slaying the final ashen-soldier.

“Hey, you okay, man?” said Oliver. His tone concerned.

“Huh? Oh...Yeah, yeah...I think I’m just finally getting tired.” said Andrew.

Oliver grinned.

“I should imagine so. One hundred levels in barely three days. I don’t know about you, man...But I’m fucking exhausted.” said Oliver. More than a little disbelief at what he’d taken part in, seeping into his joking tone.

“Very well, I think we’ve all had enough for this first foray,” said Sophia. Returning from her battle with the King-Spider. Her dark uniform and snow-white locks looking pristine and undisturbed.

“Yeah...Let’s go. We’ll conquer the core another day.” said Andrew. Straightening up after catching his breath. His bearing returning to its former casual disheveledness.

“Yeah...Another day.” echoed Oliver. Feeling a pang of frustration from deep within himself.

His sharp senses, and training, made him starkly aware that the real reason that the pair were turning back was actually because of the party

The group was too tired and there were too many levels between them and the safety of the surface. Meaning most likely, Andrew and Sophia were giving up on the core to escort the group back to the surface.

Oliver’s hidden hotbloodedness surged, and from that moment onwards, he swore to double his training efforts so that he could at least not be a burden even if he wasn’t strong enough to fight at his friend’s side yet.