"That''s a lot to take in... Give me a few." Gale said as Shizue nodded behind him.


    A pretty normal response. Hell, I''m still trying to get my head wrapped around it all, and that was only the recounting of one of the techs who had access to the core. Apparently, the core room was always locked down, unlike now where people have been free to go in and out, even if it was pointless. But back then you''d get arrested for even attempting to enter the core room, despite the fact that you''d need the ''code'' to even use the mainframe.


    I looked through the data files until I found the map schematics. From there I tried to get a sense for how much of the spaceship had been locked out, but it wasn''t easy. The ship was abominably large. It was designed to hold all of Caedrus'' citizens on it after all, so the size made sense, but the fact that they had even managed to pull it off was shocking. And it was also really sad seeing how much work they had put in only to get snuffed out in an instant by the purge.


    Hmm... There''s a part of these maps I don''t understand at all.


    "Shizue, sorry to disrupt you, but what is this?"


    Shizue walked over to me and looked at where my pointer finger was aiming.


    "Ahh, those are bay doors and pathways for personnel to exit or enter the ship. They look different because only certain people even knew they exist. I know this because there are a few we''ve had access to all along. They''re down on the lowest levels." She continued after pointing to the rough looking drawings below the doors, "See here? This is the underground. I don''t know if they were actually going down there, but this map suggests they went underground at least once."


    ''The lowest levels''...


    I flipped through the schematics until I found R-72 - Bertram''s level. And sure enough, there was a large bay door near the back.


    From the looks of it though, it''s concealed behind something, which would explain why my Uncle and Bertram never brought it up when I told them about what happened with the Xerath.


    "Shizue, was there really no activity on the lower levels this time?"


    She shook her head.


    Whatever brought them here must not have had time---No, not ''whatever''. I''m pretty sure I know exactly what brought them here after reading these data logs, and if it was him, then I''m honestly looking forward to having a round two with that freak. And hopefully we learn some more about him after Yulong finishes translating the Abyssal books.


    "One last thing. You haven''t mentioned it up until now, but between your mention of them, these data logs, and what I saw last time, I can''t help but think those power armors the Xerath were wearing, were in fact your ''Arcane Power Armors''. Why didn''t you tell me before?"


    "Because if they were Arcane Power Armors, then I didn''t know they were. I spent most of my life in the lab... I was only let out a few times to run tests on different Arcane mechs. I never saw any of the power armors, so I don''t know what they look like. Why don''t you just check the data files?"


    Oh, right... That was stupid of me. I need to get used to the fact that we have access to all of the data now.


    Merely searching ''Arcane'' brought up everything I was hoping to find. There were endless amounts of documents I wasn''t interested in, but the images were fascinating. Especially the ones that showed bulky suits of power armor that looked identical to the ones the Xerath were wearing.


    "That''s definitely them..." Shizue whispered.


    Just then, the image of that machine attacking me near Inoue''s emblem popped into my head, which reminded me of another thing I wanted to look up.


    After a little bit of typing, images of all the machines of Caedrus appeared on the TV, and the fucker I fought was front and center.


    "Deathbringer... That''s a good name for it actually."


    It was a large chart of the machines that had every stat possible next to them, with a list of abilities or spells that they could use as well. From there I used the Deathbringer as the baseline and began to compare it to other machines, quickly finding that the strongest one was apparently that pinkish-red eyed machine that watched me underneath the training grounds as I tried to figure out how to unlock the core. They''re called ''Praetorians'', and there is four of them in total.


    Nothing was mentioned about them or any of the other units in the dead zone in that data log I read through. The other files might talk about them, but I''ll have to read up on it later, for now I want to go see how the others are doing.


    "Alright you two, I''m heading out. What are you going to do?"


    Gale stood up, "I''ve seen enough for now, and we''ll need to convince my brother to have the entire populace forcibly scanned. There''s going to be a lot of people who refuse after all, even though the morons are entering the elevators and knowingly getting scanned all the time anyway."


    "I''ll come with you, of course. I told Master Solas and Yulong that I''d be right behind them." Shizue said.


    We exited her soul realm and the moment Gale sat up his brother was demanding answers. Gale sighed, but I could tell there wasn''t any hostility between the two of them.


    I looked at Shizue over my shoulder and pointed at my back, "Hop on."


    "What...?" She looked at my incredulously.


    "It''s a pain and I''ve only done it a couple of times, but I''m going to put my veil over you too. It should be much better now that I have a lot of mana regen and the only lighting is these dull red lights."


    "O-Ooh, are you serious?! Your memories have been eating away at me... I''ve been wanting to know what it''s like to actually go invisible, so thank you! Even if you are doing it for valid reasons."


    We haven''t seen any living machines yet, but that doesn''t mean there aren''t any left. So it''s better to play it on the safe side. Although right now, I''m assuming I can keep us both invisible, but I''m pretty sure it won''t be a problem from a mana standpoint thanks to the dim lighting."


    She jumped on my back and I ran out of the lounge, escaping the area influenced by the emergency white lights they had placed around the lounge. Once we were far enough away I turned us both invisible and ran for the loader bays that we had descended earlier.


    "I''m trying really hard to hear your footsteps, and I can barely make them out, even though your armored boots look like they should be sending out echoes of clinging and clanging in this dead environment. I want to study whatever it is that you put on the bottom of your feet and boots when we get some free time. I''d love to see if I can copy it..." Shizue whispered.


    It''s not something I purposely do - my body does it all on its own. So it''s one of those things concerning myself that I know absolutely nothing about.


    We reached the loader bay and the doors were still open. I ran inside and pushed the R-1 button while praying it''d work, and it did. The doors closed before it began to ascend to R-1 at a snails pace.


    My mana was holding up just fine so I left the veil up as we ascended, listening to nothing but the sound of the elevator humming.


    When we neared R-1 I glanced back at Shizue and whispered, "How did the others get up to R-1?"


    "Clan Leaders have an override for the elevators. They''re the only ones though, and all of the overrides are logged in the public system, so everyone knows when and where they''re used."


    So in the event one of the other leaders forcibly used the elevators, we would know. Good to know that, just in case.


    The bay doors slowly opened, and when they were about two-thirds of the way up we could see a long row of metallic feet lined up about twenty feet in front of us.


    I looked back at Shizue again and put a finger up to my lips moments before the doors fully opened, revealing around fifteen Warriors in pristine condition aiming their weapons in our direction. They weren''t firing though, as they were obviously struggling to find their targets. Their heads were going back and forth looking for whoever had used the elevator.


    There was a little gap on both sides of the line of Warriors, and so I snuck up to their left side and did my best to make sure I didn''t make sure I didn''t make a single noise. Like Shizue just said, I pretty much make no sound as it is, but these are machines, so even a tiny sound only one foot away from one could be problematic.


    After slipping by the machines I made my way up to the crossroads and saw an Observer with two Warriors walking away from us, while the left side had another set of Observer and Warrior duo''s walking in our direction. The Observer was looking all over the place, so I waited for the moment it was looking back or up at the roof before dashing past the side street and into a larger street full of businesses.


    It was close though, as the Warriors behind us had given up on watching the elevator and were walking in our direction.


    Shizue silently pointed toward the left, and thus I ran in that direction, passing by one store after another. Most of them were empty, but some had bodies inside of them, while the shops with jewelry or other metal (or mineral) goods had Warriors loading them all up inside of some bags that they had also stolen from the shopping center.


    I wanted to ask Shizue why the Warriors were acting like petty thieves, but making any sound at the moment wasn''t an option.


    As we reached the end of the street, it turned to the right and it had several alleyways in front of us. Shizue pointed at one of the alleyways - the one without an Observer in it that was staring up at the ceiling for whatever reason.


    I ran into the empty alley as the sounds of energy weapons discharging mixed with screams echoed out from the other end of R-1.


    The weapons being fired had become uncountable by the time I reached the end of the alley. Shizue pointed toward another alley across the street just as several explosions occurred at the far right-end of the street I was running across. At a glance I could make out a couple of people in power armor and several of the Soldier Mechs were there as well. They were the standard mechs that fit a single person into them. Fifteen feet tall, two arms with varying weapons (depending on what the pilot wanted to bring), an energy blast device on their waist that was used to blast back anything approaching them, and hardened armor that could withstand quite a beating.


    It looks like one of them took quite the ''beating'' already. One of its arms is melted off and I can see half of the pilots legs through a big hole at the bottom of the cockpit.


    A group of Warriors sprinted around the corner and opened fire on the mechs, hitting the pilot with the hole in his cockpit several times, but that was all they managed to do, as the Soldier Mech''s current guns (heavy automatic weapons using rifle rounds) ripped them into pieces.


    Before I ducked into the alley I could see that the pilot who was hit had completely lost his legs, but the mech continued to move regardless. He was either on the biggest painkiller high ever, or he was soldiering on through a ridiculous amount of pain.


    I ran through multiple streets and alleys until we finally reached the end of R-1. Shizue pointed at a half-open door that was covered in blood. Its surroundings weren''t much better, but machines made up the majority of the bodies.


    Upon reaching the door to the core room, I slowly pushed it open, revealing a surprisingly small room. It looked like it could fit twenty people tops. There was a monitor covering the entire left-side wall, and a keyboard in front of it. That was it, besides the open door at the back of the room.


    I ran through the core room and the door in the back, coming upon an even smaller room that had nothing except four elevators.


    "Know where to go from here?"


    "Hopefully that''s where they went." Shizue said, pointing at the number above the elevators. Two of them said ''R-1'', while the other two said ''R-80''.


    Seeing that, I opened one of the R-1 elevators and pushed the R-80 button once I was inside.


    Unlike the usual elevators, this one had no glass on it, so we couldn''t see any of the levels as we passed by them.


    "By the way, a little late to be asking this, but do you have any combat skills?"


    "Um, sorry, no... I am a pure support, and I can only support Arcane equipment, so..."


    So if something does happen then it''s all on me.


    "It''s fine, Shizue. Even without Arcane equipment you''ve been very helpful so far. And this isn''t my first time being around people who could only support others."


    "Nisha?" Shizue said.


    "... Yeah."


    It''s not that I forget she knows all of my past, as I was the one who offered it up to her, but it''s going to take some time getting used to how she remembers it all so clearly, as if they were her very own memories.


    R-77...


    R-78...


    R-79...


    The doors opened as we reached R-80, and for the first time in a while, I was truly stunned. The room was far larger than Bertram''s R-72, and it didn''t look as unfinished and empty as his does. Far from it in fact.


    "A-Arcane mechs... They''re all Arcane!" Shizue joyously said with a wide smile on her face.


    As fascinating as it all was, I needed to find the others, so I ran forward, zigzagging through all of the mechs and mechanical stations scattered around the room.


    It didn''t take long for us to start hearing voices. They weren''t panicked or yelling, which was a good sign.


    I ran toward the voices, and as I passed around a gigantic mech that was blocking my view, the others (Yulong, Solas, and Eve) finally came into view. They were standing around a large console discussing something.


    I promptly removed my invisibility and called out to them as we approached. All three of them looked back at us with confused looking expressions.


    "Uh, shouldn''t you still be gone, Rei?" Eve asked as I stopped in front of them.


    I lowered Shizue so she could stand on her own, "Long story short, Asmodeous made it so we could reach Fort Deus much faster. We have a lot to talk about, but for now, where is Evette?"Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Solas sighed, "We found her, and I even hit her quite hard with a wind ability of mine, but uh... I mean shit, I still don''t understand what happened! Her mana gave out from the hit, and then she proceeded to fly through the air from the impact, smashing into several different mechs along the way. She should have been dead, but the moment she hit the ground she jumped up and ran away as if nothing had happened. How the fuck is that possible?"


    "And then my esteemed Masters decided to stop chasing her?" Shizue asked.


    "Cute sarcasm, my lovely maid. And yes, we stopped chasing her soon after that. We didn''t have a choice..."


    Yulong pointed at the console''s monitor, "See that? It''s Evette."


    "?" Shizue tilted her head as we both looked at the monitor. The screen showed the safe-zone portion of Caedrus on the map, and west of Arcadia was a dot that was moving relatively fast.


    "Hmm, I doubt she escaped to the outside from down here, so that means she went underground? And now she''s running at a speed I can only achieve while flying. Except uh, her soul didn''t feel all that power? But then again, I didn''t sense the Abyss in her either, so clearly some type of shenanigans were going on."


    Solas nodded, "She ran into an airlock back there and a few seconds later energy rounds from dozens of weapons began firing at us. I only got a quick glance at the assailants, and they looked like Warriors. Did you find anything in the core that''d explain why the machines are helping her? And vice versa."


    "I did. The short version is that a unique Demon and an Abyssal God were working together here looong ago. I''ll go more into detail later, but for now we should clear out all of the machines inside of Arcadia. There is people up there still fighting."


    "True... And on that note." Solas motioned toward a mech that looked similar to the Soldier Mechs I saw earlier. "Shizue, you take that up there with Eve. After Evette unlocked the core, all of the locks on these mechs came off, so it looks like your time to shine has finally come."


    Shizue''s eyes went wide as she looked around the room. Eve had to knock her out of her stupor though, as we really needed to hurry and assist the others. She grabbed Shizue''s hand and dragged her over to the mech. I watched as the cockpit doors opened up, revealing the pilots chair, and two more chairs beside it. So it was meant to have two supporters huh? She really was only a prototype if even the smaller mechs need two supporters.


    "Rei." Yulong said, smirking as he pointed at the tallest mech in the room, "What do you think that one does?"


    I looked over at the one he was pointing it, which was by far the most unique mech in the room. It was easily two hundred feet tall, but besides the glass dome at the top of it, it was impossible to tell what it actually did from merely glancing at it.


    "Good question... Isn''t it way too fucking tall? It''s the size of a tower, won''t it be really easy to hit?"


    "Solas and I thought the same thing. I''m sure it has some way of defending itself though. Otherwise, the design makes no sense." He continued, "Also, the console here says that it can go up to one thousand feet into the air. Apparently, it can extend and contract itself. We haven''t gone over the details past that, as we want to pour over it all together afterwards."


    Solas and Yulong walked over to a long row of Power Armors. Lights appeared above the armors as the duo came within twenty feet of them.


    Those two activated the armors at almost the same time as Eve turned on her mech. The rather silent hall was suddenly much louder as the ancient device came back to life.


    Just then, a large group of people came running from the opposite side of the hall that Shizue and I had entered from. Solas called out to them from his suit, and a quick discussion about what was going on in the upper floors took place before half the men entered the nearby Arcane Soldier Mechs, while the other half donned the Arcane Armors.


    Their cockpits were still open, so I could hear Shizue explaining to the men all of the differences between the normal Soldier Mechs and these ones.


    Once they were all ready to go, we began to head over toward a large set of loader doors near the elevators I had descended from earlier, but we were all stopped by the sound of something hitting metal behind us.


    When everyone turned around we were all collectively stunned at what we saw. Four long claws were poking through a gap in the docking bay''s doors. Now these doors, were nearly as tall as the ceiling, which was around four hundred feet in height, and the claws were around the one hundred foot mark.


    As soon as the claws dug into our side of the bay the doors were slammed open by the monstrous Xerath. It was around fifty meters tall, which was absolutely ridiculous by Xerath standards. I had never seen one twenty meters tall up until now, let alone fifty.


    Hordes of Xerath came streaming out of the bay doors as the monstrous Xerath barreled forward, knocking one mech after another out of its way.


    At first it looked like everyone had considered running for the loader elevators, but the Xerath were closing the gap fast, so it was clear that they weren''t going to make it. I and the people in the Arcane Armors could have outrun them, but that''d be a stupid decision on our part. We needed this room and all of the mechs in it, and no one was about to abandon the people who were currently in the Arcane Soldier Mechs.


    I released my halo and wings, taking flight above the monstrous Xerath before quickly dropping down and dropping my heel on top of its head. Even if our sizes were vastly different, I had a lot of power at my disposal these days, but the monstrous Xerath must have been lacking in the sensory department, because it ignored me completely, clearly treating me like a distraction. Which was a mistake that it learned as its head went flying down toward the ground.


    It caught itself with its knees and both of its palms, but it was only down for a second before it righted itself and began to swing at me with both a balled up fist in its right hand, and its claws fully extended on its left hand.


    While it was fast, I was at very little danger of actually being hit. Of course, the aura leaking out from the things fist and claws as they passed by me was extremely dense, so I knew if it did manage to hit me, even I would have trouble surviving.


    Just then, one of its missed punches slammed into the two-hundred-foot tall mech, sending it flying through the bay.


    Realizing my mistake, and the fact that Solas was asking me to pull it away, I began to move backwards, pulling it closer to the large docking bay doors it had pulled open previously. And speaking of those doors, there was still thousands of Xerath spewing out of them.


    Everyone else was slowly backing up toward the loader elevators while firing on the encroaching horde. They were trying their best to avoid hitting the mechs, but there was only so much they could do in this situation, and holding off until the Xerath were past the area full of mechs just wasn''t an option. There was barely one hundred feet between the loader elevator doors and where the mechs were stationed, and it looked like the people using the Arcane Soldier Mechs were struggling to use them properly. Which was understandable since it sounded like they were quite different from the usual ones. One of their cockpits was still half-open so I could hear Shizue yelling at them through the speakers.


    I was halfway to the large bay doors when I felt a familiar aura spike behind me. I dodged to the right just in time to avoid a green flame in the shape of a spear. Glancing back, I saw exactly what I expected to find. Casters... Just as I thought, it''s the fucking Abyss.


    I was wary that one of the Gods may appear at any moment, so I kept my eyes peeled as I flew down toward the casters, but I had to stop halfway there as large ethereal spheres appeared around them. Back when we were in that underground city, we all thought those merely knocked people back upon destruction, but after watching my memories with Aresa, I''m pretty sure the damage is based on how hard they''re hit, and I don''t have time to test out how much damage those spheres can take while mitigating the bounce back... Time to finally try out offensive spells in real combat.


    I flew up to create some distance between us and to avoid an incoming blow from the monstrous Xerath, but the monster apparently didn''t care that a caster was in its path of attack, as its fist came down onto the caster and burst the shield while crushing the poor bastard into paste.


    Lucky for me, the blowback knocked the Xerath back quite a bit, even to the point that it fell right onto its ass.


    After seeing that, I considered using the monster to kill the other casters, but that was out as an option when I saw the casters floating toward the ceiling in different directions.


    However, thanks to their poor decision making, I no longer had to deal with them, as a hail of explosive rounds from far back in the bay completely eviscerated them and their barriers.


    I turned to deal with the monstrous Xerath again when something stuck into the back of my armor. Glancing back, there was a different type of Xerath with six legs crawling up the walls spitting little spikes at me. I initially couldn''t hear it over all of the explosions and gunfire taking place, but when I really focused I could kind of hear the sounds emitting from the creatures as they spit at me.


    After yanking out the spikes I felt around the area they pierced me, finding that the acid attached to them was eroding my armor. The area of effect wasn''t huge, but that didn''t matter when there were dozens of them (and more coming out of the doors) spitting at me.


    I flew back down to a level that put myself between the spitters and the monstrous Xerath. Every missed attack stuck into the monster, and at first it didn''t care, but after about a hundred spikes were jutting out of it, it emitted a sound while looking at the spitters, causing them all to skitter toward the ceiling. However, just like before, a hail of explosions and gunfire ripped into them, so the survivors chose to return to the ground level. Some fanned out around us, trying to take aim at me without hitting their ally, while the others began spitting at the Arcane Mechs.


    I could see their barriers flare to life on all but one of them. One''s barrier was down and it had already taken extensive damage, while all of the people in power armor were still fine. Also, at some point they must''ve found some new weapons, because I could see half of the people in power armor using those super-heated blades I saw the Xerath using during their invasion of R-72.


    The blades were tearing right through the Xerath, leaving their bodies cut in half while being so hot they were bubbling at the seams and melting. It was rather disgusting, but also nice to see them receiving such a visceral death. That''s all these creatures deserved after all.


    I flew toward the monstrous Xerath''s head, but the creature was ready for it this time. It tried snapping at me with its massive teeth, which was easy to avoid, except the other part of its counter attack was not easy to avoid. Tendrils came flying out of its chest and nearly wrapped around me before I flew backwards.


    I then considered flying up and attacking it with spells, but if I was outside of its attack zone it may decide to go after the others, which is something I really wanted to avoid.


    Still though, their assault was endless, so either this thing needed to die or we needed to find a way to get the doors closed, but if the monstrous Xerath wasn''t dead, even if I did manage to figure out how to close the doors, this thing was just going to open them with its abominable strength again.


    As I was trying to decide what to do, I felt a massive spike of aura hitting me through the large docking bay''s doors. It was familiar, but far more powerful than the last time I had felt it.


    "HEY!! A GOD OF ABYSS IS COMING!!"


    Soon after I yelled that to the others, their entire battle plan changed. They went from hunkering down near the backside loader elevator to pushing to their right. The monstrous Xerath saw that and immediately charged after them. It probably knew as much as I did about what they were attempting to do (which was nothing), but it instinctively knew it had to stop them.


    I flew toward the retreating monster and grabbed onto its back before pulling some blood out my mouth and using it to stick my legs onto the monster. After that, I pulled one arm back after another and leveled into the thing with as much strength as I had. One hit made it shake, the second made it lose its footing a little, the third made it buckle, by the fourth it was about to fall over, and that''s when it chose to slam its back into the ground in an attempt to crush me.


    I pulled off the monster and flew around it, landing on its chest at the same time it hit the ground. Before it could react I got another clean hit into its chest, which I thought was the reason it screeched in their usual inorganic way, but that''s when I heard the sizzling behind me. The monster was so fast that we had traversed the entire docking bay and were only a few meters away from the others. They had immediately cut massive deep wounds into the monster''s shins with their heat-blades.


    The cuts were halfway through the shin, and I could see the monster''s body trying to regenerate itself but it wasn''t able to thanks to the heat. The parts that were cut were bubbling and popping from the extreme heat that had been seared into them.


    It couldn''t stand up thanks to its feet being out of commission, but that wasn''t going to stop the damn thing from being an absolute menace. It flipped over onto its stomach and launched itself past the people in Power Armor and straight into the mechs in the back. With its left claw it tore straight through the mech that had lost its barrier and was already in bad shape. The mech and its pilots collapsed onto the ground in several different pieces.


    With its right hand it grabbed another mech that still had an active barrier, but it didn''t last long, as the Xerath was slamming it into the ground over and over.


    The amount of firepower being used to stop the encroaching horde had diminished severely as this was going on - for obvious reasons, but that meant the swarm was now upon us. However, one bright spot in all of this was the three heat-blades that had cut through the monstrous Xerath''s head from different angles. One above, one on the left, and one on the right. Just like before, its regeneration was unable to handle the heat, and the speed at which they cut through it was too fast for the monster. It tried flipping around to get away from them, but their boots were stuck onto the monster through means I couldn''t see, so even though it managed to crush them several times, they still cut its head off, and came out the other end with minimal damage (although two of them lost their barriers).


    "REI! THERE! TAKE SHIZUE THERE!!" Solas yelled through his speakers while shooting once at a small door on the far right side of the docking bay (opposite side of where I entered from).


    Eve''s cockpit opened up and Shizue jumped out of it. I flew over to her and picked her up, flying her toward the door as fast as I could go. She pulled an electronic connector of some sort out of her forearm and stuck it into the side of the keypass slider.


    "I entered my soul realm and looked through the data files to figure out how to turn the defensive systems off or on. It''s possible in five different rooms, and we''re going to the closest one!" Shizue said as she continued to hack into the system (or at least I assumed that''s what she was doing).


    Part of the swarm had broken off in our direction and were quickly approaching us. There weren''t any spitters so I saw this as a good opportunity to try something.


    I raised my right hand and poured mana into a multi-javelin fire spell, creating ten extremely thin six foot long burning spears. Once they were ready I launched them at the Xerath, missing with four of them, while the other six pierced straight through the grunts. They collapsed onto the ground, sliding along it for a bit as they burst into flames.


    It was only six of fifty, but this was just a test to see how well I could use them in real combat, so I immediately swapped to an ice spell. A sphere appeared in my hand and I immediately threw it between me and the encroaching Xerath. It exploded, leaving a large icy field in its wake, just like the one the Tengu Lord had used against me back when I first saved Aresa.


    The Xerath all jumped over it, or tried to anyway, as the field kept expanding, and so they landed straight on a new patch of ice and immediately slipped onto the ground.


    Satisfied, I flew forward and crushed every single one of them before they could recover their footing.


    Just as I killed the last one I heard Shizue yell ''Got it!''.


    I returned to her, picked her up, and flew through the open door.


    "END OF THE HALL ON THE RIGHT!" She yelled again, and thus, I did as she requested. Two seconds later I dropped her off in front of a door that took her no time at all to hack this time. It opened up to an elevator and just as I was about to turn around to help the others she grabbed my arm and said "No! N-No..."


    ... It can''t be helped. We don''t know what might be waiting down there too, so this is for the best anyway.


    I entered the elevator and she immediately pushed R-81. Since it was only one level down the descent was over almost as soon as it started. The doors opened and I ran out first to check for hostiles, but there was nothing except another empty hallway full of doors.


    "This one." Shizue said, walking up to the closest door on our left.


    A thought occurred to me as she inserted her jack into the keypass again.


    "If you''re able to hack these, couldn''t you have entered the locked levels before I unlocked the core?"


    She shook her head, "No, it''s not that simple. The core is an entirely different beast that had over half of the ship on complete lockdown. Only specific people were allowed into specific parts of it, and those people were obviously all dead, so we had to wait." She continued, "These though? Compared to homes, these are only slightly harder to open. But uh, don''t worry. My creators decided that any future models wouldn''t be able to hack into these, so I should be the only one capable of this."


    The door opened a minute later. It was a small room with one large keyboard in the shape of a U and probably a hundred different monitors above it.


    "A security room huh?"


    I looked over the feeds as Shizue sat down in one of the chairs and began scouring the data base.


    It appeared that most of the feeds were for the lower levels, but there were two of each for the upper four floors. R-1 was still a warzone, while R-2 through 4 had already been purged of machines. I could see the defenders on those levels trying to use the elevators but they were unable to overcome the lockdown.


    "Shizue, when you''re done there, deactivate the lockdown. They machines and Xerath are already inside, so it''s only hampering us."


    "Will do, almost done here. That bitch didn''t have much time before we were on top of her, but somehow she still managed to scrub a lot of important files needed by the defensive systems. I''m restoring them now."


    Through several of the R-80 monitors I could see the outline of Atraxu appearing at the far end of the tunnel through the docking bay''s doors.


    "Shizue..."


    "I know! Almost there, almost there..."


    Halfway through the tunnel Atraxu raised his right hand palm up. A massive brown sphere appeared above it, hovering there for barely a second before flying into the docking bay. It zigzagged around the mechs until it reached Solas'' party, where it promptly ''exploded'' by creating some type of gravity well they weren''t able to escape from.


    It was hard to tell through the monitor, but it looked like thousands of small shards and rocks were flying around in the well at extreme speeds smashing and cutting into everyone inside of it. I could see one barrier after another explode, and once their armors and mechs were exposed, their quality was hard to deny. Viktor''s armored vehicles would''ve been destroyed in five seconds or less, but after ten seconds everyone inside the gravity well was still alive and kicking. Although their equipment was looking quite raggedy at this point, but thankfully the spell''s allotted mana was running out, so it wasn''t going to last much longer, and even now everything was moving much slower in there, not causing much damage as a result.


    Atraxu was fifty feet from the bay''s doors when they snapped shut. Meanwhile, hundreds of laser turrets were popping out of the walls all inside of Arcadia. The battles on R-1 and R-80 quickly turned into a one-sided stomping, but despite this Shizue and I stared at the R-80 monitor, waiting to see if Atraxu was going to blast through the bay doors. However, no matter how much we waited, nothing happened.


    Eventually Shizue sat back in the chair and sighed, "L-Looks like he gave up... For now."


    Yeah, for now. I doubt he''ll leave us be for long though. He knows we have access to all of the Arcane equipment, the main core, and the defensive systems. I don''t know what he''ll do next to get over this hurdle, but I''m sure it won''t be anything small.