Nick narrowed his eyes.
Was Futuma bluffing?
It sounded very convincing that he knew that someone was there.
Even more, since he didn't know where Nick was, Nick's ability remained active.
It was actually possible to know that Nick was somewhere close to someone without deactivating his ability.
At this moment, a strong internal conflict was happening inside Nick.
Was Futuma bluffing or not?
If he was bluffing, he should be running out of Zephyx pretty soon, and Nick could get the jump on him.
If he wasn't bluffing, Nick might actually die to the poison.
'It doesn't actually matter,' Nick thought with narrowed eyes. 'One possibility has a high chance of death while the other is just a missed opportunity.'
The truth was that Futuma wasn't bluffing.
The Dung Heap's ability allowed someone to give off poisonous gas.
When the poison wasn't being absorbed by any living thing, it would simply go back into the body of the person who used it, replenishing a part of their Zephyx.
Naturally, using this ability still consumed Zephyx since one couldn't reabsorb 100% of the poison they had given off, but the Zephyx used wasn't a big deal.
Nevertheless, the amount of Zephyx Futuma was getting back from using his ability was far lower than normal, which meant something big was breathing and absorbing his poison.
Futuma had spread his gas over a radius of 50 meters.
Unfortunately, while he knew that someone was there, he couldn't tell where they were.
He just knew that they had to be within a 50-meter radius of him.
And he also knew that it had to be an Extractor.
After all, any normal animal or human would have already died by now, and Specters don't breathe.
So, it had to be a Zephyx Extractor.
Zzzt!
At that moment, a blue spark appeared on top of one of the buildings.
Futuma looked over.
At that moment, Futuma saw a semi-transparent Barrier that was burning the gas he was releasing.
Naturally, this was Nick.
By activating his Barrier, Nick could protect himself from the poison, but the sound and visual effects of his Barrier would also reveal his location to Futuma.
Under normal circumstances, Nick would have just run away in secret.
"You want to talk?" Nick asked from his rooftop.
If Futuma wanted to kill Nick, he would have simply waited without saying anything while using some kind of method to contact Ardum.
At that point, Ardum would arrive with Selina, and they would search through the surroundings for Nick.
Yet, Futuma had said several things, and he had even explained his ability.
This meant that Futuma wasn't interested in killing Nick.
At least not right now.
Futuma could see Nick's appearance through the blue shimmer of his Barrier.
As Nick looked at Futuma, he saw his Barrier slowly vanishing.
Naturally, Nick hadn't deactivated his Barrier.
There simply wasn't more to block for the Barrier.
This meant that Futuma had pulled his poison back.
When Nick realized that, he deactivated his Barrier. After all, keeping it active drained a lot of Zephyx.
"You're Nick, the Chief Zephyx Extractor, right?" Futuma asked.
"Yes," Nick answered evenly from his rooftop.
"What happened to Jonathan and Kiara?" he asked.
"You're not asking about the fat man?" Nick asked back.
"It's obvious what happened to him," Futuma answered emotionlessly. "Someone with such dark secrets won't dare to betray Ardum."
Nick narrowed his brows.
Futuma had essentially confessed to knowing that Ardum and Stephen were monsters.
Apparently, not everyone fell for Ardum's spiel.
"They're working for me now," Nick answered.
Silence.
"How did you manage to convince them?" Futuma asked.
"The fat man had a Peddler Storage Token on him. I simply showed them what was inside," Nick said.
Futuma just raised an eyebrow. "That would do it," he said with an unimpressed tone.
"Why do you want to talk to me?" Nick asked again. "You're not fooled like the others."
"Ardum isn't the best actor," Futuma said, looking at Nick. "I never believed him for a single second, but compared to others, I simply didn't make a big deal of it."
"He knows that I know, and he knows that I don't care."
"If you got the power and the money, you can do whatever you want."
Nick wasn't a big fan of what he was hearing.
"You still haven't answered my question," Nick said with an emotionless voice.
Futuma looked into Nick's eyes without fear.
"Money and power," Futuma answered.
"I want money and power."
"Loyalty and fairness are unimportant in the face of money and power."
"Give me money and power, and I will be your ally."
"If I join Dark Dream, Cycle is done for," Futuma said.
Nick wasn't quite sure what he should think about that.
On the one hand, they could take down Cycle right now, but on the other hand, Futuma knew no such thing as loyalty.
In a certain way, it was like going into a relationship with someone who cheated on their current partner with you.
Sure, you would get the person, but that person had cheated on their partner.
This meant that the chances were high that they would also cheat on you.
Just like how Dark Dream could gain Futuma's power by offering more than Cycle, another Zephyx Manufacturer could do the same by offering more than Dark Dream.
Sadly, they probably also wouldn't be able to kill Futuma after hiring him and dealing with Cycle.
Someone like Futuma was smart enough to prepare for such an event.
Futuma would know that Dark Dream might want to kill him, and he would have certainly prepared something for that event.
Accepting Futuma would be troublesome.
It would be like accepting a snake to come into one's home.
"What do you have in mind?" Nick asked.
"A leadership role," Futuma said.
"I don't switch sides just because someone offers me more money. I also want more power."
"The money part won't be a problem for you since Cycle pays horribly, which just leaves the power part."
"I want a team leader position."
"Give me that, and I will join."