?Silence.
There was no wind.
The air stood completely still, and the sun shone down from above.
A red wall of waving and moving mist was in front.
Nick just looked at the red wall from the roof of a building without saying anything.
The Dregs were gone.
The Dregs had been consumed by the red mist before they collapsed into the abyss below the city.
So many people had died.
When the red mist had appeared, Nick had watched with horror as the people of the Dregs had been killed.
Thousands of people had died.
After a while, Nick had to go further toward the Inner City since even parts of the Outer City were collapsing.
However, he hadn't truly been in danger.
Even though everything around him had been collapsing, he never felt like he had been in danger.
After all, he could just jump from building to building.
Yet, all the normal people didn't have that luxury.
A random piece of metal that got disconnected from another piece of metal had enough power to break bones.
While Nick wasn't in danger, the normal people were fighting for their lives.
At least the worst had passed.
For the past 20 minutes, nothing crazy had happened.
The people were slowly recovering and trying to deal with their new situation.
About 800 people from the Dregs had arrived in the Outer City.
Nick didn't know if the people who had fled to the city walls survived.
Right now, guards were patrolling around the current Outer City, making sure that nobody was causing any trouble.
Crimson Fungus City had changed drastically.
People could move, but houses couldn't.
All the metal of the Dregs and even a big chunk of the Outer City had collapsed, which added up to about 60% of the entire area outside the Inner City.
Yet, over 80% of people had survived.
While metal had been extremely cheap and houses had been abundant in the past, these things were now rare and valuable.
Almost all the houses in the Outer City were already occupied.
Together with the displaced people from the collapsed Outer City, there were now around 2,000 people without a home.
The people in the Dregs had lived a brutal and cutthroat lifestyle, but they hadn't been homeless.
Things were different now.
Groups upon groups of refugees were scattered across the Outer City now.
Their future looked bleak.
Nick had already seen Nurse Alice more than once today.
The last two hours replayed in Nick's head again and again.
He had infiltrated the Spartans and had dealt them tremendous damage.
Then, he had freed an Adolescent Force Specter.
Sure, it was difficult to capture a Force Specter, but this one had just been an Adolescent.
As soon as the Force Specter broke out of the building, tons of powerful guards would suppress it.
What could an Adolescent do against 50 Veterans and over 10 Experts?
And sure enough, Nick hadn't seen anything major happen in over 20 minutes.
He had even had enough time to change his clothing and to deliver the Shadow Shroud to Wyntor in Dark Dream.
After that, he had just come out to relax.
And then, all of this happened.
In the beginning, Nick hadn't even been sure if this was truly the doing of that red Specter he had let out.
Only when he had looked at the hands and the faces of the red abyss did he truly realize that this was the doing of the Specter he had released.
But how?
It was only an Adolescent!
At most, it would eat enough to become an Adult, but that still wouldn't be enough to do any significant damage.
After all, the city had Experts, Specialists, and even Heroes.
How had things turned out this way?
How could releasing an Adolescent cause so much damage when it was surrounded by the entire power of the city?
Not even level six Specters could run rampant here.
It was difficult for Nick to connect his actions to the current state of the city.
If it was so hard to suppress the Crimson Sea, how did the Spartans even capture it?
'I just released a relatively harmless Specter to cover my retreat and to cause a bit of chaos to the Spartans,' Nick thought as he looked at the red wall with a concerned expression.
'And now, thousands of people died.'
'I wanted to save the Dregs.'
'But now, I destroyed the Dregs.'
Nick just kept looking at the red wall.
If the Dregs were still there, he would be looking at them right now.
Everything was gone.
"Boss, finally!"
Nick didn't turn to look at Jenny, who had just landed on the roof behind Nick.
Jenny looked at Nick with a mix of frustration, anger, and panic. "What are you doing here?! Dark Dream is in chaos! We need you!"
When Nick heard that, he furrowed his brows in worry.
Dark Dream.
Nick had just been responsible for thousands of innocent people dying.
Why would he give a shit about work right now?
When Jenny saw Nick's lack of a reaction, she gritted her teeth.
"Nick," she shouted, using Nick's name for once. "This is a bad time for everyone! We are all suffering!"
"We all want to cry, but we have to deal with the urgent things first! Everyone else is currently doing their best to fix Dark Dream! As our Boss, you have to be an example to all of us and help as well!" Jenny shouted.
She was angry that Nick became unresponsive during a moment of crisis.
She always believed Nick to be reliable and responsible during a crisis.
But, apparently, he wasn't.
Instead of helping like everyone else, he was just looking at the destroyed city.
She was disappointed in Nick.
Nick took a shaky breath.
Then, he quickly shook his head and stood up.
"Sorry," he said in a distracted tone. "What do you need?"
"Come, I'll show you where our office is now," Jenny said.
Nick didn't even ask about what Jenny meant.
His mind was occupied with other things.
"Mr. Melfion is currently talking with the other Manufacturers and the city. I'm busy dealing with our remaining Extractors, and we need somebody to lead us until Mr. Melfion is back."
Nick followed after Jenny, his mind distracted.
"Where's Trevor?" Nick asked absentmindedly.
"He jumped."