?Almost two years had passed since the Crimson Sea had broken out.
A bridge had been created to the outside world, and the city was recovering.
Aegis knew that Crimson City still existed, but all the caravans and the cities didn't know that.
The caravans that usually visited Crimson Sea just saw a huge red cloud of unknown origin in the place where Crimson City was supposed to be.
Almost all of the caravans immediately turned around as soon as they saw the red mist.
Sure, the caravans were very powerful, but this was something that could destroy an entire city.
Getting close to it wasn't a good idea.
And that had been the right decision.
The few people who actually decided to come closer and investigate quickly came face to face with the Crimson Sea.
The Crimson Sea had claimed a couple of Experts from the Caravans, and even a Specialist would have nearly died if they hadn't reacted perfectly.
The Specialist had fought the Crimson Sea's mental pull with all of his power, and several people kept holding him back.
The only reason why the Specialist had survived and recovered was that he had been a Late Specialist, while the Crimson Sea had been an Early Fanatic.
As for the cities, they had simply not heard anything from Crimson City, and the people they had sent either didn't come back or reported that only red mist was left of the city.
In any case, no one knew that Crimson City still existed.
The first order of business after building the bridge was to send out messengers to the surrounding cities and to tell them what was going on.
While Crimson City had permanently changed, it would eventually recover.
Yet, while the city was releasing a proverbial sigh, the Manufacturers became tenser.
The Crimson Sea's presence had impacted the Manufacturers the most.
First of all, the Crimson Sea had gotten rid of the Parasite's presence, and the governor used this opportunity to keep a constant watch over the single bridge that led into the city.
Every single animal that approached the city would be killed.
Over several days, three animals were killed.
A rat, a bird, and a dog.
After that, no more animals showed up.
All of these animals had been sent by the Parasite, and all of them had been killed.
While finding the Parasite inside the city had been almost impossible, finding him outside the city was extremely easy.
After all, not much moved in the outside world.
The only things that moved were the wind, caravans, Specters, and minions of Specters.
Nothing else.
The Parasite's minions were like chickens in a desert.
There was no place for them to hide.
Since the Parasite couldn't enter the city anymore, it became much more difficult for the Manufacturers to find Specters.
Nearly every Manufacturer had been trading with the Parasite.
Another change was that the Crimson Sea also consumed Specters.
Most Hatchlings that newly appeared inside the city accidentally looked at the Crimson Sea since they didn't know about it, and many more powerful Specters had been killed as well.
The number of Specters roaming free in Crimson City had probably dropped by over 70%.
Of course, the normal people were happy about that change, but the Manufacturers were not happy.
The longer things stayed this way, the more Kugelblitz's power grew.
They had the most powerful Specters, and they kept producing more powerful Extractors than everyone else.
For example, Kugelblitz received another Specialist, giving them 21 in total.
The second place was Anatomy, with just six.
Within the last two years, a total of five Specters had been captured by all of the Manufacturers combined, which was ridiculously little compared to the average of 10 to 20 that had been captured each year.
Sadly, Dark Dream didn't get any of those.
The battle for the Specters was more brutal than ever before, and Dark Dream just couldn't compete with the more powerful Manufacturers.
Over the last two years, Dark Dream managed to recover from all of its losses.
They now had one Early Veteran, which was Nick.
One Peak John, which was Jenny, the team leader of the Johns.
Five Mid Johns, with Taren being one of them. Taren was the team leader of the Newbies.
Three Early Johns.
Four Initial Johns.
And ten Newbies of varying levels of power.
Sadly, they still couldn't even hope to compete with the other Manufacturers.
The destroyed Spartans had had five Veterans and over 30 Johns.
Dark Dream couldn't even compete with the destroyed Spartans with their single Veteran and 13 Johns.
Dark Dream was by far the weakest Manufacturer.
The next weakest one was Solace, with over 20 Veterans and even two Experts.
Dark Dream didn't even have 10% of their power.
If it weren't for Julian, Dark Dream would have already been consumed by the other Manufacturers.
Julian was everyone's friend, and none of the other Manufacturers viewed Dark Dream as a threat thanks to him.
Why would someone fear a weapon if that weapon was wielded by their best friend?
However, Julian still had to be extremely careful.
While it seemed like Julian could freely walk around the city, it actually wasn't that easy.
Julian's mental powers worked very similarly to the Crimson Sea's mental powers.
It wasn't difficult for Julian to completely manipulate the minds of Experts or weak Specialists, but strong Specialists had quite some resistance.
Trying to influence a strong Specialist was extremely risky for Julian.
If he won, he would gain another tool, but if he failed, Julian would definitely die.
After all, the Specialist would attack Julian, call over more powerful Specialists, who would also be resistant to Julian's powers, and suppress Julian.
This was why Julian's public perception was imperative to his survival.
Everyone, from commoners to Experts, felt like they regularly met Julian somewhere and talked to him.
However, the Specialists, and especially the Heroes, extremely rarely met him, and if they did, Julian would only say hello before making himself scarce.
Being around such powerful Extractors was dangerous since many of them had tools and methods to confirm if someone was a Specter or not.
As for the Heroes…
They had never really seen Julian.
That meant that Julian also wasn't really their friend.
They knew that someone named Julian existed and that he was viewed in high esteem, but that was basically it.
So, all in all, this meant that Dark Dream was safe from Solace and Gemini, but that didn't necessarily expand to Ghosty's Lab, Anatomy, and Kugelblitz.