?"That was the 24th today," one of the guards said with a smirk to the one beside him. "Six more and I win."
The other guy didn't answer, but his face showed annoyance.
The four people following Nick looked at the spectacle with interest.
Nick had already told them about the forests and these black oozes, and they thought it was quite interesting to watch these things kill each other.
"You ready?" Nick asked his team of four.
The four turned to Nick, nodded, and assumed their positions again.
However, one thing was different this time.
Petra and Jason were not focusing on the front of the group.
Instead, they were more focused on each other and Jenny.
When Nick had tried to come up with a good formation, he had tried to think of any possible weaknesses.
Since Nick was essentially fighting like an assassin, he immediately noticed that Jenny represented a weakness in the formation.
If someone could sneak up from the back, they could take out Jenny without being noticed.
Because of that, Nick decided to change where Petra and Jason were looking.
While Nick and Clayton would focus on the front and the frontal sides, Jenny would focus on Nick and Clayton, and Petra and Jason would focus on Jenny and on each other.
Like this, everyone had somebody watching over them, making it impossible to kill any of them secretly.
Nick threw a glance at the guards, who were standing beside the corridor in front of a wall.
For security reasons, Crimson City had built a two-meter-high wall around the top of the hill surrounding the city.
Ironically enough, this wall wasn't supposed to stop the enemy but their allies.
After all, if one approached the hill and went to its top, one would be able to see the Crimson Sea.
That was a bad thing.
Of course, a two-meter-high wall could even be climbed by many commoners, which made it irrelevant to anyone who could potentially cause damage to Crimson City.
However, these hypothetical enemies could just go ahead and jump over the wall.
But as soon as they did, navigating would become very difficult since they would be on an incline that led to the Crimson Sea.
They would either need to blindly jump over the kilometer-wide gap into the city or blindly find the corridor and bridge.
Or they could just open their eyes, but, well…
While the Crimson Sea had caused many deaths, it actually also served as an amazing tool for the city's defense.
The walls of the old Crimson Fungus City had been extremely tall and durable, and it had been manned by many guards.
The main reason for these walls had been the black oozes.
But now, they didn't need such a strong wall anymore.
The black oozes could easily slosh over the wall, and based on the statements of several guards, the oozes sped up as soon as they reached the top of the small walls, and a couple of seconds later, the sound of something liquid falling into another liquid could be heard.
The Crimson Sea's enticing qualities seemed to also work on the oozes.
The only difference was that the oozes didn't laugh while jumping in.
While the thought of an ooze jumping into the Crimson Sea was quite funny, there was actually still a worrying aspect about it.
The city didn't know how the oozes interacted with the Crimson Sea when it came to Zephyx.
If an ooze fell into the Crimson Sea, did the Crimson Sea's Zephyx increase or decrease?
If it decreased, that would be amazing.
But if it increased…
That could be bad.
Luckily, the oozes were quite weak, and a Fanatic like the Crimson Sea would need countless oozes to become a Demon.
So, even if they increased the Crimson Sea's Zephyx, the city would have enough time to adapt and react.
Additionally, if everything went as expected, the Crimson Sea wouldn't be a problem anymore after a couple of years.
Nick led his group away from the city and stepped into the big valley.
The slope into the valley was quite steep, and the five of them had to slide down, creating a small avalanche of sand and dried earth.
After reaching the bottom, the five of them continued walking forward.
By now, the smell in the air had changed significantly.
The smell of metal and rust that had accompanied everyone for all their lives had vanished, replaced by a dry and dusty smell.
If they were not Zephyx Extractors, they might have coughed.
The group looked over to the forest, which was now only a couple hundred meters away from them.
It looked quite strange.
Only Nick and Jenny were used to the existence of trees since they frequented the Inner City quite a lot, but the other three were still new to them.
Trees were just such a weird concept.
Several meter-tall living, hard brown pillars that breathed with weird green things hanging from them.
That sounded about as creepy as a Specter.
As they continued walking, the smell became pleasant.
It smelled like flowers and clean water.
Naturally, that smell came from the forest.
Everyone except for Nick felt themselves gulping and becoming thirsty.
The only reason Nick wasn't affected was that he was in a constant state of Zephosis as a Veteran.
Additionally, he hadn't drunk anything in two years.
The only thing he needed to survive was one breath every couple of minutes and Prephyx or Zephyx.
"Where are we going first, boss?" Petra asked from behind Nick after taking a swig from a bottle of water she had brought with her.
"We won't be able to find any Specters close to the city," Nick answered with a neutral tone. "The other Manufacturers have people constantly patrolling the surroundings."
"We can only find Specters about ten kilometers from the city or even further away."
"First, I want to take a look at the Swallowing Swamp. Maybe I can find something out about it."