?The five of them followed the valley for several minutes.
They were walking at a fast pace, but they were not running.
It was important to keep a stable formation.
Eventually, they followed a bend in the valley, and the city vanished behind the valley's wall.
The five of them continued walking for another minute before Nick stopped.
"I want to test out the defensive formation," Nick said. "Assume the defensive formation!"
The others nodded and ran to the middle of the formation.
Then, they turned their backs to each other and looked outside, surveying the surroundings.
Meanwhile, Nick jumped over them and landed in the middle of the formation.
Right now, all four of Nick's teammates had their backs turned to him, with a bit over two meters of distance between him and their backs.
Nick had told them that this defensive formation would protect them in case they were surrounded.
Of course, that wasn't the real point of the defensive formation.
When Nick landed in the middle of the defensive formation, he felt his ability reactivate.
Right now, none of his teammates could sense him.
Nick had created this defensive formation for scouting reasons.
Since none of his teammates could sense him, Nick could check if someone was looking at their team, thanks to his ability.
'No one is currently looking at us,' Nick thought as he silently looked at the valley. 'Nobody inside the city knows of my ability, which means nobody is going to purposefully look away from us.'
'The chances of us being followed by someone from the city are very low.'
"Good job. Disperse!" Nick ordered.
Nick's team assumed its normal formation.
"I will regularly call for the defensive formation from now on," Nick said. "This might seem nonsensical to you, but I want to keep you guys focused and ready at all times. Additionally, a sudden and hectic change of position on our part might disorient anyone that's following us, which might result in them exposing themselves."
"Whenever I call for the defensive formation, I want you guys to assemble as if we are about to enter a serious fight. Understood?" Nick asked.
"Yes, boss!" the four of them answered in unison.
"Good. Then, let's continue," Nick said before he continued walking forward.
The group continued walking along the valley for another couple of minutes.
Eventually, Nick stopped and looked at one of the walls for a bit.
"There should be an Infester to the south of here. I think it might be a good idea to look at it. I want us all to see one so that we can avoid any accidents if we see one in the future," Nick said.
Clayton narrowed his eyes while the other three had expressions of interest on their faces.
They also wanted to see one with their own eyes.
"Check your Barriers if they are set for outside," Nick said as he took out a big silver coin from his pocket.
The other four also took out their Barriers to check.
A moment later, everyone put the Barriers back into their pockets and nodded.
When Nick saw that everyone was ready, they went to the cliff face to the south.
The team approached the southern wall and climbed it by rapidly jumping several times.
Nick and Jenny didn't have any issues in climbing the dusty hill, but the other three had to put in quite a bit of effort to outpace the small avalanches below their feet.
About half a minute later, everyone arrived at the top.
Their Barriers were already showing signs of getting lightly triggered occasionally.
The team was now on a relatively even plane, which was just as dusty as the valley.
However, about 200 meters in front of them was something that couldn't look any more noticeable.
It was a ten-meter-tall bloody human spine growing out of the ground.
Dimly shining vessels of blood were crawling up the spine until they touched a big and bloody branch-like outgrowth near the top of the spine.
There were several of these thick and bloody outgrowths, and at the end of each of them was a pair of big human lungs, which were constantly inhaling and exhaling.
A trachea was hanging from each pair of lungs, and the air the lungs were breathing was entering and exiting from these tracheas.
This was an Infester, and it was the minion of a Specter, which was called the Infestation.
The Infestation was not nearly as powerful as the False Hope and the Eternal Hunger.
Additionally, the Infesters, the Infestation's minions, were not everywhere in the world.
The Infesters were only found in a large area to the south of Crimson City.
According to Crimson City, the Infestation was a Fanatic.
The Infestation grew more powerful by transforming human matter into more of itself.
It accomplished that by growing these Infesters all over the place.
The Infesters dispersed invisible spores in a radius of about 200 meters.
Anyone that breathed in these spores would have their mind altered, and they would feel the irresistible desire to approach the Infester and suck on one of the tracheas hanging from the lungs.
This would give them a lethal dose of spores, and their body would "explode" and wrap around the Infester.
Researchers from Crimson City found out that this also worked on corpses, which only needed to be placed near an Infester to trigger the transformation.
Their Barriers had different settings, specifically due to the Infesters.
The spores of the Infesters were not picked up by normal Barriers and were therefore not blocked.
Because of that, it was necessary to have special Barriers when one planned on exploring the outside world.
The group looked at the Infester for a while before they were distracted by something near its base.
There was a group of seven people standing near the bottom of the Infester, their Barriers constantly shining.
As a Fanatic, the Infestation was highly desired by Ghosty's Lab, Anatomy, and Kugelblitz.
All three of these Manufacturers had claimed one Infester for themselves so that they could run experiments on them.
This Infester was the closest to the city and belonged to Kugelblitz, which was also the reason why Nick was okay with coming here.
Out of the big three Manufacturers, Kugelblitz was of the least concern due to Julian's influence over their shareholders and Vernon.
"If you see one of these on our journey, tell me immediately," Nick said before he jumped down into the valley.
"Yes, boss," the others answered before following him.