?Nick fully dove into the Swallowing Swamp.
Almost immediately, horrifying faces appeared around him as they bit into his flesh, tearing chunks out of him.
However, even though Nick felt a lot of pain, he wasn't surprised or panicked.
'This confirms it,' Nick thought. 'If I were inside a Force Specter, the Nightmare's power wouldn't work. The fact that I am under the Nightmare's influence means that I am not inside a Force Specter right now.'
Nick quickly came to the surface again, and all the horrifying faces vanished.
Of course, his ability also deactivated since Jason could see him again, and Jason looked at Nick with a lot of interest.
Nick continued to walk forward.
Right now, the Swallowing Swamp was not so deep, but it became deeper the further he progressed.
After walking into the swamp for about ten meters, it became quite difficult to touch the floor without submerging.
Nick started to swim forward with quite a bit of force, his arms producing gigantic waves as they pushed the sludge away.
In water, Nick wouldn't be light enough to float, but the sludge in his surroundings was actually quite dense.
Although, even if it were not as dense, Nick could just swim by kicking the sludge below him.
He swam forward for over a hundred meters.
Nick had no idea how deep the Swallowing Swamp was beneath him, and even though he had been in many scary situations before, it was still not easy for him to keep his cool.
The image of a gigantic beast swimming just a couple of meters below Nick's feet appeared again and again in his mind.
Even worse, that was an actual possibility.
If the sludge was not the Specter but only a byproduct, it was possible that some kind of Physical Specter in the shape of a creature released the sludge.
What if the sludge wasn't meant to be poisonous?
What if the Swallowing Swamp was a Fanatic that released such weak poison to attract Veterans and Experts so that it could more easily kill them with an ambush?
Right now, Nick swam inside a big and viscous dark purple pool in the middle of a wasteland as the orange sun shone down from above.
Nick kept swimming into the middle of the swamp.
Was he scared?
Of course, he was scared.
However, Nick didn't let his fear dictate his actions.
Courage was one of the most important aspects of an Extractor, and one could only have courage if one felt fear.
And frankly, not feeling any fear of the things an Extractor went through regularly would be idiotic.
Eventually, Nick reached the middle of the swamp and looked around.
'Nothing special here,' Nick thought, 'but that's what I expected.'
Sure, there was a possibility that some powerful creature lived in this swamp, but the possibility was actually quite small.
After all, all of the powerful Extractors knew of the Swallowing Swamp, and they had experimented on it several times.
If any of their Extractors had died here, the Manufacturers would have had much more interest in the Swallowing Swamp.
But no Extractor ever vanished.
After looking around for a bit, Nick swam in circles that spiraled outward.
He wanted to make sure that there was not some kind of hidden domain somewhere on the Swallowing Swamp's surface.
For several minutes, Nick just swam around the Swallowing Swamp.
Eventually, he reached the place where his clothes were and stepped out of the Swallowing Swamp.
The sludge around Nick's body clung to him like glue, and Nick furrowed his brows.
He pushed the sludge on his arms away, and he felt a hard layer crumbling away from his body.
He took a look at what he had peeled off and saw pieces of some fragile black material hanging on the sludge.
Luckily, Julian's lessons about basic chemistry paid off.
'That's probably what the acid in the sludge turns into after it used up all its power,' Nick thought as he crumbled the black material between his fingers.
'The sludge attaches to the skin but also to the black material, making it very difficult to get rid of. It might not be difficult for me to push the sludge off my body, but a Newbie would have quite some difficulties while also being burned and poisoned the entire time.'
Nick walked over to his clothes, but he didn't put them on.
Instead, he grabbed one of the three big cylinders and walked back to the swamp.
SHING!
After pressing a button, the cylinder turned into a long throwing spear, almost two meters long.
The spear was quite heavy since Nick's ability wasn't active, but he could still carry it without any issues.
As he entered the Swallowing Swamp again, he grabbed the spear by one end and touched the floor with the other.
He continued like this until he was about 50 meters away from the coast.
At that point, the floor was too far away.
So, Nick changed his hold.
He put one of the tips of the spear between his toes on his right foot and grabbed it.
Like this, Nick got quite a bit more reach.
Another 100 meters further, it became too deep again.
However, Nick noticed something.
'The crater is round, and the rate at which it is gaining depth is decreasing.'
'From nothing to a depth of two meters took barely ten meters, but another meter took fifty meters, and another meter took 100 meters.'
'The Swallowing Swamp's deepest spot is probably only about four to five meters deep.'
Nick did a bit of planning and submerged.
'The Nightmare's influence only starts at a depth of about half a meter. As long as I don't dive deeper than that, I'm not in danger.'
Nick kept going forward as he swung his spear back and forth with his toes, constantly scratching the ground.
The Swallowing Swamp had to have a body, and it had to be somewhere in the swamp.
Nick searched.
And searched.
And searched…