?Nick held the bottle upright and jumped out of the swamp.
As a Veteran, Nick had so much power that stepping on something as viscous as water or this sludge wasn't any different from stepping on solid ground as long as he kicked fast enough.
Nick quickly got dressed after cleaning himself of all the sludge he had carried with him.
And finally, he was done.
His excursion into the Swallowing Swamp had ended.
Nick looked at the Swallowing Swamp one last time.
'All the moisture will probably leave at some point, leaving behind even more viscous sludge. Although, maybe it will also just vanish and turn into Prephyx since the Spilling Bottle is no longer here.'
Nick looked at the bottle in his hand.
'I have to get this back into the city.'
"Jason, call everyone over," Nick shouted as he jumped out of the crater.
Jason shook his head as he was taken out of his daydream.
After that, he quickly ran to one of the hills on the side, which was where Jenny was located.
A couple of seconds later, everyone gathered in front of Nick.
They were all looking at the bottle in Nick's hand with expectation.
"Boss, is that the Specter?" Petra asked with surprise.
Nick nodded. "It's an Initial Hatchling Possession Specter," he said.
The Extractors got a bit excited when they heard that they had actually succeeded in capturing a Specter.
Sadly, the excitement quickly vanished as it sunk in that it was a Possession Specter.
The fact that it was an Initial Hatchling wouldn't have been an issue if it were a Force or Physical Specter.
Unfortunately, Possession Specters couldn't grow more powerful.
Assuming that they fed this thing with as much as it could eat every day, it would probably produce five to seven grams of Zephyx at most.
Any one of the present Extractors earned more credits per day than this entire Specter produced.
Even more, it couldn't even really be used to get Initial Newbies to become Early Newbies.
They already had the Screaming Coffin for that, which produced more Zephyx, was just as safe to work with, and probably even ate less.
The Spilling Bottle was probably the worst Specter that Dark Dream could have captured.
But at least it was a Specter.
"How's your status? Can you continue?" Nick asked.
Everyone nodded.
"Good," Nick said. "Then, I will bring the Spilling Bottle back to Dark Dream. I'm faster if I'm alone. I will be back in, at most, 30 minutes."
"Sure thing, Boss," Jenny said.
Then, Nick ran towards the west with a lot of speed.
When the three Initial Johns saw Nick's speed, they had to sigh.
They also wanted to be this powerful one day.
Within ten seconds, Nick reached the edge of the valley and jumped into it.
After about a minute, Nick had cleared five of the seven kilometers of the valley.
Then, he narrowed his eyes.
One of the black sludges was quite close to Nick, and it had spotted him.
Of course, it immediately started charging at him.
Luckily, the sludge was a bit smaller than two meters in diameter, which meant that it was only at the beginning of the Adolescent stage.
Nick walked around it and continued running forward.
Naturally, the sludge kept running after Nick.
Since Nick was much more powerful than the sludge, it couldn't even hope to catch up.
Nevertheless, it tried by constantly clawing forward with its many long arms.
These sludges had no sapience and attacked any kind of life they could see.
Nick didn't go as fast as he could since he wanted to lure the sludge to the forest.
After around half a minute, Nick arrived beside the forest.
The sludge was about 100 meters away from him.
Lastly, Nick just ran around the forest until it was between him and the sludge.
Silence.
BANG!
Nick heard the sludge explode.
Extractors were encouraged to lead the sludges to the forests, and Nick did just that.
After that, Nick turned around to-
'Wait,' Nick thought as he stopped.
Then, he looked back at the forest.
And then, at the Spilling Bottle.
'Can the Spilling Bottle affect the forests?' Nick asked himself. 'I guess it depends on its effect and its consistency.'
'Is the sludge normal physical matter, or is it Prephyx matter, like the bodies of the Blood Specters?'
'If it's normal matter, the forest will most likely ignore it.'
Nick looked at the Spilling Bottle with furrowed brows.
'But that's highly unlikely.'
'If it were normal matter, the other Extractors would have noticed that the sludge wasn't the Specter but only a byproduct.'
'I'm sure they tested if the sludge is normal matter or Prephyx matter, and I'm quite sure that it's Prephyx matter.'
'Let's try it out.'
That was when Nick realized that he was in view of the four guards at the city's entrance.
'Wait, the four guards know that I left with a team of Extractors. If I suddenly start doing something very noticeable, they might decide to tell Anatomy, assuming one of them is from Anatomy.'
'I should lay low for a bit. Leaving during your shift is very conspicuous, and they won't risk it as long as nothing crazy happens.'
Nick turned to the city again and ran back.
"Thanks, asshole," one of them said sarcastically as Nick arrived. "Because of you, I lost the bet."
"Oh, fuck off," another guard said. "That thing would've noticed the forest even without him. You're just mad that you lost. Don't blame him."
The first guard just grunted in annoyance.
Nick just looked at the two of them before he walked into the corridor.
After a bit of walking, he saw the two Experts who were guarding the bridge itself.
"Did you catch any Specters?" one of them asked with a serious tone.
Nick looked at the guard.
"Yes," Nick said.
The other guard also turned to look at Nick, and both of them had a glint in their eyes.