Nick leaned on the big grey cliff beside him and took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Then, he opened his eyes with conviction and silently climbed upward.
After reaching the top, he slowly moved his head over the edge.
He saw it, the endless sea.
Right now, Nick was at the same spot from about a month ago, when he had been on the excursion with Carl, Irwin, and Mark.
As Nick's head peeked over the edge, his ability deactivated, just as expected.
Yet, nothing moved.
Nick knew that something must have noticed him, but whatever had noticed him didn't show any indication of it.
He moved his head below the edge and over the edge repeatedly.
Every time a part of his head went above the edge, his ability deactivated.
'This makes it official. Whatever is seeing me is inside the sea,' Nick thought.
Nick kept looking at the sea for a while, closely examining it.
It was incredibly difficult to see anything inside since it was so deep and dark.
However, he still felt like something was moving.
For a while, Nick just waited here, looking at the sea.
There was nobody else near the sea.
No Extractors, no Specters, nothing.
It was just Nick and the sea.
He waited.
After about 30 seconds, Nick saw the stick in the distance, and just like before, it started to grow.
But this time, Nick knew what he was actually seeing.
It was a mast.
It was the top of a sail.
It was a ship.
When Nick had told Julian about it, Julian had told him that it must have been a ship.
Nick knew that the world was round, but he hadn't ever seen a ship before, which was why he hadn't been sure if that had been one.
As soon as Nick saw the stick, he knew that the enemy was coming for him.
Nick immediately jumped down from the cliff.
In an instant, he landed on the ground.
BOOOOM!
And exploded towards the southwest.
Nick ran with all of his power, and with his ability active, he managed to traverse over a kilometer in barely five seconds.
As Nick ran with his full power, he felt the air becoming thicker and thicker.
It was almost like some kind of resistance was building up in front of him.
Whoom!
Suddenly, Nick's Zephyx pulsed, and the resistance in front of Nick vanished.
Starting at the Expert Stage, people could come into contact with supersonic speeds.
If one wasn't careful, one would create a sonic boom, which could damage things in one's surroundings and even deafen normal people.
Of course, if every powerful Extractor created a sonic boom while traversing the city, living there would be atrocious.
Because of that, Extractors had to learn how to use their Zephyx to create a "hole" in the sound barrier.
Like this, the Extractor would make almost no sound while moving, and at the same time, the sound would "flow around them".
Achieving something like this wasn't easy since it needed a good grasp of Zephyx manipulation, but people who had reached this level had enough experience to master something like that quite quickly.
Ten seconds later, Nick had already moved over three kilometers towards the southwest.
And then, his ability deactivated, and Nick's speed plummeted rapidly.
Nick immediately turned towards the northeast, and he saw two tiny dots extremely far away.
He couldn't see the details of the dots, but Nick knew exactly what those were.
In an instant, Nick grabbed something from his belt and broke it inside his hand.
WHOOOOOOM!
A gigantic explosion of red mist occurred.
Everything around Nick was coated in an extremely thick layer of red Zephyx.
All of this happened within two seconds.
Yet, within these two seconds, the two distant dots had already enlarged to a terrifying degree.
By now, Nick could fully see all the details of the two dots.
Just as expected, there were two people covered in red corals.
Half their bodies were filled with corals, while the other half looked like they were corpses that had been floating in the water for a day or two.
In just these two seconds, the two dots had managed to close the distance by four kilometers!
The two dots had jumped off the ship, which had still been about five kilometers away from the shore, which meant that they had jumped when Nick was around eight kilometers away from them.
And yet, in only two seconds, they had halved the distance between them and Nick.
Two kilometers per second.
Those were speeds that only Specialists and Fanatics could reach.
Nick's heart rate shot through the roof, and he kept running.
However, his speed had plummeted by a lot.
Now, he needed over ten seconds per kilometer.
Another second passed, and the two coral people were now only a bit more than two kilometers away from Nick.
In one more second, they would reach him.
Nick gritted his teeth.
His entire being was shouting at him to use his ability and escape, but Nick forcefully resisted.
Nick looked at the two coral people while he kept running.
They were gaining ground fast!
BANG!
Suddenly, the two coral people stopped in the air with a powerful punch forward, creating a terrifying explosion of wind in the air.
BANG!
Another explosion, and the two of them shot towards the north again.
WHOOOOM!
Suddenly, a bright ray of light passed over Nick at incomprehensible speeds.
In less than a second, the ray of light passed Nick and the two coral people.
BOOOM!
An explosion of light occurred between the two coral people and the sea.
And moments later, a blonde woman wearing Kugelblitz's uniform appeared in that place.
It was Aria Light, Kugelblitz's Chief Zephyx Extractor.
But she wasn't the only one.
CRRRRR!
A comet of violent fire followed the beam of light and reached the two coral people in an instant.
The comet of fire consumed one of them in an instant before taking care of the other one.
BANG!
The fire vanished, revealing three people.
The two coral people were surrounded by white chains, which were being held by the governor.
Nick took a deep breath and sighed.
Mission success.