"Do we know how strong the Specter is?" Nick asked.
"Definitely at least a Demon," Julian said. "Could also be a Fallen."
Julian smirked arrogantly.
"But we know something that the city doesn't, right?" he said.
Nick nodded. "It can't possibly be a powerful Fallen. It's almost definitely within the first three levels. Most likely, it just became a Fallen recently."
Julian chuckled.
How was it possible that Dark Dream could tell how powerful the Specter was, but the city and Kugelblitz couldn't?
One reason.
The fact that it went after Nick.
Twice!
Over the past decades, the Specter to the north had never shown its hand in any way.
Whenever someone vanished, it took those people without getting noticed.
This meant that the Specter was definitely not stupid.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
This Specter was supremely intelligent.
It was so intelligent that nobody noticed it when it didn't want to get noticed, and nobody managed to escape if it didn't want them to escape.
This meant that the Specter had only attacked when it was 100% certain that its prey was alone.
When it had sent the coral people after Nick the first time, that might have still been true.
After all, it had sent a Specialist after a couple of Veterans and an Expert.
Those were quite good odds.
But if one looked closely, a couple of things seemed strange.
First of all, why did the coral people interrogate the captured Mark?
The person the Specter had seen had already escaped.
Running after that person might unveil them.
Instead, if they had just taken Mark with them, nobody would have known what they looked like, and they would have made another person vanish.
Yet, they interrogated Mark and even jumped toward the southwest in search of the person the Specter had sensed earlier.
Why?
Even more, when the city had tried to find the coral people in the weeks after that, the coral people had returned to their old way of doing things.
They only took the lone and weak people.
But as soon as they found Nick again, they charged out of the water right into the land.
Did they travel this many kilometers inland every time they wanted to catch someone?
No.
If they did, the city would have already found out about them.
Yet, whenever it was Nick, they did that.
It was almost like they desperately wanted to capture Nick.
But why would they want to do that?
Nick was just a random Veteran, right?
Well, wasn't there a Specter that was very interested in capturing Nick?
Envy.
Naturally, Julian had already told Nick about Envy's servant, the Prison, and how Julian had essentially thrown him out of the city.
The Prison had been tasked with catching Nick back then, but since it couldn't get past Julian, it sent one of its servants.
That servant infiltrated the Spartans, acted as a Possession Specter that granted wishes in exchange for favors and used the Spartans to catch Nick.
But then, the Crimson Sea broke out, and the Specter was consumed by it.
The next moment, the entire city was covered in a red mist.
Now, from an outside perspective, what did that look like?
It looked like the entire city had been destroyed.
After all, everything was covered in corrosive red mist, and it was impossible to see the city anymore.
So, the Prison had seen that and believed that Nick had died.
The Prison left and stopped trying to get into the city.
But then, Envy heard that Crimson City somehow survived years later.
And since the Prison failed the last time, Envy asked another Specter.
Most likely, the Specter in the sea to the north had either already been one of Envy's servants or was made one recently.
In any case, it was supposed to capture Nick if it found any signs of him.
Because of that, Nick and Julian knew that the Specter to the north couldn't be a powerful Fallen but only a weak Fallen at most.
After all, a Specter had to be quite a lot more powerful to enslave another Specter without actually being physically present.
Simon Francium had said that Envy was being detained somewhere far away, which meant that it couldn't possibly appear here just like that.
Someone of similar power wouldn't immediately bow in front of someone like that.
However, if that person had servants on a power level similar to theirs, things would be different.
Envy had a couple of weak Fallen as servants.
If a weak Fallen or Demon disrespected Envy, one of these servants might appear to kill them.
Naturally, the city knew none of that.
As far as they knew, Nick was just very good at luring the coral people out.
Why would such a strong Specter be interested in such a weak Extractor?
"But none of that matters," Julian said with a chuckle. "We got what we wanted."
"What did we get?" Nick asked.
"One Initial Adult and two Early Adolescent," Julian answered.
Nick furrowed his brows.
Sure, that was great, but he needed a Late or Peak Adult to grow stronger.
An Initial Adult barely helped him.
"We got the Initial Adult for the information and the two Early Adolescents for capturing the two coral people. The city is going to prepare them and deliver them to us within the next two weeks," Julian said.
"Sounds good," Nick answered.
Naturally, Nick didn't want to appear too angry about the fact that the Specters were not useful to him personally.
It was important that Nick acted like Dark Dream was more important.
After all, Nick didn't want to seem like he knew that Julian would one day try to kill him.
Also, it wasn't so bad, actually.
Dark Dream needed more Adolescents anyway.
The number of Johns Dark Dream employed was pitifully little.
Solace had over 50.
With enough Johns, Dark Dream would also gain far more Veterans in the future, and with many Veterans, they could capture more Adults.