As an Expert, Nick's body was now 1,000 times more powerful than an identical body of a normal human.
However, since Nick's build was already very athletic, it was actually about 3,000 times as powerful as the average person's body.
And if his ability was active, that would go up to 15,000 times.
As long as Nick wasn't being perceived, his body was as powerful as the body of an Initial or Early Specialist.
That was insane!
Of course, if someone managed to perceive Nick, he would be in huge trouble since all that power would vanish.
Sadly, achieving such insane power was only possible with tradeoffs.
Someone who had no weaknesses could become a good fighter, but that was it.
If one wanted to be a great or even the strongest fighter, one needed to focus on one's advantages and improve them even more.
Someone with great attacking power, great defense, great speed, and great technique could fight almost anyone, but only almost.
Someone with peerless attacking power, poor defense, okay speed, and poor technique could casually annihilate the previous fighter.
Someone with peerless defense didn't need to fear anyone.
Someone with peerless speed couldn't be touched.
Someone with peerless technique couldn't be killed.
Of course, all of this was only true when these four peerless fighters didn't fight with each other.
As long as Nick wasn't perceived, he could annihilate a Late Expert with a single strike.
That strike would completely destroy their Barrier and kill them.
Killing someone three levels above oneself in one instant was unheard of.
But to achieve that power, Nick had needed to completely specialize on that path.
He had amazing strengths, but he also had devastating weaknesses.
Yet, as long as the opponent didn't get a chance to take advantage of these weaknesses, they might as well not exist.
Nick remained seated in the middle of the room for a while longer.
Finally, about half a minute later, Aria jumped out of the Fiend of Darkness.
Her face was white, and she seemed quite distressed, but she quickly managed to recover.
Nick looked at her and nodded. "Thank you. Everything has worked out."
Aria took a deep breath.
Being under the Nightmare's influence for two minutes was still brutal for her.
"You've also advanced?" she asked.
Nick nodded.
"Good," Aria said.
Then, Aria looked at Nick for a second.
"Did you get your ability?" she asked in a strange voice.
A small glimmer appeared in Nick's eyes.
'Just as expected,' Nick thought.
"I did," he said with a tone indicating that he understood the hidden message. "If you turn around for a moment, I can show you."
Naturally, showing a stranger one's ability was stupid and a no-go.
Even asking for someone to show their ability was seen as overbearing and rude.
However, this didn't matter right now.
The current dynamic between Nick and Aria was not simple.
Nick had stayed for hours inside the Fiend of Darkness, and even though the chances were minuscule, maybe, just maybe, he managed to get the Nightmare's ability.
Obviously, the ability of an Eternal was more important than basically anything.
It was even more important than Vernon's life.
On top of that, they had given Nick the Elixir, allowed him to get the ability of one of their Fanatics, and Aria even went through two minutes of brutal torture for him.
Death Pact or not, Aria wanted to confirm Nick's ability.
The fairness or rudeness of the matter wasn't important.
Naturally, Nick knew all of this, and he had already made preparations.
"Okay," Aria said with interest as she turned away from Nick.
She wasn't worried about Nick suddenly attacking her.
Nick quietly stood in the middle of the room, but even though Aria wasn't looking at him, his ability didn't reactivate.
However, that technically wasn't important for his new ability.
His new ability could be used on someone who wasn't perceiving him.
It didn't need his ability to be active.
At first glance, these two things sounded identical, but that wasn't the case.
It was identical when there were only two people in a room, but not when there were more.
Right now, Nick's ability was deactivated due to the Fiend of Darkness still being able to perceive him.
In one case, he wouldn't be able to use it at all, but in the other, he would be able to use it on Aria but not on the Fiend of Darkness.
That was the difference.
As Nick looked at Aria's back, a small gleam appeared in his eyes.
'She can still perceive me somehow,' Nick realized.
He could feel that he couldn't use his new ability on her.
'But I just need a small moment.'
SHING!
Nick turned into mist.
Then, he used his new ability.
Whooom!
A streak of darkness passed through Aria's vision, and Nick turned back into his corporeal form.
Nick was certain that Aria had still been able to perceive him due to the smell or the quiet sounds of his blood flowing through his veins.
Someone as powerful as Aria must have terrifying senses.
But after he turned into fog, all of these things vanished, and for just a moment, she hadn't been able to perceive him, giving him a small window for his new ability to work.
Of course, if she had been looking at him, this wouldn't have worked, but she wasn't.
When Aria saw the streak of darkness, a small bit of interest appeared in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by calm and disappointment.
Aria turned around and looked at Nick with a neutral expression.
"You can summon darkness?" she asked.
"More or less," Nick said. "That's not entirely correct, but I don't want to expose too much."
Aria nodded.
She didn't need to know more.
Her goal had been to confirm that Nick hadn't somehow attained the Nightmare's ability.
Being able to summon a bit of darkness seemed very much in line with what the Fiend of Darkness granted Extractors.
In a way, Aria was no longer afraid that Nick somehow managed to get the Nightmare's ability, but she also was a bit disappointed.
After all, getting the ability of an Eternal would be big news.
Sadly, or luckily, Aria didn't see how hard Nick was trying not to collapse right now.
Nick had essentially used 99% of his Zephyx to perform this little stunt.
99% of Zephyx just to make a tiny streak of black?
That sounded horrible!
And it would be…
If this were Nick's actual ability.
But it wasn't.