Nick waited in front of the closed door.
Surprisingly, his ability hadn't reactivated yet, which meant that someone was still seeing him at this moment.
'Protectors probably have even stronger powers of perception,' Nick thought.
Sadly, while Nick knew what powers Specialists and Heroes had, he didn't know what kind of powers Protectors had.
For several minutes, Nick had to wait.
Eventually, the door opened, but no one stepped out.
"Nick, come in," Simon said, standing in the middle of the room.
Nick stepped inside without any hesitation and looked at Simon before looking at the person sitting at the desk behind him.
The person sitting at the desk was a small woman who seemed quite young.
She had icy blue hair and icy blue eyes, and she wore the white uniform of Aegis.
Nick couldn't perceive her power, but he knew that she had to be more powerful than Simon since he said that this was his supervisor.
She was probably responsible for keeping Envy contained, which meant that she must have power comparable to it.
The icy woman looked at Nick, and Nick felt a deep pressure surrounding his body.
However, Nick just fearlessly looked into her eyes.
He had gone through hell in his eyes, and his will wasn't that easily broken.
He had survived hours of the Nightmare's torture, and he had killed countless people while fighting people many times stronger than him.
Even more, Nick had worked with over 30 different Specters.
The gaze of someone powerful couldn't break his concentration.
Nick performed a quick and polite bow. "Greetings, my name is Nick, and I come from Crimson City."
The woman kept looking at him with her icy eyes for a couple more seconds.
"You have imperative news for Aegis?" she asked with her icy voice.
Nick nodded. "I do."
"What is this news?" she asked.
"I trust in Simon's judgment," Nick said.
The icy woman narrowed her eyes.
The answer was clear.
If Simon didn't tell her, he wouldn't tell her.
Finally, after a couple of seconds, she nodded.
"Good mindset," she said before putting a stamp on a piece of paper, which she then handed to Simon.
"Thank you, Aurelia," Simon said casually.
Aurelia just nodded. "You may go," she said before focusing on more sheets of paper.
Simon gestured for Nick to leave, and Nick walked out of the room, followed by Simon.
Nick waited for Simon and followed him as he walked through the hallways.
Neither of them said anything for a while.
When the two of them reached the rooftop, they started to fly again.
This time, they flew towards the northeast, the direction of Crimson City.
"We're going back?" Nick asked.
"No," Simon answered. "Aegis' headquarters is also in that direction, but it's quite a distance."
"Okay," Nick said, falling silent again.
"You left a good impression," Simon said. "Aurelia isn't easy to please. Don't mind her cold demeanor. She simply has a high standard for herself and everyone around her. She despises slackers and weak-willed people."
Nick just wordlessly nodded.
The two of them flew for a couple of seconds, and when Nick saw the megastructure of Crimson City, he closed his eyes.
He did not want to accidentally see the Crimson Sea.
"We might relocate the Crimson Sea," Simon suddenly said.
"Huh?" Nick uttered.
"Aegis has heard about the Crimson Sea before, but we have never asked about its specifics. When you told me about it, I realized that it might be a good Specter for Aegis."
"Aegis has only one Adversary and only twelve Fallen, which over a hundred Protectors have to share. That's not enough."
"The Crimson Sea consumes Specters, which gives us an easy way to dispose of troublesome Specters while also strengthening a Specter that we have contained."
"As it stands right now, we either kill a very troublesome Specter or just contain them forever, which uses up a lot of our resources. We don't want to increase the density of Prephyx in the atmosphere since that would just create more Specters."
"But with the Crimson Sea, we can store the Zephyx of troublesome Specters without needing to actively contain them. If the Crimson Sea were easier to transport, we would already be planning on confiscating it. Sadly, transporting such a big Specter and containing it is a huge project and not that easy."
"While I'm at Aegis' headquarters, I'm going to talk to the containment team regarding the Crimson Sea."
"But before that, you are going to have a talk with the Left Arm," Simon said.
"The Left Arm?" Nick asked.
"The Left Arm is one of two people that stand below the Champion but above everyone else. The Left Arm is responsible for information gathering, interrogation, control of the domain, and leading the defensive forces of Aegis."
"The Right Arm is responsible for city management, containment, research, and leading the offensive forces of Aegis," Simon explained.
"Are you under the Left or the Right Arm?" Nick asked.
"Right Arm," Simon answered. "We are containing and actively trying to kill Envy. The defensive forces are mostly Protectors that have to travel around the world when a city suspects that a Fallen is nearby."
Nick nodded.
The two of them quickly passed over Crimson City and continued flying towards the northeast.
In barely a second, they had already reached the ocean again.
And then, they continued passing over the ocean for a long time.
They were moving at around 50 kilometers per second, but they kept flying for way over a minute, which was crazy to Nick.
Nick knew that the ocean had to be big, but he hadn't expected it to be this big!
Finally, after almost four minutes of flying, Nick saw land again.
'That had to be over 10,000 kilometers!' Nick thought in shock.
10,000 kilometers of nothing but water!
That was crazy!
"How big is the world?" Nick asked.
"The world is a sphere with a circumference of around 40,000 kilometers. That means going from one side of the world to another is a distance of 20,000 kilometers max," Simon explained.
40,000 kilometers!
Nick realized how truly small Crimson City and its surrounding area was.
And only 100 Protectors had to deal with all the cities scattered across such a vast area?
No wonder Aegis couldn't send Protectors to every city!
"We are currently flying over the Great Triangle. That's the continent where Aegis' headquarters are located," Simon said.
"You're just telling me like that?" Nick asked.
"There's no reason to keep Aegis' location a secret. Death and the Trio of Destruction already know where it is," Simon casually explained.
'Makes sense,' Nick thought.
The two of them continued flying for quite a while longer.
This time, Nick was shocked about how much land there was.
Sure enough, the continent was huge!
From time to time, Nick even saw a city.
Surprisingly, most of them didn't have any kind of megastructure like Crimson City.
Most of them were just filled with tall buildings.
Some were on hills, and some were in craters.
"There are not many megastructures in the cities," Nick said as he looked at another city they were passing by.
"Creating such a tall structure requires an abundance of highly valuable materials," Simon said. "Metals that are treated with Zephyx work, but it requires tons upon tons of Zephyx, and almost all the cities are not willing to invest that much money just to have a big building."
"Crimson City has its megastructure because it is built upon a sizable ancient ruin. We are not yet able to reproduce the materials used in those ruins, but we can reshape and move them."
"Crimson City is one of the newer cities, and the abundance of ancient materials in the ruins is the reason why it has a megastructure," Simon explained.
Nick just nodded.
After flying for quite some time, Simon started to slow down.
"We are now entering the eastern part of the Great Triangle. As of this moment, we are already in Death's domain."
Nick's heart shook.
"Can it see us?" Nick asked.
"It can," Simon answered. "We do not know where Death is exactly, but it is always somewhere near Aegis' headquarters."
"If it attacks us, the three Shields in the headquarters will attack and subdue it. Because of that, it can't risk attacking anyone right now."
"However, it alone is keeping three of our Shields bound to this location, which is almost half of our Shields. Death is more than willing to make such a trade."
Nick didn't answer.
Death, the strongest enemy of humanity, was looking at Nick and Simon right now.
Nick couldn't help feeling nervous.
However, just as Simon said, nothing happened.
Death wouldn't risk exposing its location to deal with a Protector and an Expert.
A couple of seconds later, Nick saw an endless field of ruins.
The field of ruins was so massive that it stretched towards the horizon!
Even more, based on the size of the destroyed buildings, there used to be a crazy number of gigantic buildings everywhere.
Eventually, Nick saw some of the ocean, and on the ocean, Nick saw a gigantic island.
It was filled to the absolute brim with ruins.
However, the most noticeable thing was in a small part of the ocean, which was surrounded by land in almost all directions.
It was the lower half of a greenish statue.
"This is one of the biggest cities created by the Ancient Ones. Ancient texts called it…"
"New York."