Nick left Crimson City without being noticed.
Something like that would have been difficult in the past, but with the ability from the Nightmare, this became much easier.
Additionally, there was no red curtain around the city anymore, making it much easier to go out.
One could just jump over the wall.
Even more, as a powerful Expert, Nick could literally just jump a distance of several kilometers, as long as his ability was active.
As long as Nick turned into smoke as soon as he jumped, nobody would take notice of him.
He would look like a random bit of dust that just flew through the air.
Sure, some people would find that strange, but they wouldn't know that this was Nick.
After all, nobody except a couple of people from Sky Dream and Aria knew that Nick could turn into mist.
So, it was quite easy for Nick to leave the city without being noticed.
Naturally, he had told Aria that he would be scouting the surroundings.
Initially, Aria asked Nick to accompany him, but Nick refused.
"Keeping my ability secret is important. Not even you are allowed to know it," he answered. "It's related to my survival."
Aria was a bit annoyed about that.
She was willing to tell Nick about her ability, but Nick wasn't willing to reciprocate.
This was not what Aria had anticipated.
Officially, they were in a relationship, but it didn't really feel like a relationship.
They hadn't even kissed yet.
However, Aria knew that being in a relationship with Nick would be difficult.
In the end, she just accepted it and let Nick go out on his own.
In the past decade, a couple of things had changed outside the city.
The Desert had been eradicated.
Sadly, every attempt at capturing it had failed, and in the end, the city ordered its extermination.
Killing it was far easier than capturing it.
The Land of Desires had been caught by the new Manufacturer, Desire.
The south of the city had been filled with the Infesters, and after many years of research, Kugelblitz managed to capture the parent Specter, the Infestation, a Mid Fanatic.
Sadly, the Domain of the Corrosive Dust was still there.
The Corrosive Dust still hadn't been captured, and its domain was growing, albeit slowly.
Within the last ten years, it had come one kilometer closer to Crimson City.
If it kept expanding at this rate, it would reach Crimson City within 50 years.
Sadly, no one inside Crimson City was powerful enough to rival the Corrosive Dust.
Everyone knew where the Corrosive Dust was.
It was a huge pillar in the middle of the dusty domain, and capturing it just meant going to it, suppressing its Zephyx, and pulling it away.
However, it was a Late Demon, at least, and it wasn't a weak Specter.
While its single-target attacks were very weak, due to its ability, its area attacks were devastating.
One Late Hero would have it easier fighting against it than five Mid Heroes.
Sadly, neither Crimson City nor Darksky City had a Late Hero.
Even more, the old Governor of Darksky City had left to become an Agent, leaving an Early Hero in charge of the city.
No Late Hero would appear in either city within the next decade.
Naturally, either city could ask Aegis to send a team of Agents, but that meant losing the Specter to Aegis.
Both cities wanted to own the Corrosive Dust.
The Forbidden Zone to the north no longer existed since the Sea King had been killed by Aegis, and people could finally go to the ocean.
Although, it wasn't that easy.
While a lot of the old Specters no longer posed any issues, new Specters had appeared.
An army of bloodthirsty and powerful sharks had made their home near the northern coast.
Naturally, these sharks were not normal animals.
They were all minions of a powerful Specter.
Each shark had the power of a Fanatic, and there were thousands of them.
There were even sharks with the power of Heroes, but they were rarer.
Crimson City believed that this Specter was at least a Mid Demon.
Most likely, it was a Late or Peak Demon.
Even more, Stone Crystal City and Metal Works City also reported sightings of sharks, which meant that the sharks lived in a domain spanning almost 300 kilometers.
These sharks had been problems for the other two cities for decades.
The only reason why they hadn't appeared near Crimson City before was the Sea King.
When the Sea King had been captured, these sharks started to appear here as well.
The sharks attacked everyone who approached the sea.
Sometimes, they jumped out of the water and landed around one or two kilometers inland, but doing so weakened them significantly.
Fanatics or not, sharks were not great at fighting on land.
Even an Expert could kill one of the sharks if it beached itself.
Sure, it would quickly try to jump back, but a prepared Expert could easily kill it before it could do so.
However, the sharks were not the only new Specters around Crimson City.
To the northeast, a huge green domain had appeared.
It was around three kilometers wide, and it was filled with strange green growths.
The area looked like a constantly mutating green organism, and it spewed toxic substances everywhere.
Additionally, it attacked whatever it could find.
Luckily, the Amalgamation was only an Elder.
The Manufacturers were already researching it, and they had found traces of it far to the east.
While they were not in contact with Metal Works City regularly, they were quite confident that the Amalgamation had lived near it in the past.
Most likely, the Amalgamation didn't feel safe anymore near Metal Works City and fled to this place.
The sharks and the Amalgamation were not really big problems for Crimson City, but the last Specter was a very big problem.
It was such a big problem that three Specialists working for the city had to constantly keep watch over it.
The Plague Vulture.
The Plague Vulture was a gigantic vulture with a decaying body that kept circling the area to the west of Crimson City.
It was a Demon, but the city wasn't sure how powerful it was exactly.
The Plague Vulture constantly flew around towards the west of the city, and it kept looking at Crimson City.
Anyone who left Crimson City and went towards the west would be killed by the Plague Vulture.
Yet, it never came close to the city.
Most likely, it knew that it couldn't fight against the city on its own.
However, it was patient.
It waited.
Every day.
At some point, something would happen within the city, and a chance would arrive.
And for that day, it waited.
Because of the Plague Vulture, the entire area west of the city was basically cut off.
Just traveling towards the iron mine to the southwest was already extremely dangerous.
Even more, the city found signs of new Specters appearing to the west of the city.
Since they couldn't hunt the Specters in that area anymore, new Specters kept popping up and taking residence over there.
Kugelblitz's entire focus was on the Plague Vulture.
They wanted to capture that at all cost!
However, the Plague Vulture was extremely fast, and when they had tried to attack it in the past, it fled towards the north.
While the Heroes of Kugelblitz could deal with the Plague Vulture, they couldn't deal with the Plague Vulture and the sharks at the same time.
Naturally, the sharks and the Plague Vulture didn't attack each other.
Some time later, the Plague Vulture would return from the ocean and circle the area to the west of the city again.
This thing was a constant source of pressure for the city.
Aria wanted to request a squad of Agents to deal with it, but there were three issues with that.
First, Kugelblitz was against calling a squad of Agents.
This was a Demon that could easily be suppressed as long as it was caught.
They really, really wanted the Plague Vulture.
Second, the Plague Vulture technically wasn't causing enough damage to the city for a squad of Agents to show up.
It was just flying around.
Agents were extremely busy, and they couldn't be everywhere at all times.
Lastly, the city didn't know enough about the sharks.
What if the sharks were actually the minions of a Fallen?
If a group of Agents arrived and chased the Plague Vulture into the ocean, there would be a high likelihood of the entire group dying, assuming the sharks were the minions of a Fallen.
A group of Agents was more important than a city.
On the other hand, the city also couldn't ask for a Protector for the same reason.
It wasn't certain whether or not the sharks belonged to a Fallen.
Because of that, Crimson City was stuck with having this huge and troublesome bird constantly flying around them.
In terms of security from Specters, Crimson City was in a much worse position than 20 years ago.