Nick and Aria waited in a plaza in the Outer City and looked towards the sky.
They had contacted Aegis a couple of minutes ago, and Aegis told them that they would send a scout.
Sending a Protector was a huge act, and Aegis wouldn't do it without a very good reason.
Someone from Aegis' main force had to confirm the power of the Specter.
After waiting for a while, the two of them saw someone flying towards the city.
Aria lifted her arm and shot a beam of light into the sky, eliciting glances from everyone around them.
The person changed their trajectory and flew directly to the beam of light.
SHING!
In almost an instant, the person appeared in front of Aria and Nick.
It was a man who looked to be in his thirties. His hair was long and green, and he wore the uniform of an Agent.
Aria could tell that this man was quite a bit more powerful than her.
She estimated that he was a Late or Peak Hero.
The man nodded at Aria in greeting before looking at Nick with furrowed brows.
"Identify yourself," the man demanded.
Nick bowed politely. "Nick Dusk. I am a Liaison, a new position created by Aegis. I am above Governors but below Agents in authority."
The man had a skeptical expression on his face, but he dropped the matter.
What Nick said was suspicious, but he wasn't here to police this city.
He was here to check on a Specter.
"Where is the Specter?" the man asked.
"To the east of the city. Have you brought enough light?" Nick asked.
The man nodded. "The message said I should, and I did."
"I'll lead you there," Nick said.
However, the man looked at Aria instead. "Accompany us," he ordered.
"I'm sorry," Aria said politely, "but I can't leave the city."
The man looked unhappy. "Explain," he demanded.
Aria pointed towards the west.
The man focused on the west, and a couple of seconds later, his eyes shone.
"If I leave, it might attack," Aria said, referring to the Plague Vulture.
"That is an issue," the man said. "Fine, you can stay here."
The next moment, the man looked at Nick before taking out a small device.
He tapped a bit on the device and read something on its screen for a couple of seconds.
Earlier, he hadn't cared about Nick's identity, but after learning that he would be alone with Nick in the darkness, he decided to verify Nick's identity.
First, he read through the local database of his digital assistant.
The device the man was using couldn't connect to Aegis' main network.
For security reasons, every Agent received a new device with an updated database every year.
As long as Nick's position wasn't newer than a year, it should be in there.
And sure enough, the man saw that Liaison was an official position.
However, the specific number of Liaisons and their identities were confidential.
Next, a Barrier appeared around the man, and he clicked on a button.
The next moment, Nick's Barrier also activated for a short moment.
Finally, the man nodded. "Fine, lead the way," he said.
Nick had passed all identity checks.
He was part of Aegis.
"Of course," Nick answered before jumping out of the city towards the east.
The man took to the sky and followed Nick.
A couple of seconds later, they arrived at the cave network.
"The Specter is about five kilometers below this spot, inside a big ruin made by the Recovering Ones. We can travel through the caverns, which will take us about a minute. Alternatively, we could dig down," Nick said.
The man furrowed his brows. "There was no ruin in the report," he said.
"Because the ruin is quite literally only a shell," Nick said. "The Specter emits so much radiation that every bit of metal around it is liquid. I don't think there will be anything inside the ruin that has survived."
The man wasn't completely happy with that explanation, but he didn't complain.
"We're going to create a small hole. Don't resist," the man ordered.
Next, the man grabbed Nick with his left arm and flew to the side.
"Here good?" the man asked, pointing at a spot.
"Yes, this leads to the entrance," Nick said, hanging from the man's hand.
The Agent pointed his other hand at the ground.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
Nick's heart almost stopped as an incomparably loud screech of absolute terror exploded out of the man's hand.
Nick saw a green force shooting out of the man's hand.
Inside the green force were faded faces of terrified humans, screaming and screeching in horror.
The green wave hit the ground, and the ground turned into tiny pebbles before turning into dust.
The dust rapidly flowed outward and created a cloud that grew bigger and bigger.
The two of them were descending through the rapidly expanding cloud, and the surroundings grew darker and darker the deeper they went.
Ding!
The man's Barrier activated and started to give off a bit of light.
Nick looked with surprise at the Barrier.
'Wait, Barriers can create light from an Extractor's Zephyx?'
But then, he felt where the Zephyx came from.
The Zephyx, the Barrier used to create light, came from one of the man's pockets.
The Barrier wasn't using the Agent's Zephyx.
It was draining a solid brick of Zephyx in the man's pocket.
Nick guessed that there were several kilos of Zephyx in the man's pocket.
Aegis required a lot of Zephyx from all of their cities, and this was one of the ways the Zephyx was used.
Agents needed light, and the best and most reliable way to make light was to convert Zephyx into light.
BANG!
The screaming stopped as the man broke through a wall, which led into a cavern.
The next moment, he waved his right arm upward, and the cloud of dense dust blew out of the hole.
Light returned.
Since the sun was perfectly above them, the light even reached such a depth while shining through a hole that was barely two meters wide.
The man looked around but didn't see anything special.
"We need to go one deeper," Nick said. "We still have about a kilometer to go."
The man frowned before pointing his arm downward again.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
The screaming returned.
About 30 seconds later, they reached another cave, and the man dispelled the cloud of dust.
Almost immediately, he noticed the walls of the ruin.
"This is it?" he asked, looking at the ruin.
"Yes," Nick said.
The man dropped Nick, and Nick landed in the only bright spot of the cave.
The five-kilometer-long hole created a pillar of light in the cavern, and Nick stood in exactly that one.
The man approached the ruin.
"Be careful," Nick said. "I got hit by a tiny bit of light and lost almost all my Zephyx."
The man didn't answer and walked into the hole.
Nick watched from the pillar of light with worry.
He hoped that the man wasn't going to die to his own arrogance.
Luckily, the man wasn't that stupid.
He carefully pushed the door open, and a beam of bright light shot out of the hole.
Nick couldn't look into the hole, which meant that he couldn't see what the man was doing.
A couple of seconds later, the light vanished, and the man walked out of the hole.
The next moment, he looked at Nick.
"You did the right thing by calling us," the man said. "I can't get an accurate reading of its power since I don't know how much the liquid metal is weakening the readings, but at the very least, it's an Early Fallen. At most, it's a Peak Fallen. Most likely, it's a Mid Fallen."
Nick took a deep breath and nodded.
"What's the plan?" Nick asked.
"I'm going to make a report. Crimson City already has an open work order. Something about taking away the Crimson Sea. The work order has a relatively low priority. Most likely, the retrieval of this Specter will be added to the work order, and the work order's priority will be raised significantly. If that's the case, expect a Protector within the next couple of weeks," the man explained.
"Thank you," Nick said.
The man nodded, and the two of them left by going through the long hole.
As soon as they reached the surface, the man left to make his report, and Nick went back to the city.
Life in the city continued for some time.
And then, three weeks later, some people arrived in front of the city.
It was a group of five people wearing Aegis' uniforms.
Shockingly, four of them had three stripes, identifying them as Protectors.
However, the most surprising was the leader.
He was an old man with long silver hair, wearing a uniform with four stripes.
This was a Justiciar, a Peak Protector.
"This is Crimson City, sir," one of the Protectors said.
The old man's head turned to the city, and his empty and black eye sockets seemed to focus on the distant city.
"Get the Governor," the man ordered with a smooth voice.