The Plague Vulture circled over the area west of the city.
It had been doing that for years by now, and it wouldn't stop for several more years.
At least, that's what it thought.
The Plague Vulture's eyes focused on Crimson City as it noticed somebody charging in its direction.
The Plague Vulture had lived for a very long time, and it had fought many different people before.
In fact, it had already helped destroy an entire city.
Naturally, the Plague Vulture hadn't been the only Specter that had caused chaos in the city.
It had just done what it always did.
Add to the chaos.
After the city had been destroyed, the Plague Vulture had been greeted with a feast.
So many weak humans that it could rot away.
This was how the Plague Vulture grew in power. The more humans and animals it could decompose, the more powerful it would become.
The destroyed city had made it advance from an Initial Demon into an Early Demon.
On top of that, it was already near the end of its current level.
Just a hundred more humans or so, and it would become a Mid Demon.
At that point, it could almost consider attacking a city on its own.
The Plague Vulture was very experienced when it came to dealing with humans and their forces.
So, when it saw the human charging towards it, it immediately realized that the human was extremely powerful.
Far more powerful than the Plague Vulture.
Without waiting to see what the human had planned, the Plague Vulture charged toward the north as quickly as it could.
Naturally, the Plague Vulture had created several contingency plans for something exactly like this.
It would just escape into the domain of the sharks, and any human that followed it would die.
The human was extremely fast, but they couldn't possibly reach it before the Plague Vulture reached the ocean.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
The Plague Vulture stopped as a gigantic wall of screaming faces appeared in front of it.
It could tell that the wall of faces was so powerful that it would die if it touched it.
Without hesitation, the Plague Vulture extended its wings, and green dust started to gather on its wings.
In one fluid motion, the Plague Vulture threw the dust towards the approaching human from its back.
Ding.
Yet, the human just moved his arm from right to left, and the entire cloud of decay was redirected.
The next moment, the human pulled out a handgun and slowly pointed it at the Plague Vulture's head.
BANG!
The Plague Vulture's head exploded.
Yet, a moment later, its body gathered more plague around it and created an explosion of death and decay.
The Plague Vulture didn't need a head to survive or fight.
BANG! BANG!
Two more shots rang out, and two gigantic holes appeared in the cloud of decay.
The cloud of decay scattered in all directions, replaced by a cloud of blood.
The Plague Vulture's wings had exploded.
"Stop resisting or your feet are next," the wielder of the gun spoke calmly, his voice easily reaching the Plague Vulture by the use of Zephyx. "We're not killing you."
The Plague Vulture didn't understand human language, but for some reason, the words inside the waves of Zephyx were extremely clear to it.
It had never talked to any other Specter or human, but it perfectly understood what the human wanted, which was bizarre.
The Plague Vulture stopped moving before slowly lowering itself towards the ground.
Naturally, it gave up.
It wasn't sure what the humans had planned for it since it lacked the intelligence to understand what Manufacturers did, but staying alive was better than dying.
As Nick watched the Specter giving up, he was a bit surprised.
Sure, he had expected that the two Protectors would be able to capture it, but he hadn't thought that they would be able to convince it to stop resisting.
Crimson City had tried to communicate with the Plague Vulture many times in the past, but all signs pointed towards the Plague Vulture not being able to communicate with anyone.
It had the intelligence of a regular animal.
It was very intelligent when it came to hunting and fighting, but that was everything there was to its intelligence.
'How did he do that?' Nick thought.
Nick watched as the Protector approached the Plague Vulture before summoning a gigantic chain.
The gigantic chain surrounded the Plague Vulture, and a moment later, it started to give off a terrifying amount of Zephyx.
One part of the chain had a bright white cube in it.
That was one ton of pure Zephyx.
It would keep the Plague Vulture suppressed for about three days.
With the Plague Vulture's Zephyx suppressed, its power dropped considerably.
However, it still wasn't harmless.
When a human was suppressed, their power dropped to the level of a normal human.
Yet, the Plague Vulture was still a gigantic being, and its base power was already incredible.
Even with its Zephyx suppressed, its body was still about as powerful as the body of an Expert.
The second Protector shot out from the ground and arrived beside his colleague.
A moment later, the two of them threw the Plague Vulture into the crater south of the city.
Three Specialists were already waiting there.
Naturally, Nick had given those three the task to keep the Plague Vulture imprisoned until the city could finish building its Containment Unit.
The Specialists looked with excitement and satisfaction at the Plague Vulture.
This fucking thing had been a pain in their asses for long enough!
Additionally, they felt excited at the prospect of having a Demon.
With the Plague Vulture, the city could finally rival Kugelblitz in terms of income!
Well, at least theoretically.
They still had to find out what the Plague Vulture needed to become more powerful.
If it needed to kill people, it wouldn't produce nearly as much Zephyx as the Crimson Fungus.
"Thank you," Nick said to the two Protectors after arriving at the scene.
"No need to thank us," one of them said evenly. "This was your reward."
Nick nodded.
"May I ask a question?" he asked.
"Make it quick. We have to get back," one of them said with annoyance.
"How did you manage to communicate with the Plague Vulture?" Nick asked.
"Concept Transmission," one of them answered. "We use our Zephyx to translate concepts into waves, which are then picked up by the center of consciousness. It's much more efficient than speech, instantaneous, and everyone understands it. It's an advanced form of Zephyx Manipulation and takes a couple of years of practice to master."
Nick looked with interest at the Protector. "Zephyx Manipulation? I received a rank three manual in Zephyx Manipulation, and it didn't say anything about that."
"You got a rank three manual?" the other Protector asked in surprise.
Nick nodded.
"You must've done something incredible for humanity if a Shield gave you access to a level three manual as an Expert," the Protector answered. "As for your question, no, it's not in any of the Zephyx Manipulation manuals. Transmissions have already been mastered, and a complete technique has already been created. There is no need to learn how to recreate it since it's already perfect."
"You can purchase it with contribution coins in one of the strongholds, but you need the rank of Agent to access it."
"Wait," the other Protector said. "Are you sure?"
"What do you mean?" the first Protector asked.
"Do you know what permissions a Liaison has?" the second Protector asked.
The first Protector furrowed his brows. "Huh, maybe you're right." Then, he turned to Nick. "Maybe you can actually purchase it. You should check. It's not very expensive."
"Thank you," Nick said.
"Was that everything?" the first Protector asked with impatience.
"Yes, thank you again on behalf of Crimson City," Nick said respectfully.
"Sure," the two of them said with a nod before flying towards the ruin with the big fireball.
Nick looked at the direction of the cave system for a couple of seconds before turning back to the Plague Vulture.
Its head had already regrown, and its wings were nearly done regrowing.
'This guy heals fast,' Nick thought.
The Plague Vulture noticed that the powerful humans were gone and strained against the Zephyx Suppressors.
BANG!
One of the Specialists used a gun to blast a huge hole into the Plague Vulture's head, and it fell over.
Even a dumb animal would understand what this meant.
And even if it didn't, with enough bullets, it would learn to understand.
Nick oversaw the Plague Vulture's suppression for a couple more minutes to make sure that nothing would go wrong.
WHOOOM!
The earth began to shake violently, and Nick saw the earth crumbling far to the east.
It was coming right from the cave system.
BANG!
The next moment, five white beams shot out from the ground before vanishing on the horizon.
The Protectors and the Justiciar had left.