A couple of days later, the Containment Unit for the Plague Vulture had been completed, and it was transported into it.
Due to the size of the Containment Unit, the city decided to build it in the Outer City.
Getting the Plague Vulture through the megastructure would be too big of an unnecessary project.
So, a gigantic black cube, almost 100 meters in dimension, appeared in the Outer City, becoming the biggest building beside the megastructure.
Constructing this Containment Unit had been extremely expensive, but it was worth the investment.
A couple days later, the Plague Vulture was fully analyzed, and the results were promising.
It became more powerful by rotting organic matter.
In a way, it was like the Dung Heap, just better.
The Dung Heap only accepted food, while the Plague Vulture could use any organic matter.
However, there were still big differences in Zephyx production based on the matter given to the Plague Vulture.
Inedible plants barely gave any Zephyx.
Edible plants gave more.
Animal corpses gave even more.
Human corpses were even better.
…and living humans were the best.
However, Nick and Aria would not send living humans to the Plague Vulture, unless they were some sort of horrible criminal.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was barely any crime in the city anymore since the power and strong surveillance of the government made committing crimes unreasonably risky.
In the end, the Plague Vulture barely produced 20% of what the Crimson Fungus produced, but that included the Blood Donation System.
Without the Blood Donation System, the Plague Vulture produced about 80% of what the Crimson Fungus produced.
That was more than satisfactory.
Some of Kugelblitz's Specialists started to covet a position in the city guards, but they wouldn't switch just yet.
Specialists working for Kugelblitz could basically choose which Specter they wanted to work with.
After all, Kugelblitz didn't have enough Extractors for optimal Zephyx production.
For now, staying in Kugelblitz was the right decision in their mind.
Vanessa and Jornis felt the pressure ramp up as soon as the city caught a Demon.
With time, the city would start to produce Heroes.
This meant that the gap in peak power between Kugelblitz and the city wouldn't keep widening.
So, if Kugelblitz couldn't win against the city now, they would never be able to win against it.
The two of them played with the thought of attacking the city, but deep inside, both of them knew that they were only dreaming.
They wouldn't go through with it.
Things were different now.
The city was in charge now, and Kugelblitz had to adapt if it wanted to keep existing.
More time passed, and soon, only six months were left before Nick had to change positions.
In six months, Aegis would investigate Crimson City and judge whether or not it was a good idea to expand the Liaison program.
Every major change had already been put into practice.
As Nick looked at the city, he no longer felt disgust and pity.
The Dregs, as a part of the city, had essentially vanished.
There were still a couple of homeless beggars walking around, but their numbers were in the double digits.
The city had given these people all the opportunities for a stable life, but these couple of people just couldn't grasp them.
The city was willing to help people, but only people who were willing to help themselves.
Having something like 30 beggars among 13,000 citizens was acceptable.
Everyone else had housing, and they were also not in danger of starvation.
Some families had to be careful with food expenditure, but they could still survive without having to commit crimes.
The people in the Inner City were not as happy as they had been five years ago, but their happiness hadn't decreased as much.
Sure, giving blood every three months infuriated them, just like the increased taxes on the rich.
However, there were also far fewer wild Specters running around, and stuff like Debilify had completely vanished.
They could deal with it.
Of course, the people in the upper layer lamented their current situation, but they just had to get over it.
They still had their nature paradise.
They still had more money than they could spend.
They still had happy and healthy families.
The Manufacturers felt much better in the current city, with Kugelblitz being the only exception.
They didn't need to fear more powerful Manufacturers consuming them anymore.
They paid fewer taxes.
There were many more opportunities since not every Manufacturer was interested in every single Specter anymore.
Nick had done it.
He had turned the city into what he wanted.
It hadn't been easy, but he had done it.
And what was the thing that made all of this possible?
Power.
Achieving something like this had seemed impossible in the past.
It had seemed impossible to Markus, Aria, and even Simon.
But that was because all three of them had forgotten the truth of the world.
Power was everything.
Could a god create a paradise?
Could a god create hell?
Yes, they could do both.
And what was it that decided which one it would be?
The god's personality and values.
Absolute power was not inherently bad.
Power was just a tool.
It all depended on the wielder of the tool.
With a mix of personal power, Aria's support, and authority granted to him by Aegis, Nick had become the most powerful person in Crimson City by far.
Because of that, he was able to implement reforms that the entire city would fight against, antagonize the elite, and kill "innocent" people in broad daylight.
Yet, Nick knew very well that the results he had achieved in Crimson City were an exception, not the rule.
Nick had the good of Crimson City at heart.
That was why it had worked out.
However, how many powerful people truly had such altruistic goals?
Reaching such a level meant that this person had won a competition with thousands of participants.
Would a nice and altruistic person be able to triumph over so many ruthless competitors who were willing to use every dirty trick in the book to their advantage?
That would be a miracle.
Because of that, in the vast majority of cases, granting absolute power to the most powerful people was a very bad idea.
A fire that burned down tens of houses wouldn't suddenly start building houses when gasoline was poured into it.
Nick kept looking over the city as he planned his future in another city.
Naturally, if Aegis decided to expand the program, Nick would need to prove himself in an unfamiliar city to show that this hadn't been a fluke.
For that, Nick needed to come up with strategies.
Most of the time, when he was thinking about such strategies, he just looked at the city from the megastructure.
Yet, today, Nick noticed something.
Nick saw something running from one corner of an abandoned street to another.
As Nick saw that, data from the last couple of months appeared in his mind.
The population of beggars stayed roughly the same, but many normal citizens were still becoming beggars.
Naturally, the suicide rate amongst beggars was quite high, but it shouldn't be THAT high.
Also, why were so many citizens becoming beggars in the first place?
There didn't seem to be a connected cause.
Devastating death in the family here.
Overinvestment there.
Insanity.
Addiction.
These things hadn't seemed very suspicious.
But now, Nick knew what was going on.
Nick narrowed his eyes and jumped off the megastructure.
His eyes had already locked onto his target, which was scurrying around in the Outer City.
Within a couple of seconds, Nick landed on the street.
Without waiting an instant, he darted towards an abandoned alley and extended his hand.
"Screh!"
A screech came out from the thing in Nick's hand, and Nick pulled it deeper into the abandoned alley.
Inside the alley, Nick held his hand in front of him and glared at the thing in his hand.
It was a rat.
The rat kept screeching and trying to bite Nick's hand, but that naturally didn't accomplish much.
"You think you can fool me?" Nick asked with a dark tone.
The rat just kept screeching in panic.
"I know that it's you, Parasite," Nick said. "Do you think I just randomly grab rats I find off the street and interrogate them?"
The rat just kept screeching in panic.
"Fine, if you don't want to bargain, I will order a sweep."
"Every rat inside the city will be purged."
"No exception."
The rat kept screeching.
"When we're done, you won't even be able to negotiate with me anymore since all your minions will die before getting to me."
The rat was still in panic.
Nick looked at the rat for a bit longer.
"Suit yourself," he said before walking out of the alleyway, rat still in hand.
Nick walked to the entrance of the megastructure, and several guards saluted in greeting.
"New orders," Nick said. "The Parasite is back. Every rodent inside or outside of the city will be killed. If the problem persists, we are going to put a bounty of 100 credits on every rat corpse. The Plague Vulture should be happy about the corpses."
The guards were surprised but saluted in confirmation.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa."
Nick pulled his hand up and looked at the rat he was holding.
"Nick, calm down," the rat said. "Let's talk first, okay?"