BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
A man was punching a huge cube made of powerful material treated with Zephyx.
Whenever he unleashed a punch, the entire room shook.
The man wasn't wearing any clothing while punching the cube, and he was already sweating profusely.
After several minutes of doing this, he stopped and grabbed a towel to get rid of his sweat.
He looked at the cube for a while.
One day, he would be powerful enough to break it.
Theoretically, it was possible for him to break the cube, but he needed to build a bit more muscle.
And even then, he would need to punch and kick it for several months to properly damage it.
The next moment, the man looked at the clock at the edge of the room.
It was time to go to work!
The man walked to the exit.
But then, he noticed that the wall in front of him started to distort!
It was like the wall was growing.
Or was he shrinking?
Dunk!
And then, it stopped distorting.
The man tried to move, but he couldn't.
That was when he noticed that his mind became weaker.
When he saw a headless body falling to the ground, he finally understood what had happened.
So, that was it, huh.
This was the end.
He wasn't sure what he should think-
And nothing.
It was over.
No more thoughts.
Nick bent down and stashed the head and body into a trash bag, which he then threw into his Space Bag.
Nick looked into his Space Bag again and looked at the trash bags again to confirm their number.
'Yep, it's three. The elite exploration squad is complete,' he thought.
The elite exploration squad of Vandalize was responsible for capturing the strongest Specters so that Vandalize could grow more powerful.
Vandalize had a total of seven Experts, and the elite exploration squad accounted for three of those.
The leader of the elite exploration squad, the newest trash bag inside Nick's Space Bag, was the only Late Expert of Vandalize.
The other two members were Early Experts.
'That leaves the CZE and the three team leads.'
Nick turned into a cloud of mist again and vanished from the isolated room.
Some seconds later, he materialized on top of a small building.
"Elite exploration squad eliminated," Nick spoke into his Barrier.
The other three members of the squad heard Nick, and they became more nervous.
There was no way back anymore!
Steve felt the pressure on his shoulders increasing.
Yes, the three members of the elite exploration squad were minions, but they were living minions.
That meant that they were still human and that they only obeyed the Specter due to manipulation.
If these Experts could think clearly, they would definitely refuse to work with a Specter.
Most likely, they had been forced into compliance by the Chief Zephyx Extractor, having their minds permanently altered against their will.
Sadly, this specific kind of manipulation couldn't be cured.
Some manipulation techniques, like mind seals or hypnosis, could be broken by killing the Specter, but this wasn't one of these techniques.
From what Nick had guessed, the Specter imprinted an unbreakable and eternal addiction in its minions.
Breaking that addiction would result in a slow and painful death in over 90% of cases, and the few survivors also had a high likelihood of seeking revenge since they wouldn't perceive their addiction as problematic or wrong.
Because of that, the minions had to die.
Steve took a deep breath.
But that didn't make it any easier.
"Good work," Steve answered. "Get ready for phase three."
"Affirmative," Nick answered.
Then, Steve looked at Cynthia and Mendor.
The two of them nodded at Steve with determination.
Steve nodded back.
"Go!" he shouted.
Then, Steve pulled out his two rapiers and jumped over the wall behind him.
Cynthia pulled out her two guns and jumped after Steve.
Mendor pulled out his sniper rifle and looked over the wall.
Steve and Cynthia fell towards the streets below, where the entrance to Vandalize was located.
BANG! BANG!
Cynthia released two shots.
CRACK! CRACK!
The two Barriers of the people guarding the entrance exploded, but they didn't suffer any injuries.
Cynthia had purposefully shot just a slight bit beside them. That would activate their Barriers but not hit their bodies.
The two guards were only Johns, and according to what Nick had reported, they were almost certainly not minions.
Nick was quite sure that only Peak Veterans and higher were minions.
After all, every additional minion increased the chance of being found out.
Because of that, Vandalize would only show their true selves to their elites.
Steve and Cynthia landed in front of the entrance.
The next moment, several more people landed in front of the entrance.
All of these people wore the uniforms of the city guard, and they quickly contained the two guards from Vandalize.
While the city guard wouldn't enter the building, they would remain outside to contain the humans.
The Governor was under a lot of scrutiny, and they didn't want to appear like they were taking advantage of this situation.
They would let Steve's squad handle all the killing and cleaning up inside the building.
As long as no member of the city guard or any other Manufacturer entered the building, no one could blame the Governor.
Several of the city guards immediately started to isolate the area, forcing every person far away from the building.
Meanwhile, Steve and Cynthia entered the building.
As soon as they entered, they saw several normal employees.
BANG!
Cynthia fired at a wall, and a green cloud exploded out of the wall, rapidly blanketing the entire floor.
The people couldn't even decide on what to do before they lost control over their faculties and fell to the ground.
The green cloud was a special gas which Aegis used to take normal people and Newbies out of a fight without injuring them.
Surprisingly, the gas seemed to be extremely good at spreading.
It was almost like the individual particles inside the gas were rejecting each other, forcing the entire cloud to disperse faster and faster.
Within three seconds, the gas already covered a radius of 50 meters around the building, and within ten seconds, almost every room within the building came into contact with the gas.
All the normal people lost consciousness.
Naturally, all of this didn't pass without being noticed.
And almost immediately, red lights appeared all over the building while loud sirens rang out.
Moments after the alarms began to ring, several people wearing the uniforms of Vandalize came out of the city and ran towards the building.
"Nobody move!" the leader of the city guards commanded.
The leader of the city guards was a Late Specialist, and he could take Vandalize down on his own.
Sadly, the unstable politics in the city forbade him from killing anyone.
Nevertheless, he could still assist by using his authority to suppress any of the members coming to help Vandalize.
An instant later, the captain's Barrier began to shine in a bright and warm yellow light as he lifted a scroll.
"Aegis has found that the leaders of Vandalize are minions! Every member of Vandalize found to resist will be executed immediately!" the captain shouted.
When the newcomers saw the order, they felt like their world was breaking apart.
Yet, over half of them immediately thought that this was another one of the Governor's tricks to suppress Vandalize.
CRACK!
Suddenly, the Barrier of one of the members broke into pieces, and his head turned into bloody dust.
BANG!
An instant later, the sound of a high-caliber rifle shot thundered throughout the surroundings.
Everyone looked with shock at the headless corpse.
Up above, on top of a building, Mendor reloaded.
He looked suspiciously calm, but his heart rate had already skyrocketed to unreal levels.
The corpse was of a Peak Veteran belonging to Vandalize.
This had to be a minion.
Mendor had killed a human.
Yet, the only thing he consciously felt was some form of greyness or emptiness in his chest.
He didn't feel atrocious or anything.
It was just… empty.
It was like he had destroyed a mannequin.
Then, Mendor found another Peak Veteran from Vandalize.
His rifle aimed at the newcomer.
BOOOOM!
Her head also turned into white mist as her Barrier broke apart.
At that moment, panic broke out, and everyone started to flee.
The city guards also started to move, but they were not in a panic.
They had already been told how everything would happen.
With military precision, they charged at every member of Vandalize who dared to move and wasn't a Peak Veteran.
The power of the city guards vastly outclassed Vandalize, and all of their Extractors that dared to come close to the building were apprehended.
However, none of them were injured or brought out of sight.
All of them were contained in public, visible to everyone.
It was imperative that everything the city guards did was in the view of the public.
They could not allow the opposition to sow even more doubt and uncertainty.
Mendor looked around.
He saw another Peak Veteran.
It was a woman who tried to sneak into the building from the top.
Mendor's rifle aimed at her.
And he fired.