Nick walked into a big room.
A couple of people were already in the room.
The Aductress stood in the middle and looked at Nick with a serious expression.
Beside her stood an older man with grey hair.
Nick actually knew this person. This was Marvin, a Protector working under the Technician.
Marvin had been one of the four inspectors who had looked at Crimson City.
The last person was a middle-aged man who carried an expensive console.
Based on the man's uniform, he was a Governor, which almost made Nick raise an eyebrow.
"This is Protector Marvin Marvel," the Aductress said, gesturing to the older man. "You already know each other."
"We do," Marvin said with a smile.
Nick nodded.
Then, the Aductress gestured to the other person. "This is a Scribe."
Nick nodded.
He knew what a Scribe was. He just hadn't known that this was a Scribe.
A Scribe was someone who belonged to Aegis and whose task was to administrate the central database.
While Governors and Agents were allowed to add things to the database, they were only allowed to do so by commissioning a Scribe.
The only ones that could add things to the database without supervision were Protectors and stronger.
Naturally, to make things official, the Aductress commissioned a Scribe to record everything that happened.
It was important that Aegis had a paper trail when Nick inevitably died after consuming the Peak Elder.
The Scribe stepped forward, and his Barrier activated a moment later.
Nick's Barrier activated in response and blinked a couple of times.
"Nick Dusk," the Scribe said. "Identity confirmed."
Next, the Scribe took out a couple of documents and handed them over to Nick. "Read these and sign them."
Nick grabbed the documents and read through them.
It was a whole bunch of legal bullshit that essentially said that Aegis was not killing him and that he was the one that asked them to consume a Peak Elder.
Nick signed everything without complaint.
Finally, he handed the documents back, and the Scribe moved all of them through his Barrier, scanning them.
The Scribe looked at the Aductress and nodded. "You can proceed."
The Aductress looked at Nick. "You requested the core of the Dark Cloud," she said.
Nick nodded.
Naturally, the choice of the Specter was also important.
Choosing the right Specter wouldn't make the Consumption easier or harder, but it would shape one's future talent in Zephyx Manipulation.
The Specter Core that would become one's subservient processor naturally had its own things it was good and bad at. It wasn't some kind of new and untouched Core with no prior history.
The Specter Core was already shaped, and the Extractor wouldn't be able to reshape it.
The Dark Cloud, the Specter Nick had chosen, was a Peak Elder, and just as the name suggested, it looked like a black cloud.
It was a Force Specter that consumed all the light around it, encasing its victims in darkness and allowing the Nightmare to torture them.
It was one of several Specters that used the Nightmare as a form of inflicting suffering on humanity.
Naturally, Force Specters were extremely good at being elusive and escaping, which was exactly what Nick wanted to specialize in.
He didn't want to be found by an enemy, and if he were found, he wanted to escape as quickly as possible.
The Dark Cloud was perfect for that.
The Aductress turned around and walked to a corner of the room, to a big black cube.
A Specter Cage.
Her Barrier blinked for a moment, and the door of the cube opened.
WHOOOM!
Immediately, a thick cloud of darkness shot past the opening.
SHING! SHING! SHING!
The Aductress pulled out one of her swords and released several quick slashes.
To Nick, it seemed like the slashes were all performed at the same instant.
When the Aductress slashed, the area around her sword seemed to distort.
The black cloud was separated several times, and the cut-off part turned into air.
It was like the Aductress was cutting off marble to form a sculpture.
After an unknown number of slashes, a black crystal poked out of the black cloud.
Naturally, if these were just regular slashes, nothing like this would happen. Fortunately, the Aductress was also a Suppressor.
DING!
The tip of the Aductress' sword touched the crystal, and all of the black smoke vanished.
The crystal fell to the ground, and moments later, it started to hover in front of the Aductress.
"The Specter will die within 30 seconds," she said. "You have to consume the crystal before then."
Then, she threw the crystal over to Nick, who looked at it.
It was about the size of a finger and extremely durable.
Nick pulled his head back and shoved the crystal down his throat.
Swallowing wasn't easy, but he could deal with something like that.
As soon as the Specter Core entered Nick's neck, it suddenly started to get attracted by something in Nick's throat and stopped.
A moment later, Nick felt the Specter Core moving toward the front of his throat.
Ding!
Then, Nick's Zephyx Synchronizer and the Specter Core touched.
Suddenly, the real world vanished from Nick's vision, and everything was covered in darkness.
The last thing Nick saw were the three people looking at him with serious expressions.
Darkness.
Eternal Darkness all around Nick.
It was almost like he was back in the place where the Nightmare stayed.
Naturally, Nick knew what was happening. After all, he had learned everything there was to learn about the Consumption.
An instant later, something appeared in the darkness.
Some dark clouds gathered together and took the form of a human body.
In just a couple of moments, a completely new body formed.
It was Nick.
A second one.
The second Nick looked identical to the first, with one exception.
Its eyes looked grey and dead.
Nick had a similar expression, but there was still humanity visible in his eyes.
This was the difference between suppressing one's emotions and not having any emotions to begin with.
The second Nick looked at Nick.
And then, it approached.
Nick also stepped forward.
After some time, the two of them reached each other.
Both of them extended their arms.
Their palms met.
They pushed!
That was it.
This was what it meant to go toe-on-toe with a Specter in a battle of wills.
The images Nick was seeing were just reflections of how his mind and the Specter's mind interacted.
The Specter Core and the Zephyx Synchronizer were already fighting each other.
Nick was focusing with everything he had, pushing against the Specter.
The Specter was doing the same thing.
Time passed.
They both kept pushing.
More time passed.
They kept pushing.
It was more difficult for Nick to keep his focus.
More time passed.
Nick had the urge to lose consciousness.
More time passed.
Nick felt like he could only keep himself conscious by forcing himself.
Yet, when he looked at the copy in front of him, he saw no difference.
There was no exhaustion.
There was no panic.
There was no struggle.
It was dead.
It was just as dead as when it had appeared.
Nick kept pushing.
More time passed.
Pain was coursing through Nick's body.
He felt like something inside of his head was breaking.
His head was killing him, and he felt like his eyes were moving back into his head without his control.
He kept forcing his eyes forward, but he was fighting a losing battle.
On the other side, his copy just kept pushing.
Crk.
Nick stabilized himself immediately after his hands were pushed back a slight bit.
Just now, he had lost his focus for just one millisecond, and in that millisecond, his hands had been pushed back just the slightest bit.
The distance they had been pushed back was almost unnoticeable.
And yet, it was different from before.
The frontlines had moved.
Nick continued holding against the Specter in his new position.
However, no matter what he did, his new position would forever be behind the starting position.
Under normal circumstances, in these kinds of battles, one only needed to keep pushing and wait for the enemy to make a mistake.
But that was exactly what wouldn't happen here.
The Specters were perfect.
They did not make mistakes.
They never made mistakes.
They never relented.
They never gave up.
The two of them kept pushing.
Meanwhile, the Scribe was looking at an unconscious Nick.
Four weeks had already passed.
Nick had been in a battle with the Dark Cloud for four weeks.
That was already more than the Scribe had anticipated.
Most Consumptions ended within a day or a couple of days.
When someone was consuming a Mid Elder, the fight might drag on for over a week.
Reports about a Consumption of a Late Elder stated that the fighting could continue for up to four weeks.
The fact that Nick was fighting a Peak Elder after four weeks meant that he would have definitely succeeded against a Late Elder.
This was somebody who had the talent to become a Peak Protector or maybe even a Shield.
Sadly, Nick was too ambitious to continue living.