As soon as the hole appeared in the wall, the walls surrounding Nick started to enclose him, forcing him out of the room.
Naturally, Nick quickly jumped out of the room and looked through his surroundings.
It was like Nick was inside some kind of surrealist painting.
Nick wasn't in some kind of room or hallway.
It was more like a surreal cavern.
There were almost no paths or streets, just vertical, horizontal, and diagonal columns made of flesh and eyes.
Nick was on top of a horizontal fleshy column that went from one wide vertical column to another.
When he looked over the edge of his column, he saw more columns randomly placed everywhere.
The same pattern seemed to endlessly continue downward, upward, and sideward.
It was just chaos.
The furthest Nick could see was 150 meters in one direction before that one was blocked by a column as well.
Finally, the columns were not static.
They pulsed.
The eyes moved.
Even the columns themselves became wider and thinner at random intervals.
Sometimes, new columns were made while old ones vanished.
Everything was alive.
Nick felt like he was inside of one gigantic organism of untold power and proportions.
How big was the Maw?
Nobody knew.
They only knew that it had to be absolutely gigantic.
And sure enough, Nick could confirm that it was humongous.
Nick's mind was still reeling from his revelation that he now, apparently, was a Specter.
What about his future?
Would he be humanity's enemy?
Could he use a Barrier?
What would Aegis do if they found out?
Would anyone believe him if he told them that he was human?
How could he prove that he was human or had been human?
There were many Specters that looked and acted like humans.
How was he supposed to prove that he genuinely felt and thought like a human when there were so many Specters that were amazing at acting like humans?
Nick's mind was filled with doubts, uncertainties, and fears.
Finally, Nick shook his head.
'I can't think about this right now!' he thought with gritted teeth as he pushed his worries into the back of his mind. 'The Maw's contest has already started, and the other people are already searching for their opponents, most likely.'
'I can think about my future after getting out of here!'
An instant later, Nick turned into mist.
Since the Maw's eyes were illuminating Nick's surroundings, he couldn't become ethereal or fly normally.
On top of that, the Maw's eyes were constantly keeping watch over him.
Sadly, Nick would most likely not be able to use his main ability during this entire competition.
His blinding light definitely wasn't strong enough to blind the Maw, and his new ability from upgrading his mist-ability also wouldn't help much.
Naturally, this gave Nick a huge disadvantage in this competition.
However, not everything was bad.
Since this was not open terrain and since no contestant had a Barrier, Assassins were naturally favored in this competition, and Nick was exactly that.
There was plenty of confusing terrain that worked as escape routes and ambushes.
Additionally, every competitor was an Initial Specialist, and Nick doubted that any of them had a depth of fighting experience that could rival him.
Nick wasn't the biggest fan of killing innocent humans, but he was forced to.
He would not sacrifice his life for only one guy.
Nick was not opposed to sacrificing his life for others, but his sacrifice needed to have a purpose.
The mist that was Nick flowed along the pillars and carefully navigated the confusing environment.
While he was doing so, Nick's perception covered his surroundings in detail.
Since his Zephyx Synchronizer had fused with his Specter Core, there were no more issues regarding his abilities.
This meant that Nick could use his newest ability as well.
The one he had gotten from the Maw.
Sadly, as with most of his abilities, its true power could only be exhibited if no one was perceiving him.
Luckily, it still had a minor effect while being perceived, making it not completely useless in this environment.
The sheer power of an Eternal made them useful in basically every category.
The Nightmare could manipulate, torture, scare, stun, kill, sense, and so on.
Therefore, if somebody advanced their ability with the Nightmare's help, there was a very high likelihood that the Nightmare's ability had a high compatibility rating with the Extractor's base ability.
The Maw was the same.
The Maw could extend towards great distances, was physically extremely powerful, had powerful sensing abilities, could suppress people, could vanish from seemingly any spot, and so on.
Because of that, the diversity of abilities the Maw could grant people was crazy.
Naturally, the Maw had advanced Nick's ability in the most useful way for him.
Sensing.
Nick had plenty of ways to escape and stay hidden, but his sensing abilities were not that great.
Yes, he could feel whether or not somebody was perceiving him, but that was still rather limited.
The ability the Maw had given Nick was as simple as it was effective.
It passively increased the sensitivity of all of his senses.
Nick's vision was stronger, he could hear better, his sensitivity to Zephyx was higher, and he could feel vibrations much more strongly.
The sensitivity of his senses could be compared to the senses of a Hero.
And that was only the passive effect.
Naturally, there was also an active ability Nick had gained, but he could only use it while not being perceived, making it useless in the current environment.
In his mist form, Nick continued to move forward, continually scanning his surroundings.
'I have no idea how big the arena is, but it can't be too big. After all, the Maw is doing this mainly to gain Zephyx. Entertainment is only secondary.'
Several minutes passed.
Yet, Nick hadn't found anyone else.
'That's unusual,' he thought. 'With my powerful senses, I should be able to find at least one of them, but I didn't.'
'Additionally, I've already traveled several kilometers in here. I believe I should have come across someone already.'
'So, why didn't I?'
'Either the arena is much bigger than I thought, or everyone else is extremely good at hiding.'
'Or I just have bad luck?'
'Nevertheless, I should continue searching.'
Nick kept moving across different columns, scanning all of them for any hidden enemies.
'I don't think there are more than eight contestants. If there were more, I would have found one already.'
More minutes passed.
Still nothing.
Nick's mood became more solemn.
'What is going on? There are supposed to be enemies, right? Even if every enemy is an Assassin or Runner, I should have seen one already. With my newly improved senses, not many Specialists should be able to hide from me.'
Clk.
At that moment, Nick heard a very subtle sound.
Without his improved senses, he would not have been able to pick it up.
Nick carefully but quickly slithered towards the origin of the sound.
Finally, he found it.
Another competitor!
On a horizontal pillar, about 20 meters below Nick, was a woman with black eyes, black hair, and two black daggers.
Just as Nick had expected, the Maw had also destroyed all of her belongings, including Barrier and clothes.
Just like Nick, she was armed and naked.
'I don't feel any Zephyx coming from her,' Nick thought as he took a close look at her. 'That's probably one of her abilities. She has to be an Assassin.'
The woman slowly moved around the pillars, sticking to them like a spider.
Nick moved after her.
Everyone else had to die anyway for Nick to escape.
The woman was moving with impressive subtlety, and if Nick hadn't heard that noise earlier, he wouldn't have found her.
It was extremely difficult to perceive her for some reason due to the fact that she seemingly didn't give off any Zephyx.
It was almost like she was just an illusion or an afterimage.
'Very impressive ability.'
Nick closed in on her.
He was extremely careful.
She stopped for a moment to look past one of the pillars.
BANG!
Nick transformed into his physical form, unsheathed his blades, and rammed his blade through her head!
Her expression changed to terror, but there was nothing else she could do.
'One down,' Nick thought.
Nick pulled his blade out.
The corpse fell forward.
CRKSH!
And split apart into sheets of flesh and eyes!
Nick's eyes widened.
That was not a human body!
In an instant, Nick could tell that this sheet of flesh and eyes looked exactly like the Maw but without its unnerving and impossible power.
This was the ability of an Extractor!
This had to be the ability the Extractor had received from the Maw!
A flesh clone!
This was a trap!
BANG!
Yet, before Nick could react, a dagger came out of his forehead.
The same woman from earlier had reappeared, and she had buried her dagger in Nick's head.
This was a huge miscalculation.
Nick's opponent was not an Initial Specialist.
It was an Initial Hero!
SHING!
And then, a second dagger cut Nick's head off.