So, what now?
Nick was someplace, somewhere in the world.
He did not have any of his belongings except for his two blades.
And he was alone.
Nick was not sure what to do now.
'I have to get to Aegis' headquarters somehow,' Nick thought. 'As long as I can talk to any Shield, we can solve this issue.'
'First, I need to find out where I am and get something to wear.'
Nick looked at his naked body for a moment before focusing on the horizon.
The Hero had already fled, and Nick didn't want to get close to her a second time.
In her mind, Nick was a Specter, and if she saw him again, she would most likely attack or even request help.
In fact, it was possible that she was doing this right now.
Nick remembered the direction she had fled towards and charged in the opposite direction.
He rapidly jumped from mountain to mountain, doing his best to stay hidden.
With the power of his body and his ability, Nick's physical strength was on par with a Hero's.
This meant that Nick could traverse several kilometers per second.
Naturally, if he didn't actively use his Zephyx in a way to manipulate the air around him, he would create a sonic boom every time he moved.
Additionally, Nick needed to form a resistant field of Zephyx in front of his hands and feet and push it upward so that he didn't accidentally ascend too much.
Nick had already learned about the concept of escape velocity, and he was dangerously close to reaching it.
If someone moved too fast, they would move faster than the planet curved, which meant that they would essentially "fall upward".
This represented falling towards the Sun.
And the Sun destroyed everything that went past a height of about 30 kilometers.
Anything that reached an altitude of 30 kilometers or more would be turned into dust before being scattered back onto the ground.
Nobody knew what was behind the Sun.
People weren't even sure if there was anything behind the Sun.
What if the world just ended?
What if there was just nothing?
Although, Nick had also heard about the concept of planets, and their world was a planet.
So, there had to be more, right?
A lot of these things seemed a bit dodgy, and Nick was sure that this meant that Aegis was keeping some things secret.
But they probably had a good reason to keep these things secret.
Nevertheless, the important part was that Nick had to be careful that he didn't accidentally go too fast without rectifying his altitude.
For the first time, Nick felt almost contained while being outside.
30 kilometers was not that much for somebody like Nick.
With one proper jump, Nick could reach that altitude.
It was scary to think that the simple act of jumping upward would kill him.
Technically, Nick could also fly. After all, his body turned ethereal if nobody could perceive him, and Nick could just move his body with his mind under these conditions.
However, Nick refrained from doing so.
If anyone perceived him, he would just stop in the air and fall.
Using the momentum of a jump was safer.
'Am I on a continent or on an island?' Nick thought as he jumped to another mountain.
'It should be a continent. I don't think islands have that many mountains,' he thought as he looked at the seemingly infinite stretch of mountains.
'That makes things harder.'
Nick jumped to the next mountain.
WHOOOM!
That was when he suddenly turned into mist and vanished.
Just now, his ability had deactivated.
As soon as Nick turned into mist, he entered a crack inside the mountain, after which his ability activated again.
'Shouldn't be a Hero,' Nick thought. 'A Hero wouldn't lose track of me this quickly.'
The next moment, Nick made a hole in the crack and floated through.
Even in his mist-form, he could still cause quite some destruction. He was no longer the weak John who couldn't break some glass while infiltrating the Spartans.
After a bit of searching around, Nick found the being that had perceived him.
In a crag between two mountains was a very long and wide thing.
It was about 40 meters long and about two meters wide, and it looked like it was part of the scenery.
Yet, that couldn't be further from the truth.
In truth, it was a gigantic, rocky snake.
If Nick's perception hadn't been enhanced by the Maw, and if he hadn't felt that something had to be here thanks to his ability, he wouldn't have noticed this snake.
Its shell seemed completely lifeless, and it felt like a genuine rock.
However, Nick could feel the extremely subtle trembles going through its body.
Thanks to his great experience with Specters, Nick could tell what these trembles were caused by.
Something inside the snake was struggling.
The snake had spotted Nick for just an instant while he had been jumping from one mountain to the next, but it hadn't seen him again since then.
'It should be somewhere in the middle of the Adult level,' Nick thought as he looked at the snake.
For a while, Nick looked through his surroundings, making sure that there was nothing else.
BANG!
Then, Nick materialized and jumped towards the snake.
Nick arrived beside the snake in an instant.
The next moment, stone began to crack, and the huge stone head of the snake moved away from the rockface to look at Nick.
It didn't seem worried.
It just looked at Nick casually.
For a moment, Nick was shocked.
Usually, Specters either surrendered immediately or fought back when faced with a powerful human.
And then, he remembered.
He was no human.
He was a Specter.
Why would the snake be worried about another Specter?
A moment later, Nick felt something he had never felt before.
It was some kind of extremely complex feeling.
It felt so incredibly alien.
Yet, for some reason, Nick could tell what this feeling meant.
It referred to the concept of a question regarding Nick's presence, and he could also tell that it was related to the snake.
In essence, the snake was asking Nick why he was there.
Nick furrowed his brows.
'Interesting,' Nick thought. 'Is this how Specters communicate with each other? The feeling is very abstract.'
'Can I communicate in the same way?'
Then, Nick willed his mind to communicate with the snake.
He wanted to ask where he was.
Sure enough, Nick got an answer almost immediately, and he also knew what it meant.
'Rock.'
'What rock?' Nick sent back. 'Where are we? I don't want to know what the mountain is made of. I want to know where the mountain is.'
'Rock, here. Food, digest. No food around. Safe. Why here?'
The feelings the snake sent to Nick were extremely simple, and it was clear that it didn't even understand Nick properly.
It was even too stupid to understand that it didn't properly understand Nick.
'Why here?' it asked again.
'Where is next food place?' Nick asked back.
'Here rock. Rock no food. Not rock food. Why here?'
'I don't think I will get anything usable out of it,' Nick thought with annoyance.
To Nick, it was quite obvious that this Specter had abducted some humans, whom it held captive inside its body.
Most likely, it gained power by constricting humans' freedom, similar to the Prison.
It was just far weaker.
BANG!
Nick unsheathed his blade and cut the snake into two pieces.
'Surrender. Let live,' the rock snake sent without daring to move.
When Nick felt that message, he realized how right humanity was.
When put into a vacuum, these three words sounded like a cry of despair.
Yet, the feeling Nick had received was completely cold.
There was zero emotion behind it.
There was no fear, anger, shock, surprise, horror, or whatever.
In an esoteric way, one could say that the rock snake's message felt soulless.
It was grey.
After Nick cut the snake in half, he saw its lower half vanishing into black smoke as two human bodies appeared.
BANG!
Both of them immediately jumped up and ran to the side, but they messed up their landing and fell.
'They probably haven't been able to move their bodies for a long time,' Nick thought as he watched them.
SHING!
Nick bisected the snake again.
He wanted to find its Specter Core by seeing which half dissolved.
After this slash, the snake tried to flee, but Nick just kept cutting it into pieces.
Eventually, Nick found the Specter Core and destroyed it.
The rock snake was dead.
'Sadly, the death of the snake will probably create over ten Initial Hatchlings somewhere,' Nick thought.
Then, Nick looked at the humans whom he had freed.
There were four of them, and three of them were trying to relearn how to use their bodies.
Nick went to the person who still knew how to use their body.
As soon as that person saw Nick, her elation of being freed turned to horror.
They went from one Specter to another!
And she could tell that this one was far more powerful!