While several people in Abyss City started to sound the alarm, Nick was traveling towards the south in his new clothes.
Naturally, he wouldn't stay in this city after he had just attacked an Expert.
According to what the Expert knew, this was a relatively thin but long stretch of land between two seas.
One was in the east, while one was in the west.
Although, thin might not be the correct word.
There were about 400 kilometers between the two shores, and the Expert didn't know how far the land continued in the north and the south.
Abyss City was at the shore of the eastern sea or ocean.
Technically, it could also be a very big lake. Nick couldn't be sure.
One other thing Nick knew was that there were a lot of mountains here. There was an entire mountain range going from shore to shore.
Nick didn't know a lot about geography, and he still wasn't sure on which continent he was.
He could only be sure that he was on a continent since mountain ranges this long and massive most likely were not on islands.
'I should go to Cross Mark City to the south,' Nick thought.
Cross Mark City was the furthest city from Abyss City that the Expert knew about, and it was around 300 kilometers to the southwest of Abyss City.
Nick left the mountain range behind and crossed relatively even terrain as he traveled to the south.
He saw a couple of lakes, but they were not crazily big.
Eventually, Nick reached a lake that was a little bit bigger.
The lake was over 20 kilometers wide and over 50 kilometers long.
It was far smaller than the two seas or oceans north of this place, but it was still quite big.
Beside the lake, Nick saw another one of these cities without any walls.
Just like Abyss City, Cross Mark City barely had any walls and simply defended itself by throwing mountains of human bodies at the Specters.
However, compared to Abyss City, there was a normal distribution of ages here.
A good number of children.
A large number of adults.
A small number of elderly.
Once again, it wasn't difficult for Nick to enter the city, and he quickly searched for somebody to question.
After searching for several minutes, Nick grew a bit annoyed.
'I can only question one person before I have to flee again. That sucks. I don't even know anyone from this place. If I could just find out more about the people of this city, I could search for a better target.'
'However, that means killing someone to stop them from ringing the alarm, and I don't want to do that.'
'Although…'
After that, Nick decided to focus on the poorer parts of the city a bit more.
'Maybe, if I'm lucky…'
Nick focused on the different houses and inspected them one at a time.
Half an hour passed until Nick finally found something.
'Finally!'
Inside a seemingly random shack, Nick found a couple of imprisoned children.
Just now, a John had entered the shack, and the children immediately began to panic.
Nick was reminded of that one panda pirate from Cycle.
'With so many people and this strong of a lack of control, there has to be rampant crime, and there had to be an Extractor that's involved in some unsavory things,' Nick thought as he approached the shack.
Naturally, Nick wasn't the biggest fan of killing a human…
As long as he saw them as human, that was.
Nick entered the house through one of the cracks and approached the man, who was about to drop his pants.
The next moment, Nick materialized behind him and grabbed his mouth and nose.
Naturally, the man immediately became panicked and tried to tear himself free, but a John couldn't possibly tear themselves free from the grasp of a Specialist.
Funnily enough, Nick hadn't even needed to destroy the man's Barrier since he had deactivated it himself.
Cheap Barriers didn't have a frisky mode.
Obviously, the children started to panic even more.
Somehow, this new person felt even more dangerous than the man!
"Shut up!" Nick shouted.
Silence.
"I'm going to break down the wall, and you can run to wherever you want. Or you can remain here. Depends on you."
The children were confused.
BANG!
Nick kicked one of the walls down and ran out while keeping the man in his grasp.
Naturally, the explosion immediately alarmed the neighborhood, but this was in one of the poorer parts of the city, and there were barely any Extractors around.
The few that were present were Newbies or Johns.
Nick quickly charged towards the east, and as soon as the streets gave way to dirt, he dug downwards.
He essentially just needed to kick the air above him to generate enough power to rival an artillery shell.
An explosion of dirt appeared, followed by several quakes below ground.
If there were any powerful Extractors nearby, they could most likely follow Nick.
But there wasn't.
A couple of Extractors arrived, but they realized that they couldn't catch up with whatever was digging downward.
One had to remember that the dirt that Nick pushed to the side constantly fell back into the hole.
After traveling through the ground for about half a minute, Nick stopped and focused on the John in his hand.
'Fuck! I wasn't careful!' Nick thought.
The John in his hands had several broken bones and open wounds.
'At least he's still alive.'
The John's mind had already been influenced by the Nightmare, and Nick decided to join in.
The visions that the John saw changed, and Nick started to go through all possible things.
Organizations, cities, Specters, laws, and so on.
This time, Nick decided to keep going at it for several minutes. After all, the John's survival and comfort were not of his concern.
Eventually, Nick just squeezed the man's head into a meat paste and focused on the city far above him again.
While the John didn't know a lot about things outside of the city, he knew about the things inside the city.
Nick knew the names of the different Manufacturers and how strong they were.
'The Priesthood,' Nick thought as he slightly narrowed his eyes. 'Their CZE seems like a good target.'
The Priesthood was the second biggest Manufacturer in the city, and the strongest member was their CZE.
Their CZE was a Peak Specialist.
Naturally, the Priesthood did not have any Heroes.
The strongest Specter of the Priesthood was the Water Manifestation.
The Water Manifestation was some kind of flying pyramid that created powerful elixirs based on how much worship and prayer it received.
Most criminals in the city were forced to become worship slaves for years until they were released again.
Nick didn't care about that since he didn't care about the criminals.
Yet, there was an open secret about the Priesthood.
While they denounced crime and preached ethics, they were actually running the majority of crime in the city.
If one wanted to become a criminal, one needed to give them a certain amount of their profits.
Otherwise, the Priesthood would capture them and make them a worship slave.
In essence, the Priesthood had a monopoly on crime.
Nick was not the biggest fan of that.
'I'm going to grab that CZE and question her. If there's nothing wrong with her, I can let her go, and if I find out that she is causing suffering to the people, I will kill her.'
'Additionally, a Peak Specialist should know where I am. Especially if she's the leader of such a big Manufacturer.'
'But for now, I should stay underground. It doesn't matter if I come back a couple of days later.'
For the next several hours, Nick decided to wait deep underground.
While the most powerful people had not been alarmed by what Nick had done since Johns constantly vanished, Nick still wanted to be careful.
Eventually, Nick surfaced outside the city again and reentered the city.
Once again, it didn't prove to be a challenge.
After just a couple of seconds, Nick saw the Priesthood's building.
They had built a pyramid, which was about 300 meters high.
That would be impressive if Nick hadn't grown up in Crimson City.
Also, Aegis' headquarters was also a pyramid, and that thing was way bigger as well.
Then, Nick waited.
'The CZE comes out every day in the morning to preach about being a good human. That should be a great opportunity.'
Hours passed, and Nick saw people gathering in front of the pyramid before they went down on their knees.
By the end of it, Nick saw over a thousand people kneeling in the plaza in front of the huge pyramid.
And then, it was time.
An older woman with a friendly and peaceful smile walked out of the pyramid, flanked by two big men.
"Welcome, children of the pyramid!" she shouted.
Nick looked at her.