Nick sighed.
'That's one less Specter I can catch,' he thought.
Naturally, Nick wasn't the only person searching for Specters in the Dregs, which made things that much more difficult for him.
More days passed.
Eventually, Nick found a clue.
A small family told Nick that there were scary things happening in their house.
From time to time, stuff moved around, and they even heard stuff shaking in other rooms.
Some of them even claimed that they heard voices coming from below them, which couldn't be possible since the sewers were directly below them.
Nick followed up on the clue and entered their house.
After staying in their house for a while, Nick suddenly felt his ability deactivate, even though no one was in the room with him.
But then, his ability activated again a couple of seconds later.
Nick furrowed his brows and took a step forward in the empty room.
His ability deactivated again.
Three seconds later, it reactivated.
Nick knew what that meant.
'Someone is hearing me but can't see me,' he thought.
Since Nick's ability deactivated if anyone sensed him, it also meant that it deactivated when someone heard him make a sound.
At that moment, the person or Specter knew where Nick was since they knew where the sound came from.
But if they didn't see Nick and if Nick didn't give off more sounds, they wouldn't be able to perceive him again.
After all, Nick could have already walked away from the spot where the sound had been made, making it uncertain for the listener whether he was there or not.
'They can hear me but not see me,' Nick thought. 'This either means that the Specter is blind or that it is not inside the room.'
Nick very silently took a step to the side.
His ability didn't deactivate.
Then, Nick quietly opened a door.
Usually, houses in the Dregs didn't have any doors, but this one did.
When Nick was slowly opening the door, his ability didn't deactivate.
'That means the Specter is also not in that room,' Nick thought, looking at the door he was opening.
The next moment, Nick took a couple of normal steps.
His ability deactivated again.
Three seconds later, it reactivated.
After that, Nick silently crept over to another door and quietly opened it.
His ability didn't deactivate.
'Means it is also not in that room,' Nick thought.
Nick scratched his chin. 'These are the only two adjacent rooms.'
The next moment, Nick grabbed an uneven spot on one of the metallic walls and pulled himself up.
Ding. Ding.
Nick quietly knocked on the ceiling of the room.
His ability didn't deactivate.
Ding! Ding!
Nick used some more power.
His ability didn't deactivate.
DING!
Now, it deactivated.
'Means the Specter is not above me as well. That knock was so loud that every adjacent room heard it,' Nick thought.
Then, Nick walked to one of the walls and quietly knocked at it.
The same thing happened, and Nick's ability only deactivated after a pretty strong knock.
After that, Nick tried the other wall.
Same thing.
'That only leaves one spot,' Nick thought as he looked at the floor.
Slowly, Nick went to his knees.
And then, he quietly knocked on the floor.
Ding.
Nick's ability immediately deactivated.
Nick narrowed his eyes. 'In the sewers, huh?'
The next moment, Nick went to the rusty wall again and climbed it a bit.
After that, Nick put his feet on the wall and looked at the ground.
His ability had become active again.
BOOOOOM!
Nick shot at the ground, and as soon as he hit it, the metallic plates broke apart.
The rusty plates couldn't possibly resist such a tremendous shockwave.
As the entire floor collapsed, Nick's ability didn't deactivate, surprisingly.
Although, that was actually logical. After all, with sounds of collapsing metal plates coming from everywhere, no one could tell where Nick was just based on sound.
As the floor was collapsing, Nick rapidly took out a tube and destroyed it.
WHOOOM!
A bright domain of Arclight appeared, encompassing the falling metallic plates.
The dark sewer lit up, and Nick quickly found something that wasn't supposed to be there.
Just two meters below where the old floor had been was some kind of scaffolding made of pieces of rusty metal.
And then, Nick saw something else.
There was someone on the piece of scaffolding.
It was a middle-aged man, and he was in the process of ducking, which was quite understandable since the ceiling above him had just exploded.
BANG!
One of Nick's legs kicked one of the falling metal plates, shooting him towards the guy.
CRACK!
Nick's elbow hit the guy's chest and pushed him toward the scaffolding, which broke apart as well.
When Nick's elbow had hit the guy, he had felt many of his bones break, which told him one thing.
'That's a human,' Nick thought.
Sure, Nick had shot at the guy with quite a bit of power, but a Specter wouldn't get injured this heavily as long as it wasn't an Initial Hatchling.
Nick had just caused a genuinely life-threatening injury, which wouldn't have happened if this were a Specter.
Nick gritted his teeth in frustration.
'You idiot!' Nick thought as he jumped away from the breaking scaffolding.
The fact that Nick's ability hadn't deactivated meant that the guy was not able to perceive any other person right now.
The guy probably couldn't muster the mental capacity for proper spatial awareness after having his chest caved in, which meant that he didn't know where Nick was.
Nick grabbed one of the pieces of scaffolding that didn't break and threw himself back into the room at the top.
Not all the plates had collapsed.
As soon as Nick landed, he looked into the sewers.
Splash!
Several metal plates fell into the sewers, as well as the guy.
'Yeah, that guy is not surviving,' Nick thought.
The next moment, Nick just snorted in annoyance.
'What the fuck were you even doing down there? There are enough houses for everyone! Why would you live below someone else's house?!'
Nick just kept looking into the sewers, which had calmed down by now.
Ten seconds passed.
'Guess he lost consciousness.'
'I am not a fan of killing people, but I'm not going to mourn a dumbfuck like that.'