Nick manipulated the CEO's perception and followed the CCO.
While using this ability cost quite a lot of Zephyx, manipulating the perception of an Expert wasn't very difficult for Nick.
The CCO kept calmly pulling the cart behind him as he kept walking down the dark hallway.
Nick kept watching him, trying to figure out how powerful the Specter was.
But it wasn't possible.
'He feels like a human Veteran to me,' Nick thought. 'However, he has to be a powerful Elder at least. The fact that he is able to fool my senses tells me as much.'
'Even though I know exactly that he is a Specter, and even though I'm trying my best to feel his true power, I can't see through his ability.'
'He has to be a Fanatic at the very least.'
Luckily, Nick's ability was still active, which meant that the CCO didn't know that he was there.
'I have to be careful with that thought,' Nick thought. 'When I waited for the CZE of the Priesthood, I also thought that she didn't know I was there since my ability was active, but she actually knew that something was there due to the Barrier of her office.'
'However, I'm quite certain that there was nothing strange that sensed my presence earlier.'
'I should still be careful, though.'
The CCO kept walking down the dark cave.
The cave led upwards and followed a subtle curve towards the right.
'Based on the angle of the curve, we should be walking through the stone of the mountain while circling the inside of the city.'
After about three minutes, there was a turn in the curve.
The couple of days in which Nick had kept watch over the city allowed him to create a reliable and detailed map of the city, and with a bit of math and a bit of estimating, Nick was quite sure that he knew where they were.
'Just as expected,' Nick thought. 'I knew that someone powerful was backing them.'
The city headquarters.
The cave led to the back of the city headquarters.
This was the place where the city's Specters and the rulers of the city were located.
As the two of them approached the bend, Nick started to hear something.
'Is that… moaning?' Nick thought.
Quiet moaning was coming from around the bend.
It sounded like a woman who was in pain.
After a while, the CCO walked around the bend.
Nick floated after him, but he decided to be even more careful.
Instead of walking past the bend, Nick stopped and fully focused on his new passive ability from the Maw.
While he couldn't see what was happening beyond the bend, he could hear, smell, and feel so much that a perfect picture appeared in his head of everything past the bend.
What he "saw" made him frown.
The CCO was slowly moving forward with his cart.
After a couple of seconds, he saw some subtle red lights, which were pulsating at the speed of human breathing.
He walked a bit more and finally saw his target.
The CCO walked through another hole and entered a big Containment Unit.
However, compared to the earlier Containment Unit, this one wasn't deactivated.
It was fully running.
But it wasn't really "containing" anything.
After all, there was a gigantic hole leading into the cave.
In the middle of the Containment Unit was a Specter.
It was around four meters tall and completely black.
It was a woman laying on her back, and she was unreasonably pregnant. Her belly bulged out as much as she was tall.
The labored breathing and the pulsating red light came from her.
She was sweating unreasonably strongly, and she seemed like she was suffering quite a lot from the "pregnancy".
"Quick… quick… quick…" she gasped between breaths. "I need… food… give me… food…"
The CCO walked forward without saying anything.
He stopped in front of her and lifted the cart with one hand.
The "woman" opened her mouth to an unreasonable degree.
There were no teeth in her maw.
Every part of her mouth was covered in gums.
Then, the CCO dumped all of the food into her maw.
Within less than ten seconds, over a full ton of food vanished.
The Specter closed her mouth.
UUuhhhh!
Then, her belly started to rumble.
Her pregnant belly vibrated.
"AAAHHH! AAAAHH! AAAAHHH!" she suddenly screamed in absolute pain. "It's here! It's here! It's coming! AAAAAAAAA!"
Her legs spread, and her vagina expanded like a balloon.
Next, a humongous black mass clogged up the gigantic vagina.
"AAAAHHH! AAAAAHH!"
She kept screaming in pain.
The sticky and slimy black mass changed shape as the Specter pressed it through the gaping hole.
The CCO had already placed the empty cart in front of the bursting vagina.
Nick could hear the slimy and sloshy sound of the black mass as it plopped onto the cart.
After the slimy mass left the Specter's gaping vagina, she finally became quiet again.
Well, not completely quiet.
She just returned to moaning in pain.
Her belly did not get smaller after giving "birth".
"Food… bring more… food… please…" she said through pants.
The CCO didn't answer.
Instead, he just pulled the cart into the cave again.
After a while, the slimy black substance hardened and became slightly shiny.
'Chocolate,' Nick thought as he saw the CCO and the cart passing by him.
'So, the Specter consumes the food and produces the chocolate. Most likely, the Specter grows more powerful by people eating its chocolate.'
Nick followed the CCO to the beginning of the cave again.
The CEO was still waiting near the entrance.
The CCO left the chocolate cart in the cave before grabbing the next cart with food and walking down the cave again.
This time, Nick didn't follow him.
Instead of going towards the right, Nick went towards the left.
He wanted to know where this led.
He already had a suspicion, but he wanted to be sure.
The first thing that Nick noticed was that there was light in this part of the cave.
'That means that humans are walking through here occasionally,' he thought.
Nick quickly reached the end and found himself in front of a door.
The door was thick, but there was no Barrier blocking it.
'A door leading to a secret tunnel without a Barrier.'
There was a contradiction here.
The only reason one wouldn't put a Barrier on such an important door was because Specters couldn't easily deactivate Barriers. In essence, not putting a Barrier there allowed Specters to pass through.
Yet, the secret tunnel was filled with light, which meant that humans walked through this place.
'Unless this is not about who can pass through the door but about subtlety.'
'A Barrier is quite conspicuous.'
'What if the other side of the door is hidden?'
'Well, since there is no Barrier, I can test my hypothesis.'
Naturally, Nick couldn't get through the door since he would need to create a hole, and any Veteran or stronger would notice the hole.
Nick turned into his corporeal form and approached the door.
Knock.
Nick quietly knocked on the door as he closed his eyes.
His knock created subtle vibrations, and thanks to Nick's amazingly fine senses, he could feel what was happening behind the door.
This was similar to flicking a piece of metal one was holding between one's fingers and flicking a piece of metal lying on the ground.
They vibrated in different ways and made different sounds.
Nick could tell by the vibrations that the door was touching something massive on the other side.
'Most likely a solid cube of metal,' Nick thought. 'I think a huge piece of metal is hiding the door.'
All the clues Nick had gathered combined into one big picture.
The food entered through the main entrance of the company and was put in a storage room.
At some point, someone, most likely the CIO, entered the storage room, pushed the cube of metal to the side, and pulled the cart with food to the other entrance of the cave.
Then, they would return, walk out of the cave, put the cube back, and leave the storage room again.
Eventually, the CCO would take the food and exchange it for chocolate.
Later, the CIO would return and pull the carts back into the original storage room.
Finally, the chocolate would leave the company building again and get sold.
'It has to be the CIO,' Nick thought. 'She's responsible for the entire building, and it's her job to know everything about it and deal with it. Hiding something like this from her would be almost impossible.'
'The fact that this part of the cave is lit also means that she is a human.'
'How much does she know about the production of chocolate?'
'Most likely not much. If she knew about the details, she could just directly bring the food to the Specter. That would be much easier.'
'She probably only knows that they are working for somebody else, but she doesn't know whom they are working for.'
'The CEO might also not know.'
'The CCO is the only one that knows.'
After thinking about all of this, Nick shot down the cave again and entered the other entrance.
Luckily, the CCO was walking slowly, and Nick quickly caught up.
As the two of them approached the bend again, Nick stopped.
Something was different.
The Specter was not alone.
There was someone else in the Containment Unit!
'It's her,' Nick thought with narrowed eyes.
'I should've known that she was the one controlling Happiness Through Taste ;).