Nick watched as the two men slowly regained consciousness.
The three-headed silhouette was still laughing and crying loudly as the two of them stood up.
Naturally, since their Barriers had been broken, their Zephosis had stopped.
Luckily, more than enough Zephyx was being generated in this room, allowing their bodies to quickly restart their Zephosis.
A moment later, the lights turned back on, and Serna could finally see again.
Even though this was the second time this had happened, she still felt scared whenever the lights turned off.
But who could blame her? After all, darkness represented unending suffering for all humans.
There was never a point in someone's life in which darkness was not associated with horrendous suffering.
Logic didn't help against such a primordial fear.
The two men seemed confused and looked around.
"So?" Serna asked the CEO of Vertigo Box.
"Huh?" the CEO asked.
"What's your answer?" she asked.
The CEO grabbed his head. "Sorry, what was the question again?"
"Are you willing to hold off on any fights within the city limits for the next three months?" Serna asked with a bit of annoyance. "We want to have some time to come up with a working ruleset that accommodates everyone. Karl has already agreed."
At the side, Karl also shook his head in confusion.
He did not remember agreeing to that.
But then, the more he thought about it, the more familiar this seemed.
"Yeah, right," Karl said. "We need clearer rules for the battle. We might be at each other's throats, but this is all just about business. What's the point of winning this war if the winner only gets a destroyed city? I already said that earlier!"
Martin also started to "remember" the conversation and how adamant Karl had been about the pause.
In Martin's memory, Karl seemed very desperate for a temporary ceasefire.
Martin also remembered pushing back against Karl.
"This feels like favoritism," Martin said. "We are currently in an advantageous position, and at exactly this moment, you are asking for a ceasefire?"
Serna furrowed her brows in annoyance as she looked at the gigantic, three-headed figure standing between the two of them.
The laughing head laughed loudly while the crying head cried with more despair.
Meanwhile, the neutral head just sighed in annoyance. "I told you that can happen. After the transferal, their memories automatically generate based on the most obvious and straightforward pattern."
"He sees the other guy as his enemy and automatically thinks that anything the other guy wants is something that he doesn't want, making him believe that he was against this option."
"There's nothing I can do."
Serna kept her annoyance hidden and looked at Martin.
"How are you in an advantageous position?" she asked.
"We've just won a battle," he answered.
Serna took a deep breath and readied herself for a long discussion.
She just wanted this to be over with.
Nick remained inside a hidden compartment inside the wall.
While the Extractors couldn't see the Specter, they could see him.
Nick kept looking at the Specter with his perception while Serna and Martin kept arguing.
This Specter was quite terrifying.
It looked like three tall women had been fused together into a single body.
It was a Mid Demon, and it grew stronger by transferring emotional sensitivity and from the suffering caused by said emotional imbalance.
It could siphon emotional sensitivity out of one person and inject it into another one.
Within a couple of days, both of the affected people would change drastically.
This would turn one person into an unstable crazy person, who felt emotions at an insane intensity.
A slightly funny joke would make them laugh intensely.
A slight bit of criticism would see them frothing with rage.
A sad story would throw them into a full-on grief cycle.
At least, that was how extreme it was with weaker people.
Somebody as powerful as a Hero would still feel intense emotions, but they would have much better control over what they were doing.
Meanwhile, the other person would turn into a disinterested machine without any reactions whatsoever.
They felt nothing when someone told a joke.
They felt nothing when someone criticized them.
They felt nothing when someone tried to attack them.
One would think that this sounded very similar to how a Specter was, but that wasn't true.
A Specter wanted to survive but also wanted to cause suffering to humanity.
Meanwhile, someone afflicted by this Specter didn't even have any desire for that.
What was the point of growing stronger anyway?
What was the point of doing anything?
Nothing mattered.
The only reason why these people even continued talking and doing things was habit and the absence of urges like hunger, sex, and sleep.
They kind of just… continued… because that was what they had always done.
Naturally, this Specter was one of Wrath's servants and the future ruler of this city.
By tomorrow, Serna would ask the two CZEs of the two Manufacturers to come to a last meeting, and the Specter would do the same thing to them.
After that, the Specter would be able to walk through the city without any of the Heroes seeing it.
For a Mid Demon, abducting some Specialists wasn't difficult, and the Specter would be done manipulating all the Specialists within a couple of weeks, at most.
And that would be it.
The strongest people would be under the Specter's control.
Over a long period of time, Vertigo Box and Swirling Abyss would change drastically.
Vertigo Box would launch sudden and stupid assaults on the people of Swirling Abyss.
The people of Swirling Abyss would win more often than not, but they would never get a decisive strike since they just didn't care enough about anything.
In the long run, the two Manufacturers would also split the city into two.
The two camps had different names, with which they called each other.
One camp called itself the humans and called the other one the machines.
The other camp also called itself the humans but called the other one the animals.
One of them believed the other camp to lack basic emotion and humanity.
The other one believed the other camp lacked control over their emotions, which made them act like wild animals.
This was the Specter's plan on how to create conflict in the city.
Eventually, Serna managed to convince Martin to accept the armistice.
The two CEOs left after a while, and Nick came out of his secret compartment.
The Specter seemed to vanish from the room, only leaving behind an echo of laughter and crying.
When the Specter left, Serna released a sigh of relief.
She was nervous whenever this Specter was around.
Compared to the chocolate Specter, this one was actually lucid and could make conscious decisions.
Even more, it seemed quite a bit different from Nick, the Specter she had been working with for the past two years or so.
For some reason, working with Nick was similar to working with a human superior.
He actually explained things to her and told her exactly what to do.
Meanwhile, this new Specter just said what it wanted and left, leaving Serna to decide how to accomplish what it wanted from her.
At least, she would get a good amount of Zephyx by working with it.
Additionally, the Zephyx production had increased a lot, and the city's control was also much stronger.
The people also were much happier, but she didn't really care about that.
"When are you going to leave?" she asked Nick.
"I will contact Wrath in a week and get new orders," Nick said without turning to her.
Serna thought about the new Specter and felt a bit nervous.
"Can't you stay?" she asked.
"No," Nick answered. "The other servant will run this city."
Serna wanted to speak more, but Nick just left the room, not giving her the opportunity.
He knew how Serna felt, but the only thing Nick felt for her was disregard and disgust.
She was an opportunist who didn't care about the suffering she inflicted upon the powerless.
There were not many things Nick hated more than that.
'You will have about ten to twenty more years,' Nick thought as Serna's image appeared in his mind.
'Then, your entire world will come crashing down.'
A moment later, Nick looked at the city.
It had changed significantly since he had arrived.
He actually heard the sounds of laughter occasionally.
These sounds would not vanish.
In the future, the city would be split into two camps and would be in a constant civil war, but within those two xenophobic groups, the people would still help each other.
In fact, they would be even closer than before since both groups would have an enemy on which to focus their hatred.
'I'm not sure how many cities I can improve before I should return to Aegis,' Nick thought. 'The important part is that Aegis now knows that I am still alive and what happened to me.'
Yes, Nick had already come into contact with Aegis, and it actually hadn't even been difficult.
As to how he accomplished it.
Well…