Nick came out of the ground and looked around in shock.
"Technician?!" Nick spoke in surprise.
'But how?!' Nick thought. 'He can't leave Aegis' headquarters! If he leaves, Death will attack the headquarters!'
"Wow, so, you really became a Specter. That's fascinating!" a voice in Nick's mind spoke.
"Yes, did you get my message?" Nick asked.
"Sure did," the voice answered with laughter.
But then, Nick felt the atmosphere shift.
"Has your goal changed?" the Technician asked.
"I-"
"Never mind, stupid question," the Technician added. "Even if it did, you wouldn't tell me since you know how that would go. Just forget it."
"Listen, I don't have much time. I'm just flying through here 'coincidentally'. I mean, not really coincidentally since I knew that you had to be around here somewhere, but I'm actually doing something completely different. Anyway, you have to stay away from Aegis for a couple of years. Many things are happening, and I can't go into details."
"Just stay away for a while until things calm down. Go be undercover or whatever. Time's up! Gotta go!"
A short moment later, Nick's ability activated again.
Nick hadn't even seen a glimpse of the Technician this entire time.
Most likely, the Technician had just been flying in a straight line without acting like he was talking with Nick.
Nick became more nervous.
'This means he thinks that he is being watched,' Nick thought. 'On top of that, he believes that the one watching him would not be happy with my existence.'
'Speaking of. Which Shields actually know about me? The Left Arm, the Technician, and the old Champion of Light. Those three definitely know about me.'
'What about the other four?'
'What about the new Champion of Light?'
Nick narrowed his eyes.
'The Technician said that I should stay away for a while, and he specifically traveled through this place to find and tell me.'
'Things at Aegis seem to be chaotic.'
'I shouldn't consider everyone in Aegis to be my ally at this moment.'
'My original message should have directly gone to the Left Arm, and since the Technician knows about it, it probably means that the two of them are on the same side, which means that the Left Arm should be on my side.'
'But I can't be sure about the other ones.'
'My identity as a former human might be more dangerous than just being a normal Specter.'
'I have to be careful about my true identity.'
Nick imitated taking a deep breath.
'In the end, everything is just as before. All of these things that have been happening are too big. I don't have the power to change any of these.'
'I just have to continue as I have. Maybe I should push back my planned return to Aegis by a couple of years, and I should also be more careful about how I return.'
Nick turned to look at Water Pillar City.
'I should watch Water Pillar City for a couple more months. Then, I'll call Wrath and go to the next city.'
The situation with the Sun had passed, and Nick returned to his "job" as Wrath's agent.
Nick was not powerful enough to get involved in such major happenings yet.
Within the next couple of months, many things changed on a global scale, but the normal people didn't hear anything about these things.
For them, nothing had changed.
The biggest effects were subtle.
However, Nick heard about one of the changes.
"Your next goal is Lust," Wrath spoke through gritted teeth to Nick.
"Lust?" Nick asked with a raised eyebrow. "I thought we were going after Gluttony."
"Things have changed," Wrath said with a dark tone.
"What has changed?" Nick asked.
Wrath glared at Nick for a bit.
"The humans are putting pressure on Pestilence in the north of the Grand Continent," Wrath explained.
Nick didn't let it show on his face, but he was quite surprised.
The humans were putting pressure on one of the Trio of Destruction?
'That also explains where the Technician was actually going to. I am near that western part of the Grand Continent, and if someone came from Aegis' headquarters while taking the longer route through the east, they could travel past me.'
'The Technician is probably fighting near the frontlines against Pestilence.'
"Sloth and Lust retreated north to help Pestilence. That leaves Lust's position open. We are using this opportunity to expand my territory towards the east," Wrath explained.
Nick nodded.
Technically, none of the Corruptors directly got involved in their territories. After all, if a powerful Fallen showed itself, humanity might deliver a devastating counterattack.
The Corruptors only got involved in their territories via Major Relays.
However, using a Major Relay was risky.
There were ways to intercept and track the messages from Major Relays, but it wasn't easy.
Only Protectors could hope to master such an ability, and they also needed to be relatively close to one of the recipients.
Major Relays worked by establishing connections with the Corruptors.
The manipulation lines in the Major Relays were only there to access the Corruptors' powers.
They did not have the power to create the connections on their own.
The actual connection was upheld by the Corruptors while the Major Relays only acted as… well… relays or receivers, depending on the viewpoint.
The Major Relays sent a request to build a connection to the Corruptor. The Corruptor then needed to connect to the Major Relays, and the two sides would be able to talk to each other.
Yet, if there was a powerful Protector nearby, they could tap into the connection and calculate the position of both sides.
The most important parts of such great battles were intel and location.
Both sides only knew the rough location of the other side.
If one of the two sides showed their precise location, the other side could strike that location with all of their power.
Aegis knew that Pestilence was somewhere in the northeast of the Grand Continent, but they could only narrow the location down to about a square with dimensions of about 2,000 kilometers for its edges.
If Aegis just attacked a random spot there, Pestilence would see the attacker and could deliver a devastating attack.
As soon as one of the two sides showed itself, the "final battle" would take place, and one of the two sides would be killed.
Because of that, the Shields stationed in the north of the Grand Continent remained completely silent, just as Pestilence, Lust, and Sloth remained silent.
Because of that, Lust couldn't establish a connection with their cities.
Otherwise, they would be found quickly, and Aegis would strike.
Not being able to contact any of the cities was extremely detrimental to the Corruptors.
The only one that could do that without even thinking about the consequences was Envy since Aegis already knew where it was.
However, it was important to note that Envy was special.
Not only was it hiding in an extremely dark area, but it also had the widest range of abilities in existence.
Envy had hundreds of different abilities, making it extremely versatile and unpredictable in a fight.
It had varied ways of getting rid of light and causing Extractors to be surrounded by darkness.
Sadly, even all of Aegis combined couldn't resist the Nightmare's power.
In Envy's case, neither side would benefit from an escalation in the conflict.
Attacking Envy was too risky for Aegis, and leaving the dark crater was too risky for Envy since it would lose the advantageous battleground.
Because of that, both sides were at a permanent stalemate in the Desolate Continent.
The only way to get rid of Envy for good was if the Champion of Light could go there personally since he was essentially the personification of sunlight, making him immune to the Nightmare's influence.
Sadly, if he moved, Aegis' headquarters would be obliterated by Death.
Of course, many more things were happening all over the world.
The fact that Shields were moving to different places gave neutral Adversaries and Fallen new opportunities, while Pride and Wrath could go on an even crazier offensive.
Many incidents were happening all over the world, but Nick didn't hear about any of them.
Only the siege of Pestilence was relevant to his life.
For now.
Wrath told Nick about his new target.
This time, the target was over 2,000 kilometers to the southeast, which was quite far away from where he was stationed currently.
Nick remembered that this part of the Grand Continent was also called the Ant Region.
The Ant Region was called such due to the crazy number of residential ruins scattered all across the region.
This made it appear like the region had been filled with a crazy number of humans.
Historians estimated that there had been over two billion people in the triangular region at the southern edge of the Grand Continent.
The entire world barely had ten million people.
The thought that over two billion people could live in that relatively small part was as crazy as it was disturbing.
The population density had to be similar to an ant hill, which was how the region got its name.
The Ant Region and the big area to the northeast of it were where Lust had its strongest hold, which wasn't surprising.
There had been an insane number of people there, which meant that there had to have been an insane number of procreations.
This was where Lust reigned.