An alarm went off, and the Barriers of over 50 Extractors activated at the same time.
All of them looked at their Barriers to see what was up.
Then, they all collectively sighed in annoyance.
They had to work…
They hated work.
Nevertheless, they all knew that this was something necessary that they had to do.
If they didn't do this now, there would be even more work waiting for them in the future.
As long as they got this out of the way quickly, they could get back to chilling.
They all saw that a dense mass of Specter Zephyx had just passed through the magnetic field of Zephyx around the city.
Naturally, the walls were not walls but huge machines that generated magnetic fields that reacted to Zephyx coming from any Specters.
The entire city was surrounded by this machine.
This had been a great investment since they could now just stay in the city and wait for the Specters to come to them.
They didn't need to run around the outside anymore.
They also didn't need to investigate every little nook and cranny of the city.
No Specter could get into the city without going through the magnetic field or destroying part of the machine.
Like this, the Extractors could chill all day, except for the times they had to work with Specters.
The researchers that came up with this advanced technology were rewarded with a great salary for the remainder of their lives without needing to work a second more.
Working hard for a couple of months would pay off with less work in the future, which was how the engineers had managed to bring themselves to invest so much effort into this.
Depending on the density of Zephyx of the Specter, only fitting Extractors were alerted.
The machine said that the Specter was a Fanatic, at least.
Because of that, every single Specialist and Hero received the alert.
While the Extractors lamented that they had to move their asses now, they still reacted very quickly.
The quicker they were done, the quicker they could get to chill again.
Within an instant, several Extractors found the Specter.
It was a taller man with black hair.
He looked just like a very athletic human, but he definitely emanated Specter Zephyx.
This was undoubtedly a Specter.
The Specter looked up at the first person who appeared.
It was an Early Specialist who had been pretty close already.
Then, the Specter narrowed his eyes.
WHOOOOM!
An explosion of light occurred, blinding the Specialist.
When the Specialist's eyesight recovered, he already saw tens of Extractors rushing past him.
The Specter moved with extreme speed that shocked the Specialists.
This Specter was insanely fast!
This had to be a Peak Fanatic, at least!
When the Specialists saw that, the majority of them smiled in relief.
This meant that they were too weak to be a help!
Nice!
That was enough excitement for today. Time to relax.
Almost all the Specialists turned around and entered the city again while the Peak Specialists and Heroes continued charging forward.
The Specter paid attention to its surroundings and noticed that twelve Heroes were charging after it with their weapons drawn.
The fact that there were twelve Heroes chasing it was already crazy, but it was even crazier that there were at least four Mid Heroes chasing after it!
The Heroes were quite a lot faster than the Specter and gained ground rapidly.
WHOOOM!
The Specter was forced to unleash an intensely bright burst of light again and quickly punched the ground to dig into the wasteland.
However, the bright light only worked on eight of them.
The other four had changed the settings of their Barriers to defend against blinding light.
Defending against a big arc of light consumed a large amount of Zephyx, but it was worth it to retain vision of the target.
BANG!
One of the Heroes shot their gun, and the ground beneath the Specter exploded.
The Specter's attack hit nothing but air.
A moment later, the eyesight of the other Heroes recovered, and they changed the settings of their Barriers in an instant.
The teamwork of these Heroes was crazy!
Although, how couldn't it be?
All of them didn't want to work and put in any effort.
Conflict was effort.
What's the point of trying to one-up each other?
Everyone got the same amount of work, and everyone worked together to achieve the goal of working as little as necessary to keep the status quo.
All of them were experienced, and all of them genuinely worked together to achieve the same goal.
The Specter tried to escape into the ground again.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
More Heroes took out their weapons and unleashed attacks at the grounds beneath the Specter.
The Specter didn't manage to escape since the ground "kept moving away" from it.
BANG!
The first Hero arrived beside the Specter and slammed his huge shield at it.
The Specter tried to block, but the Hero's power was immense, and the Specter was thrown back.
BANG! BANG!
The other Heroes unleashed a couple of weaker attacks on the Specter.
The Specter's legs and arms broke open, revealing their bony and bloody insides.
When the Heroes saw that the Specter Core was not in the extremities, they used stronger attacks.
BOOM!
All the extremities were destroyed, leaving behind a torso and head.
The Specter couldn't properly move anymore, and the Heroes rapidly surrounded it.
They lowered its Zephyx storage with controlled attacks and put Zephyx Suppressors around its body.
It was suppressed.
The Specter had seemed quite experienced at running away, and its light ability had also been very useful for running away.
However, one Peak Fanatic couldn't possibly escape twelve Heroes.
"Not sure if I should feel sorry for you or envy you," one of the Heroes commented while looking at another one.
The other one frowned. "I also don't know."
"It seems easy to manage," a third one said. "Security won't be an issue. I think that means you're lucky."
"Eh, that's not the point," a fourth one said. "Yeah, it seems easy to manage, but it's a Peak Fanatic or Initial Demon. If it's a Demon, one of them might actually have to work even more now. I think they have bad luck."
The second one sighed. "I hope it's a Peak Fanatic."
"It's your turn," the first one said.
"I know," the second one said.
Then, the other Heroes slowly started to fly back to the city, leaving behind two of the Heroes.
These two wore the same uniform, showing that they belonged to the same Manufacturer.
The one of the two, who hadn't said anything yet, looked at the other one neutrally. "You're still an Initial Hero."
"Yes, yes, I know," the other guy answered.
Then, he sighed again.
"Yes, I'll deal with it."
The first guy showed a small smile and wordlessly flew back to the city.
In this city, Manufacturers didn't fight for Specters.
Having more Specters meant having more work.
Since nobody wanted to deal with the Specters, everyone came to the consensus that they would take turns when it came to accepting new Specters.
This time, it was the turn of this Manufacturer.
If they were lucky, they would receive a Hatchling Possession Specter that was impossible to work with, which would allow them to throw it into the back of a random warehouse for eternity.
If they had bad luck, they would get a Force Specter that produced a ridiculous amount of Zephyx but required a lot of hours of work to produce the Zephyx.
This particular one was not a Force Specter, but it was pretty strong.
The Extractor sighed once again, grabbed the Specter, and flew back into the city.
The Hero walked towards a big congregation of different cube buildings and entered.
The inside of the buildings was dirty and wasn't really taken care of.
The doors looked old, and there were a couple of holes in the ground and walls.
However, the walls of the Containment Units were solid and undamaged.
The Extractor dragged the Specter to a device before typing a bit on the console.
"Late Fanatic?" the man muttered in surprise. "You're quite fast for a Late Fanatic."
The Specter didn't answer.
"Not very talkative, huh?" the man asked.
The Specter didn't answer.
The man shrugged and pulled the Specter to a Containment Unit.
Since the Extractor didn't want to rehome the Specter in a couple of decades when it advanced to become a Demon, he immediately threw it into a Containment Unit meant for holding Demons.
Also, it was safer.
After throwing in the Specter, the Hero destroyed the Specter's limbs again before removing the Zephyx Suppressor.
"I'll deal with you tomorrow," the Hero said before walking out of the room.
The Specter stood up and remained standing in the middle of the room.
Then, Nick looked around.
His ability had already activated again.
After analyzing the Containment Unit around him, he couldn't help smirking just a little bit.
'My plan worked!'
Nick was now in the city.