The room fell silent as soon as the Left Arm told everyone about her secret project.
The Right Arm narrowed his eyes.
The Politician looked at the Left Arm with suspicion.
The Wall and the Knife did not look happy.
"I have not been informed of this," the Champion spoke with his deep voice.
"The latest project has been underway for 20 years. We just needed to wait for the results. We had more important things to worry about," the Left Arm spoke without apology.
"Why?" the Right Arm asked. "This doesn't make any sense. You were always the most adamant about not trusting Specters, no matter what."
"That is correct," the Left Arm answered, "and I am still not trusting any Specters. This Specter could be considered an ally, but it does not have any of our trust. The Specter is a weapon."
The mood in the room became even worse.
Joining forces with a Specter was idiotic!
It was an ironclad rule!
Specters were humanity's natural enemy!
The most shocking thing of all was that it had been the Left Arm who had fallen victim to this idiotic mindset.
The Left Arm was the shrewdest of everyone.
She was thorough, and she rarely made mistakes.
The only reason why they didn't consider her to be an idiot was because she was so outstanding in everything else.
"The only reason why I am giving you a chance to explain yourself is that I do not believe that you would make such a stupid mistake," the Champion said. "You've struck me as quite thorough and careful."
The Left Arm nodded. "Thank you, Champion."
"Now, tell me what this is all about. We need more details," the Champion said.
The others looked at the Left Arm with skepticism.
"29 years ago, I received a report from one of the cities north of the Desolate Continent," the Left Arm said. "It came from Simon Francium, one of the Judges responsible for keeping Envy contained."
"He found a Specter in one of the cities he had gone to due to an emergency."
"Surprisingly, the Specter willingly shared its true identity. In short, the Specter actively sought contact with Aegis' higher level."
The other people were suspicious.
This didn't seem plausible.
"This is Simon Francium's report," the Left Arm said, transmitting a report to everyone.
The Shields quickly read through the report.
Naturally, the Left Arm had forged that report.
"I told James to investigate the Specter and make sense of its actions. He did just that and wrote me this report," the Left Arm said, sending another report to everyone.
This report was also faked, but it was the Technician who forged it.
He forged his own report.
The report was insanely long and detailed.
Luckily, the Shields could read through the gigantic report in a matter of seconds.
"Abnormal psyche," the Politician commented, looking at one specific page of the report.
"Yes," the Left Arm added. "This Specter is one with an abnormal psyche. However, its abnormal psyche is in regard to emotions it believes to feel. The emotions are-"
"Surprisingly human," the Right Arm finished the sentence.
"For a Specter, it can be considered insane," the Left Arm said. "But for a human, it could be considered just slightly insane."
"I'll have to add," the Technician interjected, "that powerful Extractors could all be considered to be slightly insane. That is a base requirement to become so powerful."
Some of the Shields frowned, but they couldn't argue with that.
They all had their quirks.
"If this were just a random Specter, I could assure everyone that humanity would suffer from a cooperation with the Specter."
"But that's not the case."
"This Specter actually has goals."
"Goals?" the Knife asked with a snort. "You mean besides causing as much suffering as possible?"
The Left Arm nodded. "Yes. It wants to be the strongest Specter."
The people furrowed their brows.They could tell that this was different from other Specters.
Other Specters wanted to cause more and more suffering, which involuntarily led to them becoming the strongest.
Meanwhile, this Specter's goal was directly to become the strongest.
Now, the question was…
"Why?" the Champion asked.
"The same reason why any random human would want to be the strongest," the Left Arm said. "Greed and ambition."
"Like a businessman," the Politician commented.
The Left Arm nodded wordlessly.
"And why would that make this Specter different from others when it comes to our dynamic with it?" the Right Arm asked.
"Because it does not view humans as prey," the Left Arm explained. "It views us as a business that offers something that it wants to buy."
"The reason why it let itself get captured was to come to an agreement with Aegis."
"It is willing to support us and work for us," the Left Arm said.
Silence.
"In exchange for…?" the Wall asked.
"In exchange for working for us," the Left Arm said.
The Wall became a bit surprised, while the Knife raised an eyebrow.
Meanwhile, a light appeared in the Politician's eyes. "I see," he muttered.
"By working for us," the Left Arm continued, "it helps us, but it also gains power."
"It has been established that Specters grow more powerful by causing suffering to humanity in different ways. That is how Specters become more powerful."
"Yet, a Specter inside a Containment Unit produces Zephyx and increases the power of Extractors. While it does cause some suffering, the benefits far outweigh the cost. Otherwise, we wouldn't be working with them."
"However, the Specters don't get weaker when they help humanity. This Specter knows about this fact very well and is willing to exploit this in order to work together with Aegis."
"About 20 years ago, I sent the Specter to infiltrate the most chaotic area of the Grand Continent. Its job was to infiltrate the ranks of one of the Corruptors,work for them for several years, and use that knowledge to give Aegis an opportunity to deal a devastating blow to the Corruptors."
"16 cities."
"Over 200,000 citizens."
"20 dead Demon servants."
"That is what it delivered."
"It joined Wrath, conquered several cities that belonged to Gluttony, Sloth, and Lust, and unveiled all the inner workings of said cities."
"We managed to push Wrath all the way back into the War Continent thanks to this Specter alone."
"During that mission, it advanced from being a Peak Elder to being a Late Fanatic."
At that moment, several of the people frowned.
That was fast.
It had to have caused a lot of suffering.
Yet, when the Left Arm went into more detail, everyone realized that the Specter actually had a positive impact on almost all of the cities.
The suffering had reduced immensely, but the little bit of suffering that remained was all assigned to the Specter.
It essentially stole 100% of the suffering from Wrath, got rid of 80% or 90% of it, and pocketed the last 10% to 20%.
It massively reduced all of the suffering while also weakening Wrath significantly.
It made economic sense.
It was just good business for both sides.
As the Shields looked at the numbers, they couldn't dispute that fact.
Aegis had benefited from working with the Specter.
"What about the future?" the Champion asked. "In the end, every Specter benefits from humanity's suffering. Specters are humanity's enemies. I might have said that the Sun is our ally, but we all know that is not true."
"It says it does not want to become our enemy," the Left Arm said. "It says quality is far more important than quantity."
"The suffering from one Shield is worth more than the suffering of millions of normal people."
"It wants to become more powerful, and it needs powerful humans for that. Humans want to become more powerful, and they need Specters for that."
"If it ever manages to become an Adversary, it is willing to work with us."
"We will grow more powerful and don't need to work with the False Prophet anymore. At the same time, it will also become stronger."
"If we manage to make it powerful enough, we can increase the levels of all Shields."
"It might even be the key to rivaling the Eternals."
"It said that it isn't a parasite but a symbiote."
Silence.
The Shields weren't sure what to think about this.
Sure, all of it made sense, but this felt like a sales pitch.
Would things really turn out like this?
This sounded too good to be true.
"James, what's your opinion? You've been working with the Specter, right?" the Right Arm asked as he looked at the Technician.
The Technician shrugged. "I don't see anything wrong with it. Sounds good to me."
The Right Arm frowned. "You're not worried about an eventual betrayal when it becomes too powerful?"
"Nah," the Technician answered. "Your fear is predicated on inactivity. It's not like this thing becomes unstoppable overnight. Additionally, we are not trusting it. We will keep supervising it, and when we feel like it's becoming too unstable or too powerful, we can still stop it. By the time it becomes a Fallen, all of us would already be looking at it all the time with worry."
"We can still stop it by then. In my opinion, killing it now would be wasting a big opportunity."
Silence.
"I want to meet it," the Champion spoke.
The others furrowed their brows before nodding in confirmation.
The Left Arm nodded and turned to the Technician.
"Bring it in."
"Sure thing," the Technician said before walking out of the room.