t.me/Kill_the_Sun_fastes
A man landed on a landing platform on top of a gigantic building.
The building was an entire kilometer long and 300 meters high.
While these dimensions were beyond impressive for a normal building, they just barely reached the class of a megastructure.
According to Aegis' classification, one of the dimensions of a megastructure needed to be one kilometer long or longer with one other dimension being longer than one hundred meters. The third dimension just needed to be longer than ten meters.
The structure the man landed on was one of Aegis' strongholds.
Excluding the headquarters, Aegis had twelve strongholds all over the world, which acted as the individual headquarters of different zones.
Their locations were:
Northwestern edge of the Great Triangle.
Middle of the western part of the Grand Continent.
Middle of the contended zone in which Nick had operated for the last couple of years.
Middle of the long triangle at the southern edge of the Grand Continent.
Near the eastern edge of the Grand Continent, very close to the big and long island to its east.
Middle of the north of the Grand Continent.
Middle of the north of the War Continent.
Middle of the south of the War Continent.
Middle of the Southern Continent.
One of the islands amongst the group of islands that contained Crimson City. The group of islands was southeast of the Grand Continent and north of the Desolate Continent.
And lastly, there was one near the northeastern edge of the Desolate Continent. This one solely existed to contain Envy.
The stronghold on which this person landed was the one near the eastern edge of the Grand Continent.
The person who landed wore long black robes, completely hiding their body.
They were rather tall, and their black hair blew in the wind.
On their face was a white mask without features, completely hiding their face.
All in all, this person looked rather strange.
As soon as the person landed, the two guards on top of the building narrowed their eyes.
They could see and sense that person, but something was… off.
It was like the feeling this person gave them was artificial.
It felt wrong.
"Identify yourself immediately!" one of them shouted.
The person who had shouted was a Mid Hero with black hair, donning a serious expression.
The other person was a middle-aged lady with bloodred hair.
The man who had landed just slowly turned his head to look at the man who had just shouted.
In the next moment, a black Barrier appeared around the visitor for a second.
The Barriers of the two guards reacted and displayed the information about this person.
However, when they saw the information, they furrowed their brows.
Name: Guest.
First Name: Guest.
Power: Guest.
Position: Guest.
The only attribute that wasn't filled with the word "Guest" was the entry permission.
The entry permission was on the level of an Agent.
The two guards verified the attributes several times and found that everything seemed to be correct.
The attributes themselves were very strange, but according to the data, they were deliberately filled out like this.
"Apologies," the black-haired man said. "We didn't mean any disrespect."
The red-haired lady also performed a slight bow in apology.
The masked man activated his black Barrier, and moments later, the black Barriers of the two guards appeared as well.
Then, a message popped up on their Barriers, and they had to try their absolute best not to explode in anger.
"A complaint by an Agent-level figure has been lodged against you. Your sentence will be extended by five years."
Five years.
Five more years of standing guard on top of this building and having to lick the boots of any random person who showed up here!
They hadn't even done anything wrong!
It was their job to investigate suspicious individuals!
If this guy wasn't suspicious, nobody was suspicious!
Yet, despite doing everything correctly, their sentence was extended by five years!
This was not fair!
"Not fun to be on the receiving end, is it?" a distorted voice came out of their Barriers.
The two of them looked at the masked figure, trying their absolute hardest not to explode in anger.
"No, sir," the black-haired man spoke with a forced smile.
Naturally, only Governors who had misused their authority were sentenced to stay guard in these places.
"Jasmin Reddawn," the distorted voice of the Barrier spoke as the white mask focused on the red-haired lady.
"Markus Julius," it said as the figure turned to focus on the black-haired man.
The two of them waited for the person to say something.
But then, the person just turned around.
"Think about what you have done," the distorted voice said.
The next moment, mist came out of the person's feet and hands as the person took to the sky.
Finally, the person flew off.
When the two of them saw that, they became shocked before becoming enraged.
Why had this guy left?!
Wasn't he here to visit the stronghold?!
Was this guy's entire purpose just to come here to dump another five years on their sentence?!
Why?!
What had they done to him?!
They were enraged and confused.
However, within the next couple of days, most of the confusion vanished.
They had heard from different visitors that the same figure had also appeared in the other strongholds.
Apparently, from what they had heard, this mysterious figure had visited all of the individual strongholds just to extend the sentences of the guards.
That was literally all this figure had done!
A couple of words from this visitor caused over 20 Heroes to suffer for another five years!
Something that was as easy as turning over one's hand for the mysterious person was causing them immense pain and anger!
Naturally, some of the guards couldn't help realizing that this was basically the same thing they had done to some of their former citizens.
In the past, with just a couple of careless words, these former Governors had caused hundreds of unnecessary deaths in their cities.
'Any day now,' Markus Julius thought in frustration, anger, and hope. 'Any day now, they will relieve me of this idiotic and humiliating guard duty and send me back to Crimson City!'
'I was a good Governor! I did the right thing! Running the city better is almost impossible!'
His eyes narrowed. 'And especially a lowborn nobody from the Dregs doesn't know how to run a city!'
'Nick will soon fail, and they will call me back!'
'My innocence will be proven!'
Any day now.
Soon.
These were the thoughts of Markus Julius, the former Governor of Crimson City.
He has had these thoughts for over 20 years now.
But soon.
Very soon, they would bring him back.
He was sure of it.
This couldn't be the remainder of his life.
Meanwhile, the masked figure landed on top of Aegis' headquarters.
The two guards stood perfectly straight and didn't interact with the figure as it passed by them.
Naturally, the figure had also extended their sentences.
The figure entered the building and traveled to the research department.
DING!
The fortified door leading to the research department opened after the black Barrier activated, and the figure entered.
"Everything good, Mystery Man?" one of the researchers shouted with a laughing smile at the figure.
The figure just waved its hand as it passed by.
The masked man had been going in and out of this place for over a year now, and while the researchers knew absolutely nothing about this guy, they had grown to like him.
He had never said a word, but they had grown used to him and decided to just call him Mystery Man.
None of them even suspected that they were talking to a Specter.
The Mystery Man entered the research area specifically reserved for the Technician.
"They all went through," the Technician said as he looked at a couple of windows on his Barrier.
The Mystery Man moved his hand over his mask, and the mask vanished.
Naturally, the Mystery Man was Nick.
"The Zephyx generation is strong," Nick commented.
"I would assume so," the Technician answered. "They are probably cursing your existence with all their heart."
The Technician looked at a small display in one of the upper corners of the room.
"3,247 grams per hour of total generation. That's crazy for a Late Fanatic," the Technician said.
Over the last year, the Technician, Ghosty, and Nick had focused on experimenting on him.
With a fully cooperative Specter that had an excellent human education, their progress was accelerated significantly.
They were making amazing headway with Nick's help.
For example, they found out that they could reroute the Prephyx absorbed by Nick during his Zephyx generation through different media.
Containment Units needed a certain amount of contact with the outside atmosphere to allow Prephyx to enter, but with this new technology, they could also reroute the Prephyx through solid matter that was more conducive for Prephyx than air.
This essentially made Containment Units for Force Specters quite a bit cheaper.
Additionally, they could now measure the output of Zephyx with more detail.
A couple of Specters could hide Zephyx and act like they were producing less Zephyx than they actually were.
With this new technology, that would no longer be possible.
"And with that," the Technician said with a smile. "The Diet Specter Barrier is fully functional!"