Nick was inside a dark cave and looked at what was happening in front of him.
A shadowy figure with four long arms was activating a stone circle in front of it.
Naturally, that stone circle was a Major Relay.
However, this wasn't a Major Relay that was contacting Wrath.
The biggest stone in front of the circle changed shape and turned into the figure of a woman.
She seemed to be in the prime of her life and wore the most luxurious and over-the-top clothing Nick had ever seen.
Her prideful and arrogant gaze went around the cave.
"Mistress Pride," the shadowy figure spoke in a respectful tone before falling to its knees.
However, Pride was barely paying any attention to the shadowy figure.
"You've been followed," she spoke with disgust.
Nick's ability had already deactivated as soon as Pride had appeared.
However, Nick still didn't move, and he also didn't say anything.
The shadowy figure rapidly looked around.
Yet, it couldn't find anything.
It was all alone in this dark cavern!
Pride watched in disgust as her useless servant tried to find the Specter.
The next moment, a message appeared in Nick's mind.
It was just a simple concept.
Dominance.
Pride was sending a powerful feeling of dominance to Nick.
Nick was quite impressed by how powerful the feeling of dominance was.
He genuinely felt like he was standing in front of a Peak Fallen without any way of resisting.
Of course, that wasn't the truth.
While Pride's perception was still incredibly advanced, she could barely exhibit any power while being summoned by a Major Relay.
At most, she could threaten a Veteran in this state.
Naturally, Nick knew all of this.
And yet…
A cloud of fog seemingly gathered out of nowhere and turned into a floating ball of mist.
The shadowy figure looked at the ball with interest.
A Force Specter?
After gathering into a ball of mist, Nick sent a feeling of submission.Pride looked at the misty cloud with disgust.
This thing gave up this quickly.
Yes, she knew that she was amazing, but she was annoyed that this thing didn't even try to resist her.
"I will not punish you for your mistake," she said. "Your mistake brought me another servant."
The shadowy figure bowed deeper, but deep inside, it was just annoyed.
One had to remember that everyone here was a Specter.
Punishment?
What was the point of any kind of punishment when Specters barely had any emotions and couldn't feel pain?
The only thing Pride could do to punish the shadowy figure was to kill it, and both of them knew that she wouldn't kill it for just being followed.
That would be such an insane waste of resources.
Too much pride was considered a bad thing.
The Seven Corruptors obviously all counted as intelligent Specters with altered mental states.
In short, they were insane.
Wrath was constantly angry, and its anger very often clouded its judgment.
It happened more than once that it threw caution to the wind and ordered something drastic.
Nick hadn't met Envy more than once, but it seemed to be too focused on gaining everything for itself. It was just so greedy that it kept overextending.
This also led to it getting caught and stuck in its current predicament.
Naturally, Pride was extremely prideful and wanted to exhibit said pride in a dominant fashion.
She just constantly tried to gain control over everything and threw her weight around in shows of power.
She was like a teenager who constantly kept talking about how they could beat everyone else up.
Sure, she actually had the power to beat almost everyone up, but that didn't change the fact that constantly saying it barely mattered.
There was no point in threatening to punish the shadowy figure.
A moment later, Pride sent another feeling to Nick.
What are you?
That was the feeling.Nick sent back a question about whether or not he was allowed to demonstrate what he could do.
Pride snorted but sent an affirmative feeling.
Naturally, Nick wasn't planning on ever showing Pride that he was intelligent or that he could transform into a Physical Specter.
While the Seven Corruptors were rivals, they were also forced into an alliance by Death.
Additionally, they had several agreements for their conflict.
One of them was that servants weren't allowed to change allegiances.
Whenever a Corruptor received a new servant, they would show their identities to the other Corruptors.
Of course, when Nick had become Wrath's servant, it sent Nick's identity to the other Corruptors.
So, if Nick appeared in his human form, Pride would just try to kill him.
Nick wouldn't be in any danger since the Specter in front of him was just an Early Fanatic, but that also meant that he wouldn't gain a good opportunity to help humanity.
After receiving an affirmative answer, Nick focused on the shadowy figure.
She wanted to see a demonstration.
WHOOOM!
Nick charged at the shadowy figure and encased its body.
Naturally, the shadowy figure immediately realized what was going on and tried to defend itself.
BANG!
A bright explosion of light occurred, blinding everyone inside the cave.
Pride couldn't sense Nick anymore and couldn't send a signal to stop because of that.
At the same time, Nick's arms materialized with their blades and sliced the shadowy figure apart.
Nick was so incredibly fast that it looked like the mist had over ten arms.
STOP!
Pride could sense Nick again and ordered him to stop with all of her power.
Nick flew back obediently and stopped.
When Pride looked at the ground, she sneered in hatred and disgust.
This weakling!
The shadowy figure was already turning into black dust, and Pride could see its Specter Core split into different parts.
It was fucking dead!
Then, Pride looked at Nick."Are you betraying me?!" she shouted as she sent a feeling of pure anger at Nick.
The mist ball shivered and shrunk in submission.
Nick just sent back a general feeling of confusion and a request not to kill him.
"I did not allow you to kill my servant!" Pride shouted.
Nick just answered with more confusion and requests not to kill him.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but why, but why, I'm sorry, but why, I'm sorry, but why?
Nick basically sent a barrage of that.
Pride looked with absolute disgust at the pathetic ball of mist.
"No matter," she said with a sneer. "You're too stupid to understand the consequences of your actions. This is why I hate Force Specters."
There was not even one intelligent Force Specter in the world.
Therefore, Pride didn't even suspect that Nick was just putting on an act.
Even more, her own arrogance also made her blind to that possibility.
Who could possibly fool her?
"I have a job for you," Pride spoke.
Nick just sent several feelings that he would follow all orders. He just didn't want her to kill him.
"Wait here," Pride said.
Nick mentally nodded at her several times.
Pride scoffed, and the Major Relay deactivated.
Silence.
The cloud of mist just hovered in the middle of the cave.
'Guess I'm in,' Nick thought. 'Pride is becoming too powerful. If she manages to take control over the entire Long Continent, she might be able to become an Adversary.'
'The conflict between the Corruptors uses up a lot of their attention and resources. The more they are fighting each other, the more they are ignoring humans.'
'Sure, they are still using humans as resources, but they are not doing the very thing that Death wants to do, which is killing all of humanity.'
'We can't let them become united.'
Weakening Pride had been a job Nick had received from the Left Arm.
The Shields were putting more pressure on her.
They wanted to see that accepting Nick as an ally would pay off.No one had the luxury to just stand around and grow more powerful in peace.
Humanity was extremely low on manpower and resources when compared to Specters, and everyone with some power needed to help.
There were so many talented Extractors that could become so much more powerful if they just got time to focus on their training, but Aegis didn't have the luxury to give them the time.
Humanity was on a constant state of emergency, and the Shields had to decide which cities to save many times since there just weren't enough people to help all of the cities.
Wrath and Envy were putting pressure on Lust, and Sloth couldn't really expand since 90% of its borders were shared with Lust, its ally.
The little space left for attacks was occupied with fighting Gluttony.
This meant that they were all in a state of constant battle.
However, Pride was essentially consuming the Long Continent since Envy couldn't put up a great defense.
So, dealing with Pride was of the utmost importance.
After waiting for a couple of minutes, Nick noticed someone approaching.
It was a dark-haired man with serious eyes.
Nick could feel a bit of Specter Zephyx coming from him.
Most likely, this was Pride's servant who was supposed to be Nick's handler due to his stupidity.
Yet, when Nick saw the very human appearance of the servant, he wanted to smirk.
'He sure looks like a human.'
'Would be a shame if I accidentally confused him for one and killed him.'
The misty cloud vanished from the cave.
The black-haired man entered the cave and looked around.
Meanwhile, mist appeared behind him, and several blades materialized.
The Specter's eyes widened, but it was too late.
Within less than a second, it died.
'Whoops,' Nick thought.