"Food."
"That is not food," the person standing in front of the cloud said.
"Look food," the misty cloud transmitted, seemingly pointing at the dissolving crab beside it.
"That is not food. That is not a human," the man answered with narrowed eyes. "How does this look like a human to you? It's three meters tall, just as wide, orange, and has six huge shears. It doesn't even have any human Zephyx."
"Human big. Human small. Human Zephyx. Human food. Everything food," the cloud answered.
If the human were an actual human, he would be dying of frustration and rage.
This was the fourth time in which this idiotic cloud had killed a Specter that it shouldn't kill.
The only reason why things even got so far was because it also killed two Specters that it should kill.
So, it wasn't completely useless.
This cloud was dumb in the dumbest way.
It was so dumb that understanding its logic was almost impossible due to its convoluted nature.
A very smart person might believe that a disguised Specter was a Specter due to a litany of suspicious things.
A smart person might believe that the same disguised Specter was a human due to falling for a couple of very good and subtle deceptions.
A normal person might believe that the same disguised Specter was a Specter because they didn't notice the subtle nature of the threats and just went by what they saw without questioning it.
A dumb person might believe that the same disguised Specter was a human since they didn't even question them.
An even dumber person might believe that the same disguised Specter was a Specter since they just looked too weird for being a human.
An EVEN DUMBER person might believe that the same disguised Specter was a human because Specters didn't exist, and they had never seen one before.
Sometimes,things just kept switching between one and zero based on intelligence.
In this cloud's case, it seemed to always misunderstand something in the very way that was damaging to Pride's efforts.
There was always some idiotic but understandable reason why the cloud kept doing something that every halfway-intelligent Specter would believe to be absolutely stupid.
That strong human over there? That was obviously a Specter since they seemed cold and annoyed.
That Specter? Yeah, it looked like a human. So, it was a human.
The cloud had to kill a big, tall, and strong human? That crab was big, tall, and strong, and it could totally be a human in disguise.
Even more, the more the human Specter tried to interrogate the cloud about its decisions, the more the cloud seemed like it was annoyed by constantly having to explain itself to the human Specter.
These things were obvious!
Naturally, since this human Specter kept asking dumb questions with obvious answers, the cloud stopped putting effort into explaining itself.
It was clear that the human Specter wouldn't be able to understand the cloud's amazing mind with its farsighted plans.
The cloud was already thinking about the food it was going to consume within the next couple of minutes, while the human Specter obviously only thought about the present.
The cloud kept explaining to the human Specter that the crab was a human, but the human Specter just couldn't understand this simple fact.
What an idiot.
"Staying in this city is too risky now," the human Specter transmitted evenly to the cloud. "The death of the strongest suppressed Specter in the city will cause chaos. The revenue will drop significantly, and Aegis' tribute will lower, which will trigger an investigation. Even if we stay here, we can't keep our cover under an investigation."
The human Specter felt like the cloud was shaking its head in annoyance.
This dumb fucking human Specter.Of course the death of a strong human would call out even stronger humans.
Didn't this dumbfuck realize that this would happen before it gave the cloud the idiotic order to kill the many-handed human?
The human Specter could essentially read the cloud's thoughts just by looking at it since it had adopted human body language rather quickly after staying inside cities for a while.
However, the only thing the Specter "felt" was a slight tinge of annoyance that it couldn't harvest Zephyx from this place now and that it needed to request another mission.
Naturally, it was also weighing its options about the future.
There was a chance that Pride would fault the human Specter for the cloud's actions since the cloud was so ridiculously stupid.
Would Pride believe that the human Specter was rebelling, or would she deal with the cloud?
The outcome was not certain, and the human Specter weighed its options.
Flee and risk being hunted and killed by one of Pride's servants or hope that Pride would believe that the cloud was more damaging than helping?
In the end, the human Specter came to the conclusion that "trusting" Pride one more time would be worth it.
However, if it had to continue to take care of this dumb fucking cloud, it would just tell the cloud to go to a random city and fuck off in secret.
The best-case scenario would be that the cloud would be sent to a different Specter, while the human Specter could enter a different city.
"Follow me," the human Specter spoke as its body became translucent before walking through the rusted walls of the room.
The cloud just followed after the human Specter.
The two of them silently left the city where they had stayed for the last couple of days and flew towards an isolated cave in the wilderness.
They floated through isolated darkness and thin walls to reach a secret room with a Major Relay.
The human Specter activated the Major Relay, and the arrogant figure of Pride appeared in front of it."Report," Pride ordered coldly.
"It killed the strongest Specter of the city when I told it to kill a strong and tall human, who was Envy's servant. The Specter was tall and strong, which led to a wrong identification. It had the form of a big crab," the human Specter explained.
Pride remained silent for a while.
Then, she turned to look at the cloud.
"What did you kill?" she asked.
"Big, tall, strong human."
"How many arms did the human have?" she asked.
"More than four."
"Why did you think it was a human?" Pride asked.
At that moment, Pride felt like she just saw the cloud sigh in exasperation.
"Human big. Human small. Human Zephyx. Human food. Everything food," the cloud explained.
But this time, the cloud wasn't done talking.
It seemingly gestured over to the human Specter. "It boss. It tell to kill big human. Big human dead. It complain. It stupid. It-"
But then, the cloud seemingly froze.
The cloud stopped "talking" and looked back and forth between Pride and the human Specter.
The cloud's body language was so clear that Pride could essentially read its mind.
Pride strong.
Human Specter weak.
Pride human Specter.
Human Specter Pride.
Pride strong.
Human Specter weak.
…
Human Specter not Pride?
Human Specter lie?
Human Specter weak!
Human Specter Specter?
Human Specter look like human!
Human Specter not Specter!
Human Specter human!
Human traitor!
Human food!
BANG!
An explosion of light.
"STOP!" Pride shouted with all of her authority.
"What?" the cloud asked in confusion with a transmission as the human Specter collapsed and turned into black dust.
The cloud had already killed the human Specter.
Pride glared at the confused cloud.
Naturally, Pride had been suspicious of the human Specter.
Maybe one of the other Corruptors was playing dirty.
Or maybe it actually wasn't a regular intelligent Specter but an intelligent Specter with an altered state of mind.There were a couple of possibilities.
After all, what were the chances that a dumb Specter constantly misunderstood everything?
Usually, dumb Specters did exactly what they were told to do.
But this particular one seemed to be different.
It was very strange.
Really dumb Specters acted on instincts like wild animals, but this one acted like it had a partially formed consciousness.
Something like this wasn't unheard of.
However, that put the cloud into a unique category of being useless.
It was smart enough to think, but it was so dumb that thinking almost always led to overthinking, which led to making the wrong choice.
For example, how could there be water in this isolated cave? Rain couldn't fall here. Therefore, the liquid in front of it couldn't possibly be water.
Meanwhile, if it just tasted it, it would realize that it was water.
Sadly, there wasn't much Pride could do about it.
She couldn't let the cloud operate on its own, and she couldn't send other Specters to supervise it since it would do more bad than good.
"Wait here," Pride ordered.
"Ok," the cloud answered.
Then, the connection was cut.
After the connection was cut, Nick immediately left the cave.
He knew what was about to happen.
'Pride is going to send one of its servants to kill me.'
'This is what I have been working towards!'
Nick readied himself for battle.