Nick waited near the entrance of the cave with the Major Relay.
Everything around him was just wasteland, dust, and dry rocks.
As always, the Sun bore down on him with its orange light.
Except for a bit of wind, nothing else moved.
Nick had been waiting here for a couple of minutes.
He knew that he would enter a conflict very soon, but he wasn't completely sure how to play it.
In the end, he decided to gamble on something.
After waiting for over three hours, something arrived.
Nick's ability deactivated before he saw the other party, but he didn't move.
It was the Robe.
This was what Nick had expected and bet on.
Nick sent a feeling of familiarity to the Robe, telling it that Nick remembered it.
"I need to test your power," the Robe transmitted calmly. "Attack me with all of your power."
At that moment, Nick became nervous.
However, he wasn't nervous because he felt that the situation was going out of control, but because he knew that the riskiest part had arrived.
This Robe was extremely powerful.
In a way, the forces of the Corruptors could be viewed similarly to the forces of Aegis.
The weaker Demons were essentially Governors who were sent to control different cities.
Keeping an extremely powerful Demon constrained to a single city would be akin to wasting its power.
So, these extremely powerful Demons were used like Agents who were being sent from city to city to deal with issues.
Most likely, the Robe was some kind of local supervisor.
This thing was probably the insurance for the 40 closest cities or so, in case something went wrong with administration.
In general, there were more Demons than Heroes in the world, but getting one of these Demons to become one's servant was really difficult.
Most of the Demons were isolated most of the time and only struck humanity when it was completely safe.Such powerful Specters were not under any time pressure.
Because of that, coming into contact with them wasn't easy.
For example, there were probably around 15 different Demons living in a radius of 50 kilometers around Crimson City.
Maybe the Silent Area north of Crimson City was the habitat of a Fallen that would only strike if an Initial or Early Protector flew across its area.
So, while there were many powerful Demons essentially everywhere, Corruptors had far fewer of them as servants than there were human Agents.
The reason was that humans were united, while the Specters were not.
One had to remember that the Trio of Destruction and Death were only four Adversaries.
Yet, there were over ten or even over twenty more Adversaries in the world.
The Envious Researcher, the False Prophet, the Eternal Hunger, the False Hope. Those were already four more.
There was also the Salt Trident.
The Salt Trident was a humongous pillar of salt in the form of a trident. It was deep within the deepest ocean and constantly gave off a terrifying amount of salt.
It had made the water of the oceans so salty that almost no possible life could thrive there.
Even more, this special salt really didn't want to let go of any water, which made distilling water much harder since it even partially stuck to steam.
Nick had also heard of the Shark Mother.
Nick had heard of the many sharks attacking the coast around Crimson City's island, but he hadn't known that these sharks were actually all across the world.
There were tens of thousands of sharks all across the world, and over a thousand of them were as powerful as Demons.
Naturally, all of them were minions of one Adversary, which was called the Shark Mother.
The Shark Mother was one of the most dangerous Specters when it came to traveling.
Those were the ten most well-known Adversaries, but there were more lesser-known ones out there.Knowing all of this was important to realizing the true worth of the Robe hovering in front of Nick.
Killing this thing was equivalent to killing a team of Agents from Aegis when it came to Death's forces.
If this Robe died, it would probably destabilize Pride's entire territory in the north of the Long Continent.
Nick prepared himself.
The Robe told him to attack it with everything he got.
The reason for that was clear.
The Robe wanted Nick to exhaust all of his power so that he would turn into a defenseless Specter Core again.
This would make it easy for the Robe to deal with him.
"Okay," Nick transmitted back.
Then, he exploded into light.
WHOOOOM!
Shortly after, he attacked with all of his power.
This time, Nick didn't hold back, and he used his full power on the Robe.
CRKSH!
Nick's first two attacks tore two humongous holes in the Robe.
SHING!
Nick quickly combined the two huge holes and expanded them, cutting the Robe into two equal pieces.
A moment later, Nick could see one of the pieces vibrating in a weird way, which told him that this had to be the piece that contained the Specter Core!
BANG!
Nick managed to land another hit and cut that piece into two pieces as well, turning the Robe into a quarter of its original size.
If Nick could land another two attacks on that part, he was confident that he would hit the Specter Core.
Specter Cores needed to have a certain size, and two random strikes in the remaining area would have a high likelihood of hitting the Specter Core.
Nick slashed forward.
CRK!
But his blades only lightly scratched the surface of the Robe.
His ability had deactivated.
The light had vanished.
The next moment, the remaining part of the Robe extended and wrapped around Nick's outstretched arm in an instant.
Nick wanted to turn his arm incorporeal again, but for some reason,he couldn't!
It was like the Robe was deactivating his abilities!
Countless tentacles of cloth extended out of the Robe and crept up Nick's arm.
Shockingly, whenever they extended to grab mist, part of Nick's body solidified!
It was like the tentacles were turning Nick corporeal!
That was when Nick noticed that he didn't even have control over his arm anymore.
It wasn't that his arm was bound and constrained but that it wasn't listening to him.
He told it to move, but it refused to move!
The Robe was taking control of his body!
CRK!
Nick's misty body tore in half, leaving his arm and a big chunk of mist behind.
The mist was immediately surrounded by the tentacles, and it turned into Nick's entire right arm and part of his torso.
An instant later, the Robe threw the arm away, which quickly turned into black mist.
Nick had lost 20% of his Zephyx when he had exploded with light, and he had just lost another 20% when he tore himself in two.
The only positive thing was that the Robe had most likely lost even more Zephyx.
However, that was the result of a surprise attack, and the moment of surprise had passed.
Nick had failed the assassination.
Without saying anything, the Robe expanded and tried to surround Nick's remaining body.
With Nick's ability deactivated, he could barely react to the Robe's speed.
WHOOOM!
Nick reflexively expanded his body, becoming ten times as big.
The Robe couldn't enclose Nick's entire body.
CRACK!
Suddenly, the huge Robe snapped shut around a big part of Nick like a pair of jaws.
Part of Nick's body was completely surrounded by the Robe again, and Nick felt his connection to his body vanish.
Usually, if Nick was cut in two in his mist form, he could still pull his body back together again.
It was like he could remotely control the other part of his body for quite a while.
Controlling a part of his body remotely cost Nick a lot of Zephyx, but it allowed him to fuse together again.This was one of the things that made it so difficult to capture or kill Force Specters.
Yet, when the Robe completely surrounded part of Nick's body, it was like Nick lost all connection to that part.
It was essentially no longer his part.
Luckily, Nick had become so big that he only lost another 10% of his Zephyx to that move.
Unfortunately, that was all Nick had been able to do before the Robe attacked Nick again.
It was so much faster than him!
WHOOOOM!
Nick exploded into light again and voluntarily cut off a huge part of his body.
CRACK!
The Robe encased that part.
At the same time, Nick summoned a Maw portal below him and flew through it.
All of this cost Nick another 20% of his Zephyx.
An instant later, he materialized five kilometers away.
The light vanished, and the Robe searched for him.
Nick rapidly flew into one of the caves.
Before he entered, he felt his ability deactivate again for a moment.
The Robe had seen him and would quickly rush after him.
Nick's mind went wild, trying to find a solution to his predicament.