By now, Nick could visualize where he was with quite a lot of confidence.
In his mind, he saw a big wall with many holes, like a filter.
At some point, the holes would essentially split in two, but those splits were not equal.
One of the ways was much smaller than the other and was near the side, not directly in front.
It was like a big street with a small offshoot.
Anything that couldn't move without the help of gravity, air resistance, or friction would helplessly move down the big hallway into a dead end designed to catch these intruders.
Anything that could move like this would also travel to this dead end since the real path forward was so small and almost imperceivable.
'It's very clear that this is not an entrance but an exit. Nothing is supposed to get in here,' Nick thought.
If this were supposed to be some kind of Containment Unit or storage, there would be no reason to create so many holes.
This meant that there had to be a connection between the two sides of the wall, and since the wall did its very best to stop anything from traveling in this direction, it could only mean that things were supposed to come from the other side and arrive here.
But what would that something be?
What could possibly come out of here?
This place was deep underground, within a random cavern.
Water?
Air?
Earth?
Of course not.
The surroundings also didn't look any different from usual.
The air quality was normal.
There were no strange living beings around that thrived in some kind of strange atmosphere or something.
Everything was normal.
Usually, Nick would have no idea what was supposed to come out of there.
However, when he felt the difference in the density of Prephyx, he knew what was most likely coming out of there.
Why would the density of Prephyx in the small hole be greater than outside?
A small hole had less Prephyx, but it was also much smaller. The density would be unaffected.The density of Prephyx only increased when it was compressed, which wasn't easy.
Prephyx was notorious for being extremely difficult to compress.
It was much more cost-efficient to turn Prephyx into Zephyx instead of compressing Prephyx to have the same density as Zephyx.
On top of that, Zephyx had a ton of stored energy, making it extremely valuable, while Prephyx had almost no energy.
In a way, Zephyx was fuel, while Prephyx was water.
One first had to split water into hydrogen and oxygen to get it to produce energy. The problem was just that splitting the water cost as much, if not more, energy than the following reaction would give off.
Why would anyone want to turn water into hydrogen when they could simply replace a barrel of water with oil by putting it beside a Specter for a bit, metaphorically speaking?
So, the fact that there was a higher density of Prephyx in that little hole told Nick that this was most likely the thing that traveled through the hole.
After all, there was no point in compressing Prephyx otherwise.
The only point was to move more of it through the hole with more pressure and speed.
'Prephyx,' Nick thought as he compressed his body more and more.
People, even Extractors, rarely talked about Prephyx.
Prephyx was useless to normal people since they didn't need it to survive and since they couldn't utilize it in any way.
It was just there.
The only purpose of Prephyx was for Veterans and stronger to stay alive and to rebuild their own Zephyx storages.
However, even Extractors rarely talked about it since it was just everywhere all of the time.
It was in the water, in the air, in the stone, anywhere that had even a tiny gap.
One needed materials like steel and glass to isolate Prephyx.
And yet, it was something that was around every person all of the time.
It was absolutely everywhere.
It was even more omnipresent than air or light.
But there was one thing that nobody knew.
Where did it come from?Nick had learned about Prephyx and Zephyx when he had met Wyntor in the Dregs. The relationship between Prephyx and Zephyx was common knowledge.
But even after learning far more about the world than even Aria Light or Markus Julius, Nick still had no idea where the Prephyx in the world actually came from.
One thing was clear, though. Prephyx had to come from somewhere, and its presence was increasing with time.
The reason for that was the Specters.
When a Specter was killed, a certain number of Hatchlings would appear all over the world, roughly equalizing things.
But then, these Hatchlings would grow more powerful.
One Specter's death never only resulted in the creation of zero Specters, and always created at least one Specter, in case the dead Specter used to be a weak Hatchling.
In the majority of cases, two or more Specters were created per Specter that died.
This meant that the number of Specters increased with time, and their total power did not decrease since 99% of the Zephyx of the world was stored in the Eternals and the Adversaries.
And yet, new Fallen and Adversaries appeared occasionally.
This meant that more and more Zephyx was stored in the form of Specters.
But the crazy thing was that the density of Prephyx never decreased!
This was not like the rain cycle, where the water fell down, rose up, and fell down again, never reducing or increasing in mass.
The Prephyx was actually increasing.
So, where did it come from?
Nobody knew, but all researchers wanted to know.
If they could stop the creation of Prephyx, killing Specters would not end in the creation of even more Specters.
Stopping the production of Prephyx could lead to the eradication of all Specters!
Nick looked at the tiny hole.
It was difficult to believe that this might be the place or one of the places where Prephyx came from.
Eventually, Nick managed to compress himself enough to fit in the tiny hole.It wasn't easy for him to compress himself to such a small size.
If he were still a human, this wouldn't have been possible, even with his ability to turn into mist.
Only something like a powerful Force Specter could get in here.
Nick pushed himself into the hole, and he quickly felt a force trying to push him out.
This was the pressure of the Prephyx in front of him.
Luckily, there were many other holes across the wall, which meant that the pressure was not nearly strong enough to push Nick out.
Nick kept moving forward.
'While the Robe might be able to fit in the bigger hole, I don't think it will fit in this one,' Nick thought.
The Robe had still been on his mind until now.
'I don't know if it is going to die in one of the traps or if it has already escaped again.'
'If it has escaped, I have to be careful. It will either wait for me or will immediately tell Pride about this weird wall.'
'Either way, my cover is essentially blown.'
'Exiting the wall will also be extremely risky, in case the Robe waits for me.'
'It might be smarter to exit through a different hole on the other side of this weird green space.'
Nick kept moving forward, and after a couple of meters, he noticed something.
His perception was returning.
When he looked back, he still felt like there was a green wall just behind him, but when he looked forward, there was still a green wall, but it was much further away.
'The perception-warping effect is becoming weaker,' Nick realized.
He continued going down the hole, and after a while, his perception expanded far enough that it could get out of the hole.
When Nick perceived what was outside the hole, he took a while to come to terms with it.
'What is this? This can't be made by humans! I refuse to believe that any civilization would come up with something like this!'
The space outside the hole was constantly moving.
Green and red plates of something akin to chitin were moving around rhythmically.The plates were being pushed and pulled by thin strands of things that looked a bit like transparent muscles.
Nick could see thin veins going through the transparent strands, supplying every part of them with… something.
In a way, it looked… alive.
And yet, there was absolutely zero randomness in the construction of any of the parts.
It was like perfect and uniform genetics.
Judging by the way everything moved, Nick could tell that this was a gigantic machine, but the machine worked with purely biological components without biological randomness.
'A gigantic, perfectly engineered lifeform that acts like a machine,' Nick thought.
'This thing is alive, but it does not have a brain, a soul, or anything like that.'
'It is not even as intelligent as a cell.'
'It's a biological machine!'