"While fleeing from the Robe, I found a green wall," Nick explained.
"A green wall? What, like from a ruin or something?" the Technician asked.
"I don't think so," Nick said. "The wall had some very strange properties. For example, it looks smooth when you look at it from a distance, but if you touch it, you can feel that it is actually covered in holes."
By this point, the Technician narrowed his eyes, but Nick continued talking.
"It was also made of some kind of material that I have never seen before. I have learned a lot about all the past civilizations, but this material did not seem familiar at all."
"Additionally, the material was so hard that not even a Fallen could break it."
The Technician seemed quite serious.
Nick took note of the Technician's mood and thought it was unusual.
Usually, the Technician was chipper and curious. Nick would have expected that the Technician would be intrigued by the appearance of such a strange object.
In fact, he seemed like he didn't want to know anything about this.
'He knows about this,' Nick thought.
Nick looked at the Technician for a while without saying anything.
He made it clear that he knew that the Technician already knew about this thing.
"It's a special ruin from the Ancient Ones," the Technician explained. "The Ancient Ones were not as united as you might believe, and over the years, they developed different cultures and technologies."
"The thing you have seen was one of their bunkers. The holes facilitate exchange between the outside and the inside worlds. It basically acts as a filter," the Technician explained.
Usually, when the Technician explained things, he talked in a casual tone, but this time, he seemed quite distant.
Naturally, since Nick had seen what was inside the building, he could tell that the Technician was lying.
Additionally, despite being quite old and experienced, the Technician was not amazing at lying seamlessly.
When the Technician lied, he mostly prepared a story beforehand or just waved a matter off with a quick comment. After all, the more one lied, the higher the chance of the lie being found out.
But in this case, the Technician couldn't follow his script.
Although, was lying necessarily a bad thing?
'Why is he lying?' Nick thought. 'Is he protecting someone? Is he protecting himself? Is he protecting me?'
Nick looked at the Technician.
"You know that I can turn into mist," Nick stated.
At that moment, a tiny bit of emotion broke through the Technician's wall before quickly being suppressed again.
For just a tiny moment, Nick had seen the emotions of shock and curiosity.
"What a good ability to have," the Technician commented.
Silence.
He did not ask about what Nick saw.
"You do know that I can sense if someone is spying on us," Nick said. "You don't have to be so secretive right now. No one's looking."
The Technician's chin tightened.
"Can you be certain that the Sun can't see you?" the Technician asked with a rebuking tone.
"Even if I can't, we can just go to a dark place if that worries you," Nick said.
The Technician seemed to grow more annoyed.
"Do not look into these things, Nick," the Technician said. "I don't know what you saw in there, and I don't want to know."
Nick furrowed his brows.
The Technician was acting very strangely.
"Nobody can sense-"
"Can you guarantee that?" the Technician asked, interrupting Nick.
Then, without waiting for Nick's answer, the Technician clicked a button.
"Nobody can sense-"
Nick heard his own voice played back via a recording.
"Did you sense that?" the Technician asked with annoyance.
Then, he pressed another button, and a video feed showed up on one of the many consoles in the room, replaying their conversation.
"Can you guarantee that nobody has started looking at us ever since we started talking?" the Technician asked. "Your ability is binary. As long as I keep perceiving you, your ability loses all its perceptive capabilities." 𝘳
The Technician gritted his teeth.
Then, he isolated his senses for a short moment again with his Barrier and looked at Nick.
Nick just nodded, indicating that nobody was watching.
"This involves secrets that are infinitely more important than your survival or your abilities," the Technician rapidly transmitted. "If the wrong party finds out that you managed to enter one of these things, we will have a sixth civilization on our hands!"
"Do not talk with anyone about this! Not Ghosty! Not the Left Arm! Not me! Not anyone!"
The Technician's glare bore into Nick's eyes.
Nick barely managed to hide a reaction from showing on his face.
"How do we proceed now that Pride is dead?" Nick asked casually.
The Technician took a deep breath before his smile returned.
"We are still looking into what we can do," he answered with an excited smile. "The death of a Corruptor is unprecedented, and we're trying our best to make use of this unique opportunity."
While Nick and the Technician kept talking, Nick secretly thought about what the Technician had told him.
'A sixth era,' Nick thought.
It was clear what the Technician meant with that.
If the wrong party found out that Nick had come into contact with some of their secrets, the current era of humanity would come to an end.
All the powerful people of the world would die.
Aegis would cease to exist.
All, or almost all, cities would cease to exist.
Just because Nick was talking about something that he found out.
'This almost sounds like the Null,' Nick thought. 'Except that the Null only kills people that know about it, while, in this case, all of humanity will be killed.'
'The Technician knows that I can sense if the Champion of Light is looking at us. I'm also quite confident that I can sense when an Eternal is looking at me. After all, my ability was constantly deactivated while I was inside the Maw.'
'But he specifically mentioned the Sun.'
As Nick continued the conversation, he kept thinking more and more about this.
'The Sun is unmistakably the strongest Specter. Based on what I've seen, there might even be a possibility that it is some kind of super Specter that has all the other Specters as minions.'
'It's possible that it is at a theoretical tenth level, above the Eternals.'
'The only time my ability was deactivated by the Sun was when the Champion of Light came to power.'
'However, did my ability sense the Sun's perception or the Champion's perception?'
'It might actually be possible that the Sun has been perceiving me all this time and that my ability is simply not reacting to it.'
'After all, if the Sun is some kind of super Specter that is superior to all other Specters, it's also superior to the Null. It would make sense that it has some kind of resistance or immunity to my ability.'
'I have always believed that the Sun was unconscious since my ability never deactivated, but that might actually be false.'
'There's a chance that the Sun is conscious and is perceiving me but just doesn't interact with me in any way.'
'However, if these secrets were that important, and if the Sun were perceiving me all the time, I would have already been killed when I entered that green building.'
'But I am still alive.'
'That leaves a couple of possibilities.'
'One, the Sun is conscious but isn't paying constant attention to me.'
'Two, the Sun is conscious but doesn't actually care about this secret.'
'Three, the Sun is not conscious.'
'Right now, I don't have enough information to come to a definite conclusion.'
At that moment, Nick noticed something.
'If the Sun were the issue, why did the Technician ask me to recheck whether or not somebody is watching?'
'If I can't sense the Sun anyway, it wouldn't make a difference.'
Nick glanced at the Technician as his mouth spewed random tactical nonsense.
'He is being very vague.'
'I also remember that he once said that I should trust Aegis in a very strange way. Just the fact that he said that is already suspicious.'
'Does that mean that the Technician believes that someone in Aegis is related to this?'
'Based on the evidence, it's possible.'
'But what would even be the point of that?'
'The Specters want humanity dead. No matter what anyone believes, they are still human.'
'It's different when it's just a random Governor working with a Specter since that wouldn't end with them getting killed. Even if the city gets destroyed, there are more cities out there.'
'But when it involves the leaders of humanity, there is no other place to go to.'
'When every single human is dead, even the traitor will die, and I don't believe that the Shields aren't intelligent enough to realize that.'
'So, why all of this?'
Nick thought about it for a while.
'I can't be sure yet. I can only accept that there is a possibility that someone in Aegis is not on humanity's side.'