"Report," the deep voice of the Champion of Light commanded.
Nick nodded.
Once more, everyone had gathered in the Champion of Light's hall for an emergency conference.
Naturally, this was all due to the recent changes involving Pride.
As the main reason for Pride's death, Nick was called to report his findings.
In the past, Nick avoided lying in front of any powerful person since he was afraid of being exposed.
But now, he had no other choice but to lie.
If the Shields found out that Nick was a Physical Specter that could transform into an intelligent Force Specter at will, they would immediately realize how unusual he was.
This was a set of abilities that couldn't even be found among Adversaries.
Famine was a cloud of trillions of locusts, and by moving around so many individual bodies, it essentially acted like a Force Specter.
However, in the end, it was still made of individual locusts, which created a hivemind.
If one simply killed every locust, Famine would die.
Meanwhile, Nick was essentially nothing.
He could create and destroy parts of his body as long as he had Zephyx.
Not even any of the known Eternals were intelligent Force Specters.
In the past, people might have believed that the Nightmare was an intelligent Force Specter, but that had proven to be false.
The only possibility was the Null, but that also wasn't certain.
When there were 100 rooms with possible mouse infestations, and one didn't find any mice in 99 of the rooms, that didn't mean that there had to be a mouse in the last room. ’
In simpler terms, there had never been any evidence of intelligent Force Specters, and there was no reason to believe that the one Specter people didn't know about would be the one intelligent Force Specter.
So, Nick had to be unique in some way.
And that would create questions, which would eventually lead to Nick's true identity being exposed.
All in all,Nick needed to lie, even though lying was extremely risky in front of so many powerful people.
He just hoped that it was believable.
"I have a servant that I have raised and educated for many years," Nick said. "That servant is a Force Specter with intelligence that reaches the level of a common pet."
Nick saw a couple of suspicious pairs of eyes looking at him.
He wasn't sure if they were surprised by the fact that he had a semi-intelligent Force Specter as a servant or if they felt that Nick was dishonest.
"Since my identity is already linked to Wrath, I couldn't infiltrate Pride's forces myself. That's why I used my Force Specter."
At that point, the Politician looked at Nick with furrowed brows. "And how did you manage to retain control over your servant in front of a Corruptor?"
"By taking advantage of faulty logic that overrides instinct," Nick answered.
The Politician's gaze silently told Nick to elaborate.
"I have proven time and time again that I can kill it. Over the years, I threatened its Specter Core again and again. I created some seemingly dangerous situations that it was always meant to survive, after which I proved again that I was the actual danger."
"No matter what was happening to it, it always had a chance to survive. Only when it was in front of me it didn't have any power over its life."
"Instinctually, someone like Pride would far outclass me in terms of presence and danger, but the Force Specter has learned that there is always a certain bit of uncertainty with anything, except for me."
"Therefore, defying me leads to certain death, while defying others leads to death in less than 100% of cases."
"While it was meeting Pride, I stayed away since I knew that it would be able to sense me. I only came into contact with my servant when it was inside cities or on its way to different cities."
The Shields listened, and Nick could see suspicion in their eyes.
'As expected,I'm not powerful enough yet to get through with my lies. Most likely, they know that I am not completely honest.'
For a while, the Shields just looked at Nick with furrowed brows.
It was more than clear that they were talking to each other via voice transmissions.
"Is there anything you are keeping from us?" the Champion of Light asked after a while.
"Yes," Nick answered.
The Knife and the Politician furrowed their brows more while the Wall and the Right Arm lifted their brows.
"Why?" the Champion of Light asked.
"The reason why I'm not shaking your hands is because mine are dirty," Nick said.
The Shields immediately knew what Nick was referring to.
"Before you ask," Nick said before anyone could say anything, "keep in mind what I have achieved with my methods. People say that the ends don't justify the means, but when humanity's survival is at stake, do these people have the luxury to consider ethics?"
The Shields didn't immediately answer.
"Refrain from breaking Aegis' code of conduct in the future. This is your only warning," the Champion of Light said with authority.
"Of course," Nick answered. "It won't happen again."
The Champion of Light nodded with authority. "Continue."
Naturally, this was all just an empty show.
The fact that none of them asked for details meant that they silently condoned what Nick had done.
The warning was just for show.
As long as Nick delivered great results, they wouldn't ask many questions about how he managed to achieve them.
Nick continued lying a bit more about his missions under Pride, but the Shields were much less suspicious now.
This was the entire reason why Nick had said these things.
Nick knew that he couldn't talk about his mission with Pride by only speaking half-truths this time. The way his identity was interwoven with his "servant's" identity made this almost impossible.
So, Nick had to lie, and the Shields would inevitably notice that he lied.
But by giving them a convincing reason about what he was lying about, they would realize that he was lying but assume they knew what he was lying about.
Whenever Nick lied from now on, they were far more likely to believe that Nick was keeping some innocent deaths secret.
In their minds, Nick most likely killed several powerful and loyal Extractors to prove his loyalty to Pride.
Naturally, they knew that Nick wouldn't admit to that in front of them, which was why he lied.
Of course, while Nick had more leeway with lying now, he still had to place his lies in the correct places.
If they sensed a lie when Nick was talking about moving to a city, they would become suspicious since there didn't seem a reason to lie about that.
But if Nick talked about staying in a city and not causing any deaths, a lie would be expected.
Nick had to place his lies in just the right places.
He had to get critical information out while naming places and actions that might be involved in human deaths.
It was not easy to navigate such a conversation.
"How did you manage to lure Pride into the mountains?"
Everyone glanced over at the Knife, who had just interrupted Nick while he was talking about his servant running from the Robe.
If everyone hadn't been distracted by the Knife just now, they would have noticed Nick's instantaneous twitch of one of his brows.
'She wants me to lie about Pride's place of death,' Nick thought.
The Knife looked into Nick's eyes with a casual expression.
Nick knew that the Knife had just said something extremely risky.
If Nick were dumb and corrected her, the others would get suspicious.
Did the Knife forget where she assassinated Pride?
And if Nick were untrustworthy, he could also correct her.
"Please let me finish," Nick said. "I was getting to that."
The Knife just nodded.
The Technician and the Left Arm didn't show any suspicious reactions, but Nick knew that they realized what had just happened.
After all,the Left Arm knew that Nick had been in some kind of cave, while the Technician knew about the green wall.
While the Left Arm most likely hadn't been told about the green wall, the Knife and the Technician knew.
The Left Arm knew that the Knife asked Nick to lie, but Nick didn't know if the Left Arm knew WHY he was supposed to lie.
Nevertheless, the result was that neither the Left Arm nor the Technician exposed the lie.
'Most likely, the Knife just secretly stepped forward and exposed herself to whoever is on my side,' Nick thought.
'She obviously knows about the significance of the green wall, or she wouldn't ask me to lie about that.'
'I was already planning on not mentioning the green wall, but she seems to be just as interested that nobody knows that I saw the green wall.'
'She wants the green wall to remain secret, and by asking me to lie, she exposed herself to my allies.'
'If she also acts like this, my suspicions are basically confirmed.'
'There is a traitor among us.'