The Parasite began to tell Nick and the Technician everything it knew about the island.
The first thing it talked about were the cities it had infiltrated.
The Parasite had infiltrated the surrounding six cities, but two of the cities were quite far away, making them less useful.
Sending minions that far away consumed quite a bit of energy and was risky.
After all, the rats needed to use something to move, and the further the rats were away from the main body, the more energy the Parasite needed to spend to control them.
It was similar to when Nick split his mist body apart. The more parts he split into and the further away they were, the more Zephyx Nick needed to use.
The city to the south and Crimson City to the north were the closest cities and the Parasite's main source of power.
After that, the Parasite talked about something quite interesting.
Two of the cities were controlled by Envy.
Envy's servants had already noticed the rats, and they had already forced an ultimatum on the Parasite.
Naturally, the ultimatum was the same as always.
Serve or die.
However, the Parasite had bet on the fact that Envy's servants wouldn't be able to follow it and that the Corrosive Dust would keep them at bay.
Additionally, the Corrosive Dust acted as a nice distraction.
Envy's servants had already come into contact with the Corrosive Dust.
But what was the point of making the Corrosive Dust a servant?
It couldn't move anyway.
Nothing would change.
There was no real point in asking the Corrosive Dust to do something.
Yet, after finding the Corrosive Dust, the Specters generally didn't continue digging around the area.
They already found a Late Demon.
Why would there be other Specters in its vicinity?
So, the Parasite kept operating in these cities,but it was especially careful not to get tracked.
Finding two cities that were controlled by Envy was quite valuable.
Additionally, due to the Parasite's power of gathering intelligence, they could also be quite confident that the other cities were not under any Corruptor's influence. Ɍ’
However, the next thing the Parasite dropped seemed to be especially interesting.
"Crimson City is not under the control of Envy," the Parasite reported, "but Envy is in the process of occupying the city."
Nick became quite interested.
'It actually makes sense,' Nick thought. 'The gap between the outer ring and the Outer City is quite large. It would make sense that the people of the outer ring would feel envy for the people inside the city's walls.'
"Envy does not have full control over the city yet," the Parasite continued. "Crimson City has seven Heroes, and four of them are Early Heroes, while the Governor is a Mid Hero. Additionally, the Heroes have battled several Demons in the past, and they are very confident in their strength."
"Crimson City is able to unite against an enemy seamlessly."
"Due to the number of Heroes, controlling one of them won't give Envy a lot of leverage over the city. It also doesn't help that many of the Heroes are very interested in becoming Agents for Aegis."
"If the Heroes suspect that Envy has influenced the city, they might actively search for the influence and eradicate it."
"Because of that, Envy has to be methodical, slow, and careful. It can't just send a powerful Specter into the city."
"Killing the Heroes also doesn't help since the death of several Heroes would draw Aegis' attention to the city, making the entire process meaningless."
Nick and the Technician listened to the Parasite's explanation.
'Jornis, Vanessa, Libran, and William are probably still in Crimson City,' Nick thought. 'They fought together before, and before I left, all four of them joined the city.I'm not sure if one of them decided to become the new Governor, but all of them should still be part of the city's forces.'
'Even if the Governor were to betray humanity, they wouldn't dare to show any signs of Envy's influence.'
'The four of them represent the majority of Crimson City's power. Essentially, whatever the four of them say, goes.'
'If Envy had control over them, it would control Crimson City, but since it doesn't, it means that the four of them should still be clean.'
'Most likely, Envy has sent an undercover agent into Crimson City. I don't think Envy is willing to permanently assign a powerful Demon to Crimson City, which means that it can only be a mediocre Demon or a Fanatic.'
Nick didn't ask about any details since he wasn't supposed to be the one in charge, and the Technician just kept greedily grinning at the Parasite as he waited for more information.
Next, the Parasite talked about different Specters in different cities. These Specters had not been captured yet and were operating underground.
The Technician was taking note of all of these Specters.
This Specter knew a lot!
Next, the Parasite talked about the people it regularly traded with, but Nick didn't really care about that.
When it came to working with a Specter, the Parasite was one of the less offensive ones.
It was just corpses.
Surprisingly, the Heroes of Crimson City were clean.
They were not actively hunting the Parasite since it was so difficult to keep it outside the city, but they were not trading with it at all.
After about an hour, the Parasite was done talking.
"Not enough!" the Technician shouted angrily. "I want to know about the future! I want to know about the past! Knowledge is power! Old humans were powerful! What about the old humans?!"
The Parasite knew a lot, but it didn't know much about the past civilizations.
It was a Specter.
What point was there to learn about human history?
The Parasite also believed that Greed was wasting its time by trying to learn about the past civilizations, but it knew better than to oppose a powerful Specter with an unstable mind.
"There are some ruins I know about," the Parasite said.
Then, it talked about a couple of ruins.
It sometimes used some of these ruins as tunnels for its rats.
It had scouted them a bit, but it mostly didn't care about them.
Most of them had been found by the humans and deemed trivial, but some of them were still unknown.
Nick and the Technician took note of the ruins.
But then, the Parasite talked about a very interesting ruin.
"There is one set of ruins that has proven to be very useful to the humans," the Parasite said.
"Some years ago, Crimson City had some issues with a big Specter. The Heroes fought the Specter below the city, and a lot of the ruins were broken."
"One of the walls broke down, and a tunnel leading to the north was found."
'Tunnel to the north?' Nick thought. 'This should lead to the mysterious place north of Crimson City. The one without any Specters.'
Nick's mind quickly combined the clues.
'And I think I know what's there now.'
"They found some kind of machine that once produced a form of energy with unknown effects," the Parasite said. "They didn't manage to recreate the energy even once, but they managed to recreate some of its effects."
'Yeah,' Nick thought, 'and one of these effects is causing terror in Specters.'
It was not hard to combine the clues.
There were no Specters in the houses of Crimson City's outer ring.
There were no Specters in the area north of Crimson City.
It was clear that the technology protecting the houses was found in the ruins north of Crimson City.
Nick was reminded of the biological machine and the energy near its ceiling.
'Is it the same energy?' Nick thought.
Then, Nick thought about the luminescent liquid flowing through the muscles of the organic machine.
'Did the facility in the ruins produce this kind of energy?' Nick thought. 'If so, humanity might have found a devastating weapon against the Specters.'
Sadly, Nick knew very well that things couldn't be that easy.
'If the past humans could just create this energy, there wouldn't be any Specters left. The Enlightened Ones and the Ancient Ones were much more powerful than us. If they had free access to this kind of energy, they could have easily annihilated all Specters.'
'Additionally, the Sun has destroyed almost everything useful from the past, and it has introduced several fail safes. I don't think it would just let such a facility exist.'
Nevertheless, there were still three additional ruins the Parasite talked about that humanity hadn't found yet.
Nick remembered the locations of these ruins for later.
After some more minutes of talking, the Parasite became quiet again.
Nick and the Technician had gotten everything valuable out of the Parasite.
"Servant!" the Technician shouted, looking at Nick.
Nick bowed. "Yes, Lord Greed," he answered.
"Do the usual!"
"Yes," Nick answered.
Then, Nick turned to look at the Corrosive Dust.
"Present your Specter Core," he transmitted.
And the Corrosive Dust did just that.