Nick really wanted to kill this thing.
This was someone working for the suppressors of humanity!
Yet, he couldn't.
Well, he could, but going through with it would not even be close to being worth it.
'At least I know now what I'm dealing with,' Nick thought. 'And most likely, the other Shields know about this too.'
'The old Champion used an opportunity to tell the Shields about humanity's true enemy, but they couldn't tell anyone else since only the Champion had the ability to protect them from surveillance.'
Nick was reminded of the speed of information, which implied the existence of information as an actual physical thing.
And physical things could be measured.
All the Shields knew the truth of the world, but they could not talk about these things.
'Sounds a bit like the Null,' Nick thought. 'The Null kills anyone that knows anything about it, which means it can sense the presence of this information.'
'Although, what if that's not completely true?'
'It's also possible that the Null can only sense if that information is being shared.'
But then, Nick remembered that he could also sense if anyone was perceiving him, which was very similar to someone knowing something about him without sharing it with anyone else.
'Or I'm just wrong, and the Null can somehow sense anyone that knows anything about it.'
'Nevertheless, it's possible that the Null is some kind of information sensor. The Sun can only sense things that are in its light. Several pieces of evidence suggest that.'
'So, how would the Sun even know if information was shared when it happens in the dark?'
'Yet, the Null could do that.'
'That would also bring purpose to the Null's existence in the grand scheme of this colossal recycling center that is Earth.'
'The Sun is the wall of the prison, keeping the environment just how the aliens want it.'
'The Maw stops the animals or the food from becoming too powerful to damage the prison.'
'The Nightmare harvests a ton of Zephyx and also forces the animals to stay in the open where the Sun can see them.'
'The Null surveils the information in the prison, making sure that no animal knows things that could compromise the prison.'
'And Nurse Alice…'
'I'm not sure, actually. Maybe she's just there to remind everyone that the Specters are in charge? Or maybe she's just there to harvest Zephyx as well.' ʀ
'I can't be sure about her purpose.'
'But the other four all make sense.'
'All the Eternals are most likely servants to the aliens.'
'That brings up the question, how powerful are the aliens actually?'
Nick looked at the specimen working on the machine.
'This one is a weak one, but the difference between normal humans and Shields is also immense.'
'The Aliens are powerful enough to win against the Ancient Ones in a war, and the Ancient Ones had weapons that could destroy entire planets.'
'Would destroying the Sun even help humanity?'
'What if extremely powerful aliens just arrive and eradicate all the powerful humans again?'
'In fact, that might even have happened during the era of the Enlightened Ones.'
'What if they actually managed to break the Sun, but some enforcers from the aliens arrived to stop the revolution?'
Nick became more and more anxious.
This train of thought led to dark places.
'Then, wouldn't everything be pointless anyway?!'
'If that is truly the case, there's absolutely no way to escape this shit!'
'And even if the aliens don't have someone powerful enough to kill the strongest humans, they will just destroy the planet!'
'The Ancient Ones had the power to destroy planets, and the Ancient Ones lost to the aliens. This means that the aliens can probably do similar things.'
Nick couldn't see a way out.
Destroying the Sun was already hard enough.
But now, achieving that had become pointless!
There was no way out!
What could they possibly do?!
'How can you fight something that can destroy planets from millions of kilometers away?!'
It was crazy!
Problems upon problems.
No matter how much Nick thought about it, he couldn't find any solution.
For a long while, Nick just kept thinking about a possible plan to deal with the aliens and their insanely advanced technology.
Plop.
At some point, the alien pulled its tentacle out of the machine, and Nick was pulled out of his thoughts.
The alien calmly tapped on something in one of its tentacles.
DING!
A platform appeared beneath its tentacles.
A moment later, a barrier appeared around it, and the platform started to hover.
Finally, the platform flew upward.
Nick focused on the alien and followed after it.
After flying up for a bit, the alien arrived at the top of the machine.
Just like the last machine, there was no Prephyx above the machine.
Instead, there was a portal through which Nick could see the actual sun.
Like last time, Nick felt like he was drowning.
But this time, Nick knew what this force was.
Nick had no sense that could sense Star Energy, but he could tell that Star Energy was here by the pain and panic he was feeling.
Nevertheless, Nick watched as the alien's platform flew through the portal.
Nick repositioned himself so that he could follow the alien as long as possible, and sure enough, at the very edge of the portal, Nick could see the very top of another machine.
The alien's platform integrated with the machine, and seconds later, the machine started to move.
'A small spaceship,' Nick thought as he saw the machine speeding away.
Nick just looked at the spaceship for a bit before fleeing deep into the machine again.
Staying here was extremely damaging to him.
'Space seems just as deadly to Specters as it is to humans.'
Now, Nick was alone in the room with the machine again.
He just waited there, thinking about the things he had just learned.
'I don't know,' he thought.
'What am I supposed to do against that?'
'What can I possibly do?'
'When the Sun gets destroyed, all the Specters will vanish, and I will die.'
'At that point, the aliens will send enforcers that kill all the strong humans and suppress humanity again, and I can't even help them since I will be dead by that point!'
'And even if humanity somehow attains the power necessary to fight all the powerful aliens, they will just launch some kind of planetary annihilation beam that will kill everything here.'
'Sure, Experts can survive in a vacuum, and Heroes can fly. In a way, Heroes can survive and move in space, but what's the point of that when every other human dies?'
'A single human can't live forever, and a couple hundred Heroes might not be able to repopulate humanity. Also, without a planet, how will the newborn humans even survive? Children need ground, air, water, and food.'
'Maybe the aliens are even powerful enough to just make the actual sun explode, in which case fucking everything gets destroyed, including all the Shields and whatever.'
'What the fuck are we supposed to do?!'
Nick just didn't know.
'The most effective method of hurting the aliens is to just collectively kill ourselves right now, but what's even the point of that?'
'We want freedom!'
'We want to survive!'
'We want agency!'
'The aliens are our enemies, but hurting them doesn't necessarily mean that we will benefit.'
Nick's thoughts had spiraled into negativity due to the hopelessness of the situation.
'How would I do that? How would I stop an impossibly powerful fortress with impossibly powerful guards and impossibly powerful weapons?'
Nick didn't know.
While Nick was thinking about the current situation, he had already made his way out of the biological machine and came back to the room containing the Nightmare.
As Nick kept thinking, he absentmindedly looked at one of the holes siphoning Zephyx out of the room.
This hole should lead to some gigantic storage filled with Zephyx.
'Might as well take a look at it while I'm already here. I don't know what that will change, but I guess it's better than doing nothing at all,' Nick thought.
At this moment, he missed his ability to sigh.
Nick entered one of the holes and followed.
After a while, the holes flowed into one big hole, and Nick could see white crystals of Zephyx materializing around him as they kept flowing forward.
Then, Nick saw a couple of different gases being added to the hole, and as the Zephyx flowed through them, it became hard and stable.
Clink, clink, clink!
Then, Nick saw the end of the small tunnel.
All the crystals fell out onto a conveyor belt.
'With all of their advancements, they still use conveyor belts,' Nick thought. 'Except that they are just moving plates of chitin.'
Nick's mind was still thinking about a way to deal with the aliens when he saw what was on the end of the conveyor belt.
He hadn't left the hole but could still see the end.
'A delivery vehicle?' Nick thought as he looked at a bigger version of the spacecraft that the engineer alien had used to leave.
And like that, a small hope appeared in Nick's mind.
'If I could follow one of these, I should arrive in the local stronghold of the aliens.'
'I would be able to learn more about them, and I might even find a way to stop them.'
'Dealing with an impossibly powerful stronghold…'
'How does infiltration and sabotage sound?'
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