Nick's plan had taken form, but it was a long and complex one that probably needed centuries to complete.
Maybe it would even need millennia.
'Well, Specters don't suffer from longevity issues. As long as I can keep surviving and secretly working with humanity, we will never lose our goals.'
'As a Specter, I also won't attract attention if I become an Adversary. Even more, I might even be able to become an Eternal if I can sell myself well enough to the aliens.'
At that moment, Nick had a crazy thought.
One of the five Eternals hadn't fit into the greater scheme of things before.
'Nurse Alice,' Nick thought. 'It can't be, right?'
Nick thought of Nurse Alice.
She didn't really contribute to the Zephyx mine's safety.
Nick had once been a human, and he managed to become a Specter.
What if Nurse Alice…
'Is doing the same thing?'
It was crazy.
But it wasn't impossible.
'Asking her is way too risky. She could also be an agent working for the aliens. She could be something like a supervisor. I mean, due to the way she operates, she visits every city almost on a daily basis. She could be an additional insurance.'
'I can't ask her before I'm powerful enough to resist her.'
'If she finds out about humanity's plan, I have to be powerful enough to kill her.'
Nick wanted to take a deep breath, but alas, he didn't have lungs.
'One thing at a time. All of these things are too far in the future.'
'First order of business: Get access to the technology of the Enlightened Ones.'
Nick threw one last glance at the aliens and the delivery ship.
Then, he turned around and left.
Today, Nick had been confronted with humanity's true enemy and its true standing.
The enemy's power was overwhelming.
But there was still a sliver of hope.
Nick entered the room with the Nightmare again, and his gaze landed on the corpse.
'You are causing unimaginable suffering to humanity.'
Nick narrowed his eyes.
'But you might also be the very thing that will save us.'
Nick landed beside the corpse, and even if it was pointless, he followed one of his urges.
For a couple of seconds, Nick bowed in deep respect.
The former owner of this corpse had sacrificed his life for humanity.
He had put humanity above his own life.
This was exactly who Nick aspired to be.
After performing his bow, Nick flew away again and searched for the Fiend of Darkness.
Finding it wasn't difficult, and Nick communicated with it.
The Fiend of Darkness stopped, and Nick flew into it.
A moment later, he materialized in the Containment Unit of the Fiend of Darkness again.
Nick was back in Crimson City.
Naturally, he had already reactivated his Barrier and assumed his disguise.
From an outsider's perspective, not even an hour had passed.
Presumably, not much had changed.
And yet, this hour had been the most enlightening hour of Nick's life.
The enemy, his purpose, his goal, his plan…
Everything had become clear.
Nick knew what he had to do.
"I will leave now, but I will return in the future," Nick transmitted to the Fiend of Darkness.
The Fiend of Darkness only answered with a confused feeling since Nick's concepts had been too complex for it.
"I go now," Nick transmitted.
The Fiend of Darkness understood that and just acknowledged Nick's thoughts.
Finally, Nick stepped out of the Containment Unit and was greeted by an Expert wearing the city's uniform.
"Welcome back, sir," the Expert said respectfully.
"Tell Vanessa that I am back and that I am finished with the Fiend of Darkness for now. Please, also tell the Governor to meet me outside the building," Nick ordered. ɽＡ’
"Right away!" the guard answered before leaving.
Nick walked towards the entrance of the building, and sure enough, the Governor was already waiting there.
"Everything to your satisfaction, special Agent?" the Governor asked with formal politeness.
"My research has concluded for now," Nick said. "Crimson City has shown its full cooperation, and I will forward everything I have seen today to my superior. Expect an answer and some orders within the following days."
William seemed to like what he had just heard and nodded. "I am looking forward to the upcoming orders. Will you be leaving now, special Agent?"
Nick nodded. "My business in Crimson City has concluded," Nick said as he started hovering by creating a bit of mist beneath his feet. "I wish you a good day, Governor."
"I wish you a good day and good luck in your future endeavors, special Agent," William answered.
Then, the two of them flew out of the megastructure.
The Governor waited outside the megastructure while Nick flew into the horizon.
When the Governor was sure that Nick had left, his polite smile vanished, and he snorted in annoyance.
He knew Nick's kind.
Puritans.
People with naïve ideologies.
In this world, one needed to be flexible, and one needed to learn how to work with other people in power.
People who forced their will down everyone's throat didn't live long in this world.
There was always a taking and giving among powerful people.
Receive and reciprocate.
The Governor turned around and entered the megastructure again.
What he didn't know was that Nick was watching him.
Naturally, as soon as Nick's ability had reactivated, he turned into mist and snuck back into the city.
While his grand plan for saving humanity had been created, Nick wouldn't forget to look at the weak and helpless from time to time.
When he was young, he had suffered because Aegis only looked upwards at the powerful enemy in the sky.
Nick knew that he couldn't dedicate his life to improving every single city, but if he had an opportunity, he wouldn't refuse.
The first thing Nick did after returning to the city was to enter one of the houses in the outer ring.
He went into the walls and inspected the device for a good while.
Nick knew a lot about Zephology, and he wanted to know exactly how this device worked.
A couple of hours later, Nick had learned everything he could by just looking at it from the outside.
Next, Nick spent some time searching for a big old asshole living in the outer ring.
Finding depravity inside such a miserable place wasn't hard.
One robbery later, Nick had his target.
He followed the robber until he went home.
Luckily, this specific robber seemed to be a bachelor, making things easier.
Nick went into the wall of the house and slowly took the machine apart.
He couldn't learn how the entire thing worked without taking it apart, but he didn't want to doom some innocent person to a cruel death.
Obviously, the machine didn't work anymore, but Nick didn't exactly care.
After experimenting on the machine for a couple of hours, Nick knew how it worked.
It wasn't really complicated, and creating this thing also wasn't very expensive.
A bit later, Nick entered the megastructure again and searched for the people involved in selling this product.
Nick was extremely experienced in gathering information. After all, he had been doing that for literal decades by now.
Eventually, Nick found his targets.
The owners of the company, the executives, and a couple of people who were involved in some illegal dealings with some corrupt officials.
All in all, there were about ten people.
Next, Nick conjured a small booklet.
This booklet explained the principle of the machine in a very understandable manner.
Reading the first page was already enough to grasp the general gist of how the machine worked since the first page gave an understandable overview.
Finally, Nick infiltrated the different offices of these people and placed booklets in each of them.
And then, Nick waited near one of the people who looked at the booklet first.
That person just scratched his head when he saw the booklet on his desk and opened it.
He just assumed it was some kind of report.
After reading the first few pages, he realized that this was probably how their machine worked, but he just shrugged.
This was just a normal person, which meant that he didn't know about the Envious Researcher.
Because of that, he didn't have any fear while reading through the booklet.
He just assumed that some researcher had lost the booklet, somebody found it, and they put it into his office to hand it back.
Nick followed this person for a couple of hours.
And then, finally, it happened.
The first sign was that Nick's ability deactivated, despite him being as stealthy as he could be.
Undeniably, the Envious Researcher had taken note of Nick.
However, Nick was just a random Specter in a random city.
The Envious Researcher didn't care.
BANG!
The head of the man Nick was following exploded, revealing a hovering brain.
Within less than a tenth of a second, the brain vanished into thin air.
At the same time, the booklet vanished into thin air!
Nick had not even seen a trace of the Envious Researcher while all of this was happening!
Within less than three seconds, every booklet was taken away, and all the people, who knew anything about how the technology worked, died.
Within five seconds, all the devices in the outer ring were destroyed.
And that was it.
The Envious Researcher had appeared and disappeared.
The normal people didn't notice anything.
But the elite of the city very quickly realized that something horrifying had just happened.
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