The Containment Unit was installed in Aegis' headquarters within the day.
Aegis' headquarters was probably the easiest location to set up a Containment Unit since the entire thing was designed by the most advanced people in the current era.
Nick looked at the entrance of the finished Containment Unit with some nervousness.
'I will be under the same torture as the people I am torturing. I would need to create some kind of contraption that connects me to the outside of the Containment Unit if I want to avoid the torture, and that would be bad.'
'I am a Specter, and I am not supposed to suffer from my own tortures.'
'While the Champion, the Left Arm, and the Technician know that I can't inflict my own torture on these people since they are much more powerful, the Protectors don't know. I need to keep my identity secret.'
"Left Arm," Nick said, contacting the Left Arm's Barrier via the network of Aegis' headquarters.
"Report," she demanded evenly.
"The Champion told me to become a Peak Demon as quickly as possible, and I need your help for that," Nick said.
"I asked the Technician to create a Containment Unit that barely feeds enough Prephyx into its insides that two people can survive, but it will induce a feeling of permanent drowning in them. The more suffering I cause and the stronger the person is, the more Zephyx I produce."
"I suspect that I also need to increase the quality of the people I made suffer if I ever want to become a Fallen. Because of that, I need Protectors that volunteer to go through this torture."
Nick wanted to add that he didn't want to force them, but if the Champion of Light was listening, this would be too suspicious.
After all, he was a Specter.
Why would he care about humans?
The Left Arm didn't answer immediately.
She could already tell what was going on,and she could tell that Nick would be under the same torture as the people he was working with.
A normal Specter wouldn't mind. After all, they knew that they wouldn't die, and that would be it. As long as the Specter didn't have an unstable mind, logic and emotions were essentially the same thing to them. Řä₦𝙤ВĚʂ
After all, they didn't really feel emotions, which meant they only had logic to "feel".
But Nick wasn't a normal Specter, and she knew that.
While his emotions were stunted due to the presence of Specter Zephyx in his being, he could still feel like a human.
This included fear, pain, and panic.
"This seems quite extreme," the Left Arm answered. "Are you certain everyone can handle it?"
She phrased it like she was asking Nick if the Protectors could handle it, but she was actually talking about Nick.
"It should be fine," Nick answered. "Everyone will only work for a limited time, and they can leave after that time. Knowing that this will not persist forever and can be stopped at any given moment does a lot to alleviate the panic. While drowning feels bad, there are worse things."
"For example, being tortured by the Nightmare for hours is way worse."
This sounded like Nick was simply commenting on the issue and downplaying it, but the Left Arm understood the hidden meaning.
The Left Arm knew of Nick's past, and she knew that Nick was the one who had found the Nightmare.
And how had he found it again?
By walking blindly into the darkness, continuously being tortured by the Nightmare.
Nick survived several hours of the Nightmare's influence while still having the strength to walk, and he had only been a Peak Veteran when it happened.
It was almost impossible to survive several hours with the Nightmare.
The Left Arm had built a strong resistance to its tortures by being in a bit of darkness for centuries, but even she would need to give it her all if she wanted to survive several hours in pure darkness.
"I will get some Protectors.Keep me up to date if anything happens," she said before cutting the connection.
Nick took a deep breath before taking something out of his Space Bag.
It was a costume.
Nick didn't want to let anybody know that he could transform his appearance, which was why he conjured a big sack of meat and skin with a large open space in the middle.
He opened the employee entrance and put the costume in the corner.
It looked like a mass of tentacles that grew out of the wall.
Not an unusual look for a Specter.
Nick made sure that nobody was watching before transforming into mist and entering through the tiny holes.
Then, he just waited.
The Containment Unit was designed to work automatically, which meant that the Prephyx in there was already limited, and Nick's Zephyx was already dropping.
Just as expected, Nick felt like he was being choked by an invisible force, and his lungs started to pull in the air greedily.
A moment later, Nick changed his composition into an actual Specter, getting rid of the organs.
The human reflexes of pulling in air vanished, making things a bit easier.
Yet, he still felt like he was dying.
While the physical symptoms could be alleviated, the mental ones were still there.
'Calm. Stay calm,' Nick told himself in his mind.
His body wanted to break out of the costume and leave the Containment Unit, but Nick controlled its urges.
'You're not dying. At some point, the downward trajectory of Zephyx will end, and everything will level out.'
'Use your logic. You're a Specter, and Specters use their logic to feel their surroundings.'
Eventually, just as predicted, Nick's Zephyx stopped reducing when he had about 1% left.
Yet, compared to a human, he could still move.
That was because the process with which Specters produced Zephyx was different from how humans produced their Zephyx.
A human's body would slowly shut down a couple of processes that were very energy-consuming to save on energy.
Meanwhile,a Specter just reduced the energy output of all processes. None of them actually stopped.
Nick could still move, but much slower.
His mind still worked, but much slower.
He didn't grow tired or exhausted but just entered a kind of trance.
His brain was barely producing any thoughts and exclusively focused on what was immediately happening around him.
Getting used to this sensation was easier than expected.
And then, the employee entrance opened.
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