Nick traveled to the closest beam that wasn't anywhere near Aegis' headquarters.
He could see which beams were closer by moving from side to side and watching how much their trajectory changed.
The closest beam, with an identical shade of red as Death's beam, led to one of the cities.
Nick followed it and saw it leading to a Mid Specialist.
This person, or Specter, had to work for one of the Corruptors.
There was no doubt about it.
As soon as they entered an isolated location, Nick appeared in front of them.
Naturally, he wore a disguise.
An instant later, all the light in the surroundings vanished.
He could create a wide zone of darkness at will.
As soon as the darkness arrived, the "person" in front of Nick started to flee.
'The Nightmare has no effect on it. It's a Specter,' Nick thought.
However, in front of a Mid Fallen, the speed of a Mid Fanatic was nothing.
BANG!
Nick grabbed the Specter and suppressed it with his Zephyx.
"I concede!" it transmitted urgently.
Nick kept the Specter suppressed and flew out of the city with it.
"You are going to work for humanity now," Nick told it outside the city.
"I will work for humanity," the Specter repeated.
"Where is Hatred?" Nick asked.
"I don't know! It just contacts me from time to time! It just appears in my mind!" the Specter answered.
Nick wordlessly threw the Specter into a Specter Cage and delivered it to the underground city.
Sure, the Specter knew about Nick, but it didn't know that the person who had captured it was Nick.
As far as it knew, a random Hero or Protector had captured it.
After dumping the Specter in the underground city, Nick went to the next city.
When he arrived, he quickly found the origin.
It was an Early Demon, which was suppressed in the biggest and most secure Containment Unit of the city.
Naturally, this Specter was the city's primary Specter.
But it was also one of Hatred's followers.
'I don't have time to deal with the fallout of destroying a city's primary Specter,' Nick thought.
BANG!
The entire city shook as a hole appeared in the walls of its megastructure.
The next instant, they saw a huge black cube shooting towards the horizon.
Naturally, Nick had simply torn the Containment Unit out of the megastructure and flew away with it.
Nick was a Mid Fallen. The most secure structures of a city couldn't resist the power of a Mid Fallen.
When his ability activated again, Nick transferred the Specter from its Containment Unit to a new one and delivered it to the city as well.
Over the next hour, Nick stole ten more Specters.
Naturally, many of the Specters were primary Specters of a city, and taking them away essentially killed their short-term economy.
However, Nick didn't have the time to deal with that.
Managing a city was a lot of work, and it would take years to fix these cities.
Nick's time was too valuable for that.
He needed to contribute to Aegis and learn more about technology.
Humanity needed to advance faster so that it could finally taste true freedom!
Just as Nick was searching for his next target, he noticed something.
One of the beams with the specific shade of light red was rapidly moving from one place to the next.
'I presume one of your servants informed you,' Nick thought.
Naturally, some of the Specters Nick had stolen were stupid Force Specters.
These Force Specters were not intelligent, and they were not the ones controlling the cities.
In these cases, a second, more intelligent Specter was sent with them.
The Corruptor would tell the Force Specter to follow the orders of the more intelligent Specter.
Nick hadn't dealt with these more intelligent Specters on purpose.
Some of them probably had some kind of method to contact Hatred.
And sure enough, it seemed like Hatred was on the move.
The flesh on Nick's arm parted, and he retrieved the contraption of generators and the Seed.
He quickly created a temporary hold that allowed the Seed to operate and put it on standby.
Finally, he threw it into his Space Bag.
Then, Nick turned into mist and followed the moving beam.
Some seconds later, Nick flew into the underground.
By now, Nick's control over his Zephyx had become so good that he could pass through weaker solid matter like it didn't exist.
Of course, weaker solid matter just meant anything weaker than Demon level.
If he wanted, he could simply appear in a Containment Unit designed to contain Force Specter Fanatics.
That ability wasn't even anything special.
Almost all Force Specter Fallen could do something like that.
This was simply how terrifying Force Specters were.
However, to do all of this, Nick needed to be in his mist form, and he couldn't use his Seed while he was in that form since it couldn't turn into mist with him.
Materials made of Zephyx that Nick wore on his person could turn into mist with him, but the Seed wasn't made of Zephyx materials.
Because of that, he had to store it in his Space Bag, which he left in a secret location.
After floating through the underground for a while, Nick saw his target.
Nick's perception abilities were terrifying, but earth was an amazing isolator for perception.
On the surface, Nick could perceive the surrounding 500 kilometers, but below the ground, he could only perceive the surrounding 20 kilometers.
But that was enough.
Nick saw a grey human with black eyes rapidly rushing through the ground.
It was so fast and powerful that the ground simply gave way when it moved.
The grey human stopped below one of the cities and inspected it for a couple of seconds.
Then, it continued to the next city.
The grey human hadn't noticed Nick.
Naturally, this was Hatred.
In the past, the Corruptors could find Nick, but he couldn't find them.
Now, he could find Corruptors, but they couldn't find him.
'Target acquired.'
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