Failure.
One failure after the other.
Nick had already created his own laboratory, which he had filled with the machines from Deep Core Base.
While he knew as much about biology as the Enlightened Ones, he couldn't just theorize a completely new kind of human.
He needed to test things.
He needed to experiment.
He was treading new ground, and while he was right in his predictions most of the time, there were also times he was wrong.
The Enlightened Ones knew a lot, but they didn't know everything.
25 years had already passed, and Nick had already become a Peak Fallen, but he had not made any significant progress yet.
He looked at the growing tubes filled with artificial fetuses with a frown.
None of them were developing in a desirable way.
Half of them died to the Nightmare after they created a nervous system, while the other half couldn't make use of the nourishing solution filled with Pure Energy.
Usually, a mother's womb would isolate the fetus from the Nightmare's influence.
Nick could create an artificial womb that did the same, but that wasn't his goal.
He wanted to create a human that was immune to the Nightmare from the beginning.
He had come up with several different methods, but none of them truly worked.
Progress was extremely slow.
While Nick was stuck in his lab, the underground city grew more powerful.
Hundreds of Heroes had already appeared.
Luckily, the material of the underground city's shell could not only isolate Nurse Alice but also the Maw.
Theoretically, the underground city could create Shields without any fear of the Maw, but that would just be postponing the problem.
As soon as any of them came into contact with the outside world, the Maw would become active and abduct all of them.
Additionally, Nick, Samar, and Aria all agreed that there should be no Shields in the underground city.
Shields had the power to damage the city's shell, and that would put everyone and everything at risk.
The only way to make sure that the shell wouldn't be broken was when nobody had the power to break it.
Nick was the only one who could damage it, and that was how it was supposed to be.
Theoretically, Nick could create a material that could even withstand the powers of Shields.
The huge storage of Zephyx also made it possible to create that.
However, that would take forever.
It would eat decades upon decades of Nick's time.
He would also need to reconstruct everything, which would take even more time.
And for what?
For some Shields?
Even a million Shields would die like insects to the aliens.
In fact, even a million level nine Extractors wouldn't make a difference.
As soon as the Sun broke, Star Energy would wash over them and kill them all.
No matter how powerful the humans in the underground city became, they would still be useless.
The fundamentals of the universe made sure of that.
Lastly, there was another danger to having too many powerful Extractors.
The Enlightened Ones had a plan to deal with the Sun.
And yet, the Sun somehow found out.
Were the Enlightened Ones bad at staying hidden?
No.
The safeguards they had in place were even stronger than Nick's.
Because of that, Nick believed that there was some kind of sensor that could measure the planet's energy level as a whole.
A lot of power put weight on spacetime.
It didn't have a gravitational effect, but it was still noticeable.
The aliens might not be able to sense one level nine Extractor, but they could probably sense it when there were several of them.
Nick had to find the balance between having power and having too much power.
None of the humans who were alive right now could help in the battle against the aliens, no matter how powerful they became.
No matter how many scissors there were, the stone would always win.
During these years, Aria hadn't asked Nick for help even once.
The city was self-sufficient.
For now.
Soon, the city would need more Demons.
But not yet.
The suffering Nick had been collecting from Aegis was also dropping rapidly.
He had already made quite a bit of progress towards becoming an Initial Adversary, but he still needed a lot more suffering to get there.
From time to time, Nick looked at the city to check for dangers.
He had advanced quite a bit, and his new knowledge of biology had already increased the efficiency of his mind-reading ability.
By now, he could read the minds of Mid Heroes.
Luckily, the individual danger of a single resident was no longer high.
Nurse Alice couldn't sense them, even if they wished for death.
These humans also didn't know any sensitive information.
Nick also looked at the team of researchers.
One person was missing, but he had been missing for a while already.
There was one less black beam going to Nick.
Ghosty was no longer there.
Nick was already 320 years old, and Ghosty had died a bit more than 15 years ago.
Old age.
Near the end, he had been a Late Hero.
Sadly, he just couldn't absorb Zephyx fast enough to become a Protector.
But that had been clear from the very beginning.
For the last 200 years of his life, Ghosty had done what he wanted to do.
Research things.
For his entire life, he worked on uncovering the secrets of the universe.
The Technician and Ghosty had been the only ones who had known everything about Nick, and both of them were no more.
Aria knew a lot, but she still didn't know about Nick's primary ability.
Right now, her knowledge of Nick was tied with another being's knowledge for first place.
The Fallen Nick had captured in the ocean while transporting the fake Fiend of Darkness.
That Fallen knew a lot about Nick, but it didn't know about Nick's past as a human.
Aria knew of Nick's past, but she didn't know as much about his abilities as that Fallen.
Samar still didn't know that Nick was a Specter.
She thought that he was human.
As more and more time passed, the number of beams leading to Nick decreased.
One by one, everyone who knew about him was dying.
And that wouldn't end anytime soon.
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