Nick entered the Nightmare's domain through the Fiend of Darkness.
He hadn't been there in a long while.
When he saw the Nightmare again, he was reminded of the Pure One and the other knowledge repositories.
As he looked at its features more closely, he could see the bones and atrophied muscles resembled the image of the old Emperor he had seen.
Nick was 99% sure that this was the old Emperor of the Empire.
He had raised the Pure One like a child, and he was the reason why humanity even had a slight chance to free themselves of the aliens.
Humanity would need millennia to progress to the technological level of the Empire.
But humanity didn't have millennia.
The era would most likely reset within less than a thousand years.
Without the Enlightened Ones, humanity wouldn't have even the tiniest chance.
Nick looked at the old Emperor with respect.
He had given his life for humanity.
'I do not know you,' Nick thought, 'but I believe you would not agree with my plan.'
'You wanted to free humanity.'
'What I am going to free is not humanity.'
'Not anymore.'
'However, what can be created can be destroyed.'
'During a war for survival, sympathy and love are only hindrances.'
'Only apathy and decisiveness will help you in winning the war.'
'When the war is over, we can slowly work on regaining the empathy we've lost.'
'But for now, we have no use for it.'
'I'm sorry, but I have to do this.'
'I can't find another way.'
Nick took out a couple of small machines and placed them around the Nightmare.
He activated them, and all the biological information of the Emperor's body was recorded.
Some minutes later, Nick put the machines away again and threw one last glance at the Emperor.
'I have to do this.'
'Earth needs to be free.'
Then, Nick left and went back to his lab.
Inside his lab, Nick looked at the genetic makeup of the Emperor.
Over the next ten years,he managed to grow cells that shared the Emperor's DNA.
That was the easy part.
Now came the hard part.
Integrating the necessary parts of the DNA into the DNA of a normal human.
Nick had to slowly isolate one part of the Emperor's DNA after the other and combine it with newly grown human cells.
People and Specters generally didn't suffer from their own abilities.
If the Nightmare were intelligent, it would realize that these cells were not part of its own being.
But it wasn't.
The Nightmare was a machine.
Nick just needed to fool the sensors of this machine into believing that it was interacting with itself or with a Specter.
The second part was impossible to achieve since Specters were made of Zephyx, while the new humans would be filled with Pure Energy.
So, he had to fool the sensors the other way.
It was draining work.
Experiment after experiment.
Trial after trial.
After ten years, Nick managed to narrow the necessary part of the Emperor's DNA down to 10%.
As long as he included these 10% of his DNA in the fetuses, they would be immune to the Nightmare.
However, one had to remember that Nick didn't exactly take DNA from the old Emperor but from the Nightmare.
That was an important difference.
10% of the Emperor's DNA was already too much.
The cells would show a weakness to Star Energy.
If the human grew stronger, the amount of Star Energy coursing through their bodies would make the DNA unstable.
The stronger they became, the more they would mutate.
This was unacceptable.
This would be a life of misery for the human.
So, Nick had to continue.
After another 10 years, Nick narrowed it down to just 7%.
It was better.
The chances of future mutations had been lowered to just 30%.
But that was still too much.
So, Nick kept working.
Another ten years later, he managed to push it to 6%.
He was gradually approaching the limits of what was possible.
The chance of mutations had been reduced to merely 3%.
Nick wanted to finalize this part of the process.
3% was acceptable.
'No, it has to be lower!'
So, he kept working.
It took him 30 years to reduce it to 5%.
As Nick looked at his newest batch of fetuses, he almost couldn't believe it.
'I've done it. I actually managed to push the risk of mutation to almost zero.'
'However,' he thought as he narrowed his eyes. 'There will still be changes.'
'They will look like humans, and they have almost identical desires to humans.'
'But there will be some fundamental differences.'
Nick was reminded of that one city that produced a huge number of babies.
He remembered how the people used the babies as shields, bait, and even food.
The people there had been without any empathy.
'It might not be as extreme as that city, but it will not be far off.'
Nick sighed and looked at the fetuses.
'Now, I just need to make them stable.'
'The hardest part is already done. The genome is basically complete.'
'I just need to tweak some things here and there and create a method of easy distribution.'
This last part only took Nick five years.
'And that should be it,' Nick thought as he looked at the empty fetus containers.
'The theory is solid, and I have seen it succeed many times before.'
'Now, we need actual trials.'
Nick left his lab and went to Samar.
"I've succeeded," Nick said.
When Samar heard that, her eyes widened.
"You did it?" she asked in shock.
Nick nodded. "I have managed to create a stable human genome that is immune to the Nightmare and works with Pure Energy."
Samar grew excited, which was very rare for her.
"However, there will be some unwanted side effects," Nick said.
Samar calmed down and furrowed his brows, nodding for Nick to tell her.
Nick explained in detail how it worked.
Samar was a brilliant scientist, but Nick was operating on a level that made it impossible for her to understand.
It hurt her pride, but she had to ask Nick to simplify things.
When Nick was done explaining, Samar just looked at the table with a worried and bitter expression.
"I don't like it," she said.
"Normal humans will still survive," Nick said. "When Star Energy washes over the planet, only Extractors will die."
"We will still have normal humans left."
"Yes, but…" Samar said. "What will these new humans do to the old humans?"
"I will make sure that they will do nothing," Nick said.
"We are breeding warriors."
"We need warriors for the war."
"If the warriors can integrate into a peaceful society after the war is over, they can stay."
"If they can't…"
"Then, we don't need the warriors anymore."
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