Nick returned to the underground city and told Aria and Samar about Night Sky Base.
If Nurse Alice was truly the knowledge repository for energy manipulation, it would be much more difficult to get her knowledge.
Sure, she was not completely against humanity, as evidenced by the fact that the other bases still existed, but she was also completely free.
Nurse Alice was most likely the weakest Eternal out of all of them, but she was still an Eternal.
Nick needed to be powerful enough to resist her if he wanted to talk to her.
Luckily, he didn't need to be strong enough to kill her.
Both of them worked for the same being, and both of them knew something that their superior would not tolerate.
As long as she couldn't immediately kill him, Nick could unveil her secret by contacting the Sun.
Of course, she could do the same.
But then, it would be mutually assured destruction, and no side wanted that to happen.
After talking with the two of them, Nick told Aria about his plan to grow stronger.
He would be working with the city's Protectors.
The underground city had become powerful enough that its inhabitants could help Nick become more powerful.
Aria was still the strongest.
Right now, she was a Late Protector.
There were also two Mid Protectors and a couple of Initial and Early Protectors.
The city had over 20 of them by now.
Nick didn't need Aegis anymore.
He had his own Protectors, and they would only grow more powerful with time.
The first people who had absorbed artificial Specters had already become Late Heroes.
If they studied well, they would become Protectors within a couple of decades.
And then, they would overtake the old generation due to their far higher speed of advancement.
Moments later, Aria told all of the Protectors that they had to work with a special Specter.
This Specter was imperative to their research, and it had to become an Adversary as quickly as possible.
Naturally,the Protectors wanted to know more about this mission, but Aria refused to answer.
Samar gave her support and backed Aria up.
With both leaders in agreement, there was nothing the Protectors could do.
Several of the Protectors had come from the surface and had been recruited by Nick.
However, none of them had ever seen him.
They just fell asleep and woke up in this city.
The more experienced among them knew that there had to be some kind of secret helper on the outside since the city was gaining powerful new Specters at a terrifying rate.
The younger people didn't know about the outside world, and they just never asked where the Specters came from.
The government provided them.
The younger people didn't know how the government provided them, but well… the government was doing it. So, it was fine.
The older ones knew that capturing Specters was not easy.
Especially all these Demons and Fallen.
How powerful must someone be that they could capture hundreds of Demons within just a couple of years?
All of the Protectors, including Aria, entered the new Containment Unit together.
Samar was still a Hero, and she would need more time to become a Protector, which was why she wasn't in the group.
Inside the Containment Unit, they just saw an idol made of flesh.
It barely moved. Only its flesh quivered from time to time.
The next moment, all the Prephyx was sucked out of the Containment Unit, and everyone fell to the ground.
Nobody panicked since they had been informed beforehand.
For one day, everyone suffered the sensation of drowning.
Finally, the doors opened again, and half of the Protectors left.
Aria wanted everyone present for the first session to see how they were holding up.
Any future sessions would be split between two groups.
Group one would take the first twelve hours of the day, while group two would take the second twelve.
In this way, Nick would be working with ten Protectors at any given moment.
Another reason why the sessions were shorter than in the past was the gathering of suffering.
When Nick had gathered too much suffering in the past, the Sun had paid attention to him.
He didn't want that to happen, which was why he quickly converted his gathered suffering into Zephyx.
Luckily, the suffering he had caused to Aegis and the world by killing hundreds of Demons also helped him.
He had already been at 60% of his advancement before working with the Protectors.
Sadly, there were no Peak Protectors, which didn't make this situation ideal.
However, the quantity made up for the lack of quality.
It only took Nick ten years to reach his limit.
When he reached 99%, Aria sent everyone away.
Nick returned to his human form and looked at Aria.
"I can't advance down here," Nick said.
Aria nodded.
Specters belonged to the Sun, and the Sun might sense the underground city if Nick advanced here.
"I will be back soon," Nick said.
"Take care," Aria said.
The next moment, Nick vanished.
Aria didn't know how Nick would advance, and she didn't want to know.
He still needed quite a bit of suffering, and he had to get it from the outside world.
This meant that Nick had to cause suffering to unwilling participants.
She just hoped that he wouldn't be too cruel.
Nick left the underground city and traveled through the Great Triangle, reading the minds of countless people.
Several decades had passed since his deal with Aegis, and Aegis was progressing at a terrifying rate.
Nick wanted to make sure that no surprises would be waiting for him.
The cities had changed once again, and there were many more Experts, Specialists, and Heroes.
It seemed like almost every city had over ten Heroes now.
There were even some Peak Heroes in the cities.
'Seems like Aegis is no longer recruiting Agents,' Nick thought.
'They are only interested in Peak Heroes that have the potential to become Protectors.'
From what he had gathered,there were over 200 Protectors in the world now.
Nick analyzed the technology of the cities and went to Aegis' headquarters.
He used a couple of tricks to give himself a new identity and read the minds of a couple of weaker people.
Luckily, the guards were still just Early and Mid Heroes.
They were probably not allowed to advance as part of their punishment.
When Nick read their minds, he had to take a deep breath.
'Already?' he thought.
Nick looked at Aegis' headquarters.
At this moment, Pestilence and War were inside.
In two separate Containment Units.
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