The Sun's avatar vanished moments later, and Nick felt the pull towards the space that grants abilities.
Nick didn't resist.
He closed his eyes, and in the next moment, he woke up in the void.
When he looked around, he saw countless suffering silhouettes.
There were millions upon millions of suffering humans.
Nick had caused a lot of suffering to reach this level, and it became very clear just how much suffering he had caused.
'This is a necessity,' Nick thought. 'The past generations suffer so that the next generation can live in freedom.'
Nick stood up from his position and searched for the correct pathway.
He already knew what kind of ability he wanted.
The new ability had to fit several criteria.
First, it couldn't be suspicious.
The aliens might not know Nick's older abilities, but they definitely had a record of his new abilities.
If he chose some kind of ability that allowed him to learn about the biology of something he consumed, the aliens might become suspicious.
This ability would help Nick understand the aliens' biology and their biological machines.
It would definitely help him, but the aliens would also question why he would want such an ability.
Because of that, this one wouldn't work.
The ability had to seem normal and relevant to his job.
Another criterion Nick's new ability had to fulfill was that it would help him during his excursion to the alien base.
There was a high chance that Nick would go to that base while still being an Adversary.
The last criterion it had to fulfill was that it would help his other abilities.
Nick's abilities all worked together, and that was how it was supposed to be.
If he had just grabbed a random ability that granted him a powerful attack, he might not have been able to make use of it properly since that would have replaced his base attack, which made use of his advanced weapons.
Luckily,Nick had had enough time to come up with a fitting ability that fulfilled all three criteria.
In fact, Nick had seen at least one Specter who had had this ability.
After a couple of minutes, Nick was on the right pathway.
The silhouettes around him were still suffering, but they were no longer looking at him.
Instead, they looked around in confusion, searching for the origin of their suffering.
Nick walked to the end of the path.
The next moment, he found himself in a representation of his Specter Core.
He saw all of the diagrams, which showed his abilities.
Then, light appeared on the ground, and new Manipulation Lines joined the old ones.
The diagrams that were already present were expanding, and a completely new diagram was forming.
The diagrams coming from the Null, the Maw, and the Nightmare were still impossibly complex, but the other abilities were slowly closing in.
Nick's other abilities always improved more than the abilities granted by the Eternals.
That was because they were slowly reaching the realm of the Eternals.
Nick was watching the formation of the Manipulation Lines and tried to learn as much as possible.
Old lines were vanishing while many new lines were forming.
Everything was becoming more complex.
After about a minute, the light disappeared, and the formation of the new Manipulation Lines finished.
Nick looked at the new diagrams for a while.
Then, he opened his eyes in the real world and inspected his new abilities.
Specifically, he focused on the one he had just chosen.
Instead of just thinking about it, he decided to try it out.
BANG!
Nick exploded forward, charging toward the closest city.
His ability was active, which meant that he was now as fast and powerful as a Peak Adversary.
At this moment, Nick had the power to even threaten Death.
The Champion was still more powerful than him, but Nick was also only an Initial Adversary right now.
Nevertheless,Nick had officially joined the Adversaries of the world.
There were only around 20 Adversaries in the world at this moment, according to Aegis' intelligence.
There was a chance that there were ten or twenty more Adversaries that slept below the ground, waiting for their time to strike.
Nick remembered the black blobs, servants of the Eternal Hunger.
Back when he had seen them for the first time, he had been in awe in front of this incredible power.
But now, he was on that level.
Nick quickly arrived in the city.
He disguised himself as Julian Winter and approached a Specialist.
"Yes?" the Specialist asked with annoyance.
"Hello, I am Julian Winter," Nick said. "I am a powerful Specter, and I am quite sure you've heard of me. I also go by the title of Trickster."
Sure enough, a beam of light was pointing at the Specialist.
Apparently, the Trickster's identity had been spread across the entire world.
"Huh?" the Extractor asked.
He almost couldn't believe what he had just heard.
The image of the Trickster appeared in his mind, and he realized that Nick looked just like it.
It was difficult for the Extractor to come to terms with this.
It was like some kind of immortal monster had appeared in front of him just to talk to him.
"But that doesn't matter, right?" Nick asked.
"What?" the Specialist asked.
"Who was I again?" Nick asked.
"Eeehhh," the Specialist said, absentmindedly.
"You talked about the Trickster and Julian Winter earlier," Nick said. "Can you elaborate?"
"Who?" the Specialist asked.
"The Trickster. Julian Winter. Heard of them before?" Nick asked.
"Doesn't ring a bell," the Specialist said. "Why? Are they important?"
"No, I was just curious," Nick said. "Thanks for the tip."
The Specialist waved Nick off. "Yeah, but that was a one-time thing, okay?"
"I understand," Nick said.
The Specialist nodded and walked away.
Nick looked at the Specialist for a bit.
Then, he looked at the beams.
No beam led to the Specialist.
This Specialist knew nothing about Nick.
He didn't even know that he existed.
This was Nick's new ability, and the real Julian also used to have this ability.
Deletion of memories.
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