Naturally, all of Aegis' troubles came from Nick.
He spread the rumors that the Right Arm was secretly asking for compensation.
Then, he disguised himself as random people who gave good hints that led to the capture of several Elders and Fanatics.
After that, he simply forwarded the information to Aegis.
He messed with the Icestorm and Tinkerer by simply giving them a couple of short illusions and placing some evidence.
What about the time the Wall's replacement was attacked by Death? Did Nick work with Death?
No.
Nick simply created an illusion of Death and dealt the damage himself.
Messing with the Champion was not difficult. He simply connected the Right Arm to the Champion.
He spread rumors that the Champion wanted more Zephyx from the people and that he was actually just another businessman.
He was like all of the others.
He just wanted to profit from the weak people.
Nick had been messing with Aegis for five years now, and the suffering he was collecting was quite massive.
But it wasn't enough.
He needed to cause more damage to Aegis if he wanted to convince the Sun that he was getting all his suffering from them.
Because of that, Nick decided to do more.
This time, he would not hold back.
People might die, but only if they were stupid.
'I will not be able to fight against the aliens during this era,' Nick thought. 'The best thing the people of this era can do is to sacrifice something so that the people of the next era might succeed.'
'I really don't want to do this, but I need more power.'
For the next couple of hours, Nick visited all of the strongholds in secret.
By now, there were 24.
Protectors were stationed in every one of them, and some of them even had Shields watching over them.
But all of that didn't matter.
After becoming an Adversary, Nick had become even better at hiding himself than the Envious Researcher.
To Aegis, Nick was an unstoppable power.
He might as well count as an Eternal already.
The Specters still ruled over the humans.
None of the Eternals had been dethroned, and any single one of the Eternals could end Aegis.
Nick was no longer the suppressed one but part of the suppressors.
After visiting all of the strongholds, Nick looked at the horizon.
'This might be the worst thing I have done, but I need the suffering.'
"Assistant, activate it," Nick said.
"Affirmative," Assistant answered. "Activation in three… two… one…"
Nothing happened for two seconds.
Then, a wave of suffering crashed into Nick.
When he felt the suffering, he took a deep breath.
This did not feel good.
He did not want to do this.
But this was for humanity!
Meanwhile, in a random stronghold…
BOOOOM!
An explosion of Star Energy occurred on the main entrance of a Containment Unit.
The Star Energy consumed all of the Zephyx inside the material, and the explosion destroyed the material itself.
The Fallen inside the Containment Unit looked at the open entrance.
At the same time, all the other Containment Units in all the other strongholds also exploded.
Every single Specter that was contained within a stronghold was freed at the same time.
45 Fallen.
Over 300 Demons.
All of them broke free.
Aegis exploded into panic.
The Protectors in the different strongholds immediately started to suppress the Fallen.
The Protectors were stronger than the Fallen, and capturing all of them again shouldn't be an issue.
There were also several Peak Heroes in every stronghold, and they would be able to contain most of the Demons.
But only most of them.
The other Demons fled in all directions.
Nick looked at Aegis' headquarters.
'Will you make your move or not?' Nick thought.
He hoped that the Champion didn't leave the headquarters.
Because, if he left…
Nick would free more Specters.
And those would not just be Fallen.
Several seconds passed.
The Tinkerer shot out of Aegis' headquarters, but the Champion didn't leave.
'You've grown more cautious,' Nick thought. 'You know that you are the only one that can keep me away from your headquarters.'
Nick sighed in relief.
Sure, he needed the suffering, but he really didn't want to free War and Pestilence.
'Then, it's plan B.'
Nick waited for several hours.
The initial wave of suffering was over, but Nick still harvested quite a bit of suffering.
The Protectors and Shields were frustrated.
They had lost over 100 Demons, and they needed to create hundreds of powerful Containment Units!
The Specters that had been contained had to be watched manually with Zephyx Suppressors.
It worked, but nobody felt safe like this.
Some people died, but the casualties were relatively low.
Around 17 Heroes died.
No Protectors died.
'I can't always watch out for everyone. Humanity as a collective is more important than any single individual.'
'Including me.'
When the panic died down, Nick made his way to Aegis.
He intercepted a Protector who was supposed to travel to Aegis.
After putting the Protector into a Specter Cage, Nick assumed his identity and entered Aegis' headquarters.
Naturally, the Champion looked at Nick for a moment, but all the credentials checked out.
When the Champion looked away again, Nick vanished.
He had become intangible and invisible.
Technically, his Zephyx could still be sensed since there was still light, but it would be extremely hard to detect him.
He gave off human Zephyx, and nobody would pay any attention to his Zephyx as long as they were not specifically searching for him.
Nick easily traveled through the walls with his new intangible state.
After a while, he stopped in front of a Containment Unit.
'This is a very old model,' Nick realized. 'It's centuries old.'
'But that's to be expected.'
Nick's perception entered the Containment Unit, and he conjured tiny machines that would intercept any alarm.
Finally, Nick added a tiny one-way hole at the back of the Containment Unit.
The Containment Unit was powerful, but thanks to Nick's ability and the extremely powerful weapons from Deep Core Base, he could still create a tiny hole.
This kind of damage would have created an ear-shattering alarm, but all the sensors were clouded by Nick's tiny machines.
After the tiny hole was created, Nick slipped into the Containment Unit.
Inside the Containment Unit, he looked at the Specter in front of him.
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