Time passed.
There was not much Nick had to do anymore, which was why he spent almost all of his time working with the Right Arm and the Inferno.
Every ten years, Nick left the Containment Unit to check up on the city.
From time to time, the underground city needed new Specters, and Nick captured them.
With his powerful perception, Nick could find almost all Specters.
50 years after Nick started, he took a closer look at the Nightmen.
By now, there were around a thousand Nightmen in the underground city, and they were growing more powerful.
Since the city produced a lot of Pure Energy, the Nightmen were growing relatively quickly.
Nick had created their bodies to be able to advance to the ninth level without having to undergo some kind of transformation.
However, just because everyone could do that didn't mean that they should.
There were ways to further increase the Nightmen's power.
Not everything could be solved by genetics alone.
Extractors, for example, created Shells, underwent Consumption, and so on.
This improved their power by quite a bit, and the Nightmen didn't have things like that.
As Nick looked at the statistics of the Nightmen, he could see the true power of Pure Energy.
The Nightmen were incredibly efficient.
Extractors used Zephyx to add something to their base power.
Meanwhile, the Nightmen directly improved their base power.
The Pure Energy was incorporated into their fundamentals.
This meant their bodies had stamina.
Of course, that sounded obvious. Every body had stamina.
But did they?
Extractors exclusively used Zephyx for their abilities and to move their bodies.
However, the Nightmen didn't use Pure Energy to move their bodies.
Their base metabolism was incredibly high, and they consumed a lot of Pure Energy, but that didn't increase much when they physically fought.
During times of calm, they used more energy than Extractors, but during battle, they didn't use as much.
Extractors directly used Zephyx to attack an opponent.
In comparison, the Nightmen used their stamina, and when they were low on stamina, they used their Pure Energy to refill their stamina.
Additionally, while an Extractor had all of their Zephyx inside their Zephyx Synchronizer, the Nightmen didn't have all of their Pure Energy inside their Human Core.
A lot of Pure Energy was stored throughout the body as well.
This would be used up first before the Pure Energy inside the Human Core would be used.
On a baseline, this meant that a Nightman had almost twice as much energy available as an Extractor.
Sadly, Nightmen were still helpless in front of Extractors.
There were two reasons for that.
First, abilities.
The Nightmen didn't have any abilities. They could only fight with their weapons.
Second, improvements during advancements.
Zephosis, Shells, and the Consumption further improved an Extractor's power.
Nightmen didn't have that.
So, while they were stronger on a baseline, in actual combat, they were weaker.
'But that will be rectified with time,' Nick thought. 'They need to find more ways to manipulate their Pure Energy.'
'Pure Energy is much, much easier to transform than Zephyx. This makes it much easier to create techniques and abilities.'
'They just need more time.'
Nick also took a look at the outside world.
Nothing much had changed.
Another Adversary was captured, and the Fallen had basically fled from the surface.
Being a Specter in these times was tough.
Nick also paid a visit to Aegis' headquarters and used his illusion ability to play some tricks.
He got access to their database and their research data, and he found that their progress was as expected.
They had made huge progress in developing Star Energy weapons, which proved to be extremely dangerous for the Specters.
While they could only produce Star Energy weapons for Specialists and weaker, it wouldn't be long until they could create more powerful ones.
These weapons were far more dangerous to the Specters than the old ones.
Specters that didn't know how to defend against Star Energy would die with a single strike.
Even more, these weapons also worked against Force Specters.
Force Specters used to be the hardest Specters to suppress.
Not anymore.
If a Force Specter just touched one of these weapons, its entire body would transform into Star Energy.
Force Specters usually fought by enveloping their victim, but that had become impossible now.
After looking at the world for a bit more, Nick returned to the Right Arm and the Inferno.
The Inferno and the Right Arm suffered immensely.
For 50 years, they had felt like they were dying.
It was a life worse than death.
Anyone would have already spoken the Sentence.
But they didn't.
Nick was humanity's hope.
Every bit of pain they felt helped humanity.
The suffering they felt would reduce the suffering others felt manifold.
Two people in exchange for potentially millions and billions.
The two of them were willing to be these two people.
Progressing in the eighth level took a long time.
There was a good reason why almost none of the Trio of Destruction had grown stronger in several centuries, despite essentially feeding on the entire world.
Despite working with the two of them for 50 years, Nick hadn't advanced yet.
Yet, Nick's speed of advancement could almost be seen as unprecedented.
The three of them continued working.
Another 50 years passed.
Nick could feel that he was close to advancement.
Just a bit more.
Sure enough, a couple of years later, it happened.
Nick's Zephyx gathered around him, and he felt his body grow in power.
He was an Early Adversary now.
With the sevenfold increase in power from his primary ability, his physical power and speed had now reached the level of an Initial Eternal.
Nick took another short break to check up on everyone else after advancing.
When he looked at Aegis, he noticed something.
'The Champion has advanced,' Nick thought. 'He's a Peak Shield now.'
The Champion had almost become unstoppable.
With the power of his Sun-given abilities, he could probably even fight Nurse Alice, as long as she didn't make use of her tremendous knowledge of Zephyx Manipulation.
'The era is approaching its end,' Nick thought.
'There's not much time left.'
'I have to do as much as I possibly can before it ends.'