Nick also checked up on the Nightmen and the underground city.
By now, the number of Protectors had reached a thousand.
There were more Protectors in the underground city than in the entire world.
Sadly, almost all of them were only Initial Protectors.
There were only so many Fallen inside the city.
Suppressing hundreds of Demons didn't create any suspicion since there were so many of them, but there were not a lot of Fallen.
If almost all the Fallen vanished, someone was bound to notice.
A Protector in the underground city could only work with one Fallen for a couple of hours per week.
This was not enough to progress.
Yes, the Protectors had more potential than all the Protectors living on the surface since they consumed a Peak Elder, but that didn't help a lot.
Of course, that problem could be solved by allowing everyone to work with the Ice Maiden, but the Ice Maiden's existence was too important.
Only the most trustworthy people were allowed to know that she even existed.
Samar had become a Protector herself by now.
While she had the luxury to work with the Ice Maiden, the others didn't.
Aria had also become a Peak Protector.
Sadly, that was where her path would end.
She had the opportunity, resources, and talent to become a Shield.
But why?
What was the point?
If anything happened to the city's shell, she would be taken by the Maw, and their secret would be exposed.
Additionally, she didn't want to advance.
The reason was quite simple.
She didn't want Nick to kill her.
She wasn't worried about herself but about Nick.
The era would reset at some point, and when that day came…
Nick needed to destroy all the evidence of the underground city's existence.
As a Shield, she would be able to survive until that day.
And she didn't want that.
Samar was in the same boat.
They had been working with Nick for centuries now, and they all chased the same goal.
Humanity had to survive.
Their own survival was not important.
Nick was the only one who could free humanity.
As for the Nightmen, they were slowly progressing.
They had already managed to create their first abilities.
However, calling them abilities was inaccurate.
Instead of gaining a power that seemed almost magical, they simply used their Pure Energy to create techniques.
One of the Nightmen managed to create a technique that doubled their expenditure of Pure Energy in exchange for 50% more power.
This essentially gave them physical power equivalent to someone one stage higher than them.
If this were a Specter ability, this would already be pretty useful and valuable.
Yet, it was a self-created technique.
Self-created abilities that used Zephyx couldn't compare to something like this.
Even with his experience and intellect, Nick couldn't create an ability with this kind of power without working on it for centuries.
This was the power of Pure Energy.
It was so much easier to manipulate.
With enough advancement, the Nightmen might even be able to create an ability that could reach the power of Nick's primary ability.
In order to gain such an ability, Nick had needed to come into contact with an Eternal.
Meanwhile, in the future, a Nightman could just learn it by reading a book while training.
Of course, it would probably need hundreds or thousands of years of dedicated species-wide advancement to reach such a level.
But it was still a possibility.
Sadly, the Nightmen still couldn't compare to Extractors in power.
Nick went back to the Right Arm and the Inferno to work with them.
After 50 more years, Nick looked at the world again, but there were no significant changes.
Another 50 years later, Nick made another pause.
By now, Nick had reached an age of around 660 years.
He was already older than any Hero could ever become.
The first thing Nick did after coming out of the Containment Unit was to look at Aegis.
By now, they had suppressed 18 Adversaries.
There were probably less than ten Adversaries left in the outside world, and the ones that were left didn't dare show themselves anymore.
They would most likely never be captured.
When Nick had been a relatively new Extractor, the world had been very different from how it was today.
Back then, the fake forests were everywhere, and the black blobs were also a constant threat.
Now, they were no longer here.
Because of that, the two biggest threats to wildlife had been eliminated.
The seeds from the plants humans had been harvesting for millennia had spread across the world.
Now, there was actually grass outside.
Plants only needed a couple of things to thrive.
Light, water, and fertile ground.
Light was not an issue due to the constant presence of the Sun.
Water also wasn't an issue. Despite the Sun's presence, it still rained regularly.
Of course, while the rainclouds obscured the sky, the light of the Sun still reached the ground below.
The only issue was the fertile ground.
There were almost no nutrients in the ground, but that would change.
The reason was bacteria.
Bacteria spread from the city and died.
Their corpses would spread amino acids into the ground very slowly.
Additionally, some cities also spread fertilizer on purpose, kickstarting the expansion of nature.
Most of the cities were surrounded by fields of grass already, but the vast majority of land was still barren.
It was also no longer as dangerous to go outside.
Humanity had become so much stronger.
The number of Specters humanity had contained was incredibly high.
In the past, the horde of Specters had seemed endless.
Now, not any longer.
It was still dangerous to go outside for a normal human, but it was no longer a guaranteed death sentence.
The world was recovering.
Humanity was growing stronger.
People were no longer as desperate.
'Alas, this is all part of the plan,' Nick thought. 'It will continue to improve until everything will be taken away again.'
'The next generations will be the happiest ones in the last 5,000 years.'
'And the one following that will be the most miserable.'
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