The Champion overlooked the planet.
He knew that the Trickster had to make his move at some point.
The Trickster was the biggest threat to humanity that currently existed.
Even though the Sun hadn't named the Trickster as one of the trials humanity had to overcome, he definitely was the biggest trial humanity was facing right now.
They had dealt with all of the other Specters except for the Eternals, and the Trickster was still causing issues.
Even more, the damage he was causing Aegis could be compared to Death when it had still been free.
'At some point, you will attack one of my Shields again. I know that,' the Champion thought. 'Three Shields isn't enough for you. You need more.'
'And when that happens, you will die.'
The Shields across the planet mostly stayed in one place, but from time to time, they moved locations.
The Shields were the leaders of Aegis, and it was their duty to command all of Aegis.
Because of that, the Champion couldn't really tell them to stay in one location all the time.
They needed their freedom to effectively command Aegis.
Even more, the Trickster hadn't struck in several centuries.
Keeping all the Shields suppressed for centuries would cause Aegis tremendous damage.
In fact, doing just that might make the Trickster grow even faster compared to if he just caught another one or two Shields.
The Trickster's impact on Aegis had to be minimized as much as possible.
They had to treat him as another Eternal.
The Shields still couldn't joke about suicide, go into the dark without protection, go more than 30 kilometers up in the air, or try to gain information about the Null.
The Eternals had rules, and even Aegis needed to follow them.
The same thing was true for the Trickster by now.
They couldn't feel too bad about things the Trickster was doing.
Sadly, emotions couldn't really be controlled. If something bad happened, the people would feel bad about that,and there was nothing they could do about it.
So, the next best thing was to just treat him as if he didn't exist, and if he attacked, they would do their best to kill him.
The trap was set.
Every Shield had incorporated an ability that would passively give off a special kind of Zephyx, which could be traced by several devices and the Champion.
The Trickster might be able to read memories, but that wouldn't help him a lot.
Sure, he would know about the special ability, but he wouldn't be able to change it.
It was possible that the Trickster might be able to manipulate the ability, but he would need to attack the Shield to do that.
Every time the Trickster infiltrated Aegis, he intercepted some Agent, Protector, or Shield to gain their identity.
This meant the Trickster most likely needed physical contact to read memories or to control someone's mind.
Every manipulation was preceded by a physical display of control.
These displays of control were very noticeable, and the Champion was watching all the Shields very closely at all given times.
The Shields moved from place to place, and the Champion kept watch.
He had been keeping watch for centuries.
This time, he would kill the Trickster.
Then, something happened.
A dark cloud appeared around one of the Shields.
The Champion immediately shot out of Aegis' headquarters.
At the same time, several beams of light appeared around the dark cloud and shot right through it.
Everything in the surroundings was annihilated, including the black cloud and the Shield.
As the Champion appeared on top of the place where the Shield had been, he looked down.
He used one of his self-created abilities to search for the Shield's special Zephyx.
Yet, he didn't find anything.
That was because he had accidentally killed the Shield.
The Champion had struck to kill, but he didn't intend to kill.
The reason was that he wanted to seem like he was actually trying to kill the Trickster.
If he only half-heartedly attacked, the Trickster might realize that something was wrong and abort the mission.
Because of that, the Champion struck with his full power, believing that the Trickster would find some way to evade his attack and take the Shield.
And yet, the Trickster had failed.
The Champion became suspicious, but he didn't have any time to think about that.
BOOOM!
Bombs containing disruptive Star Energy exploded in all strongholds at the same time.
The bombs didn't kill any humans, and they were not powerful enough to destroy any Containment Units.
But that was not what they targeted anyway.
Over half of the strongholds started to collapse after the bombs exploded!
These bombs did not have much power, but the Star Energy they gave off disrupted the Zephyx inside materials infused with Zephyx.
Specters, Extractors, structures, and the Containment Units were extremely heavy, and when all the Zephyx was taken out of the walls of the strongholds, they collapsed under their own weight.
Containment Units fell through the floor.
Walls collapsed.
Machines broke.
Even more, the bombs also had disruptive effects on someone's perception.
It was difficult to perceive anything in there due to all of the violent energies moving around.
However, the Champion's perception was only interrupted for a single second.
After that, it immediately recovered, and the Champion could see what had happened.
He saw many different members of Aegis charging out of the debris and inspecting the Containment Units.
If these Containment Units broke, things would turn really bad really quickly.
Yet, all of the Containment Units were still in one piece.
None of the Specters broke out.
When the Champion saw what happened, he gritted his teeth.
Yes, they had lost the portion of their strongholds which had been built with Zephyx materials, but that was not the bad part.
The bad part was that none of the Shields stationed there could be found!
They were all gone!
Eight Shields!
Gone!
Even worse, this included the Shields from the strongholds that survived the explosion.
Luckily, these Shields couldn't vanish as quickly as the other ones since they needed to leave through the doors.
This allowed the Champion to see what had happened.
Apparently, as soon as the explosion occurred, the Shields all charged out of their strongholds, destroyed or not.
And then…
They charged right into the ground.
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