Nick was working with nine Shields at the same time.
Yet, he was not focused on them.
He was focused on the beams coming out of his body.
They had been changing color in recent years.
Several light red beams became a bit darker.
He knew that this represented the Shields learning more about his abilities, but that was to be expected.
However, one beam in particular caused Nick worry.
The beam leading to the Champion.
It was fluctuating almost constantly.
Sometimes, it went light blue before turning light red again.
Then, it became a pure red.
It was not dark red yet, but its redness was similar to the Sun's redness.
Sometimes, it became even darker red than the Sun's beam.
The most worrying part was that it sometimes became blue.
This could only happen if the Champion suspected Nick of being human, which made no sense.
'Is he testing me? Does he want to lure me out?'
In the end, the beam settled on a relatively dark red.
It was even redder than the Sun's beam.
'He knows too much,' Nick thought. 'I expected the Champion's beam to become redder, but not that red.'
'There are no beams that are as red as the Champion's.'
'This means nobody could have told him about me.'
'There must be records that I have overlooked.'
'The old database?'
'Possible, but there's no reason to keep it or decrypt it. That's just wasted time.'
'The memories of the Shields that managed to escape also shouldn't have any clues.'
'I don't know what exactly the Champion knows about me, but it's not a good sign.'
'Compared to the old Champion, the new Champion is a loyal follower of the Sun.'
'He believes that the Sun protects humanity.'
Nick clenched his fists.
'I hate this.'
'There's nothing I can do.'
'The Champion is more powerful than me, and even if I had the power to assassinate him, I wouldn't be able to explain that to the Sun.'
'I am powerless.'
'If the Champion knows enough about me, he can tell the Sun, and I will die.'
'And then, humanity will be doomed to an eternity of slaving away in this bastardized recycling center that is Earth.'
Nick felt helpless.
The die had been cast.
The result was clear, and it was his opponent's turn.
The only thing Nick could do was wait.
Over the next years, the beam stopped changing color.
The wait was agonizing.
Every day, Nick feared that the Sun might kill him.
But it never happened.
Even ten years later, nothing changed.
'If the Champion found out about my past, I would already be dead.'
'Unless he found out and doesn't consider me his enemy anymore.'
'I have to investigate.'
Nick paused his work and appeared on the surface again.
Next, he read the minds of several researchers and powerful Protectors to learn how to gain access to the new database.
Of course, for security reasons, only three people had access to write any code or edit important articles.
If Nick wanted to gain access to these features, he would need to interact with the database's physical machine.
But that was inside Aegis' headquarters, and going there would be a death sentence.
Nick read through the newest articles.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
But then, Nick's eyes narrowed.
In the section documenting historical culture, Nick found a short fable.
'Nick Nick, the sheep,' Nick thought.
Seeing his old name in Aegis' database couldn't mean anything good.
Nobody would pay this fable any mind or believe that this was related to real-life events.
After all, who would have such a stupid name?
Nick quickly read through the fable, and after he was done, he just looked in the direction of Aegis' headquarters.
'He knows.'
'He knows almost everything.'
'But how?!'
'How did he find out?!'
'Why now?!'
'He had no reason to question the Trickster's very fundamentals.'
Nick furrowed his brows.
'Unless the former Right Arm and the Inferno said some things they shouldn't have.'
'I didn't tell them to say anything to the Champion.'
'They were supposed to attack him immediately and die.'
'But I didn't control their minds as much.'
'They also didn't remember any important things.'
'Did they sow doubt in the Champion?'
Nick took a deep breath.
'They were human, like all of us.'
'Maybe they just wanted to help.'
The fable of Nick Nick the Sheep basically retold the events that happened in Crimson City.
Nick Nick the Sheep lived in an enclosure that was protected from the wolves.
The enclosure was owned by a powerful and kind farmer who employed a farmhand to take care of most of the business.
'The Sun and the Champion.'
The farmer said that he only raised the sheep for their wool, and the farmhand followed all of the farmer's orders happily.
The fable ended when Nick Nick the Sheep died, and it ended on a cliffhanger that stated that a new and very competent sheep appeared on the farm.
It had a very direct name.
Nick the Farm Ender.
'Nick Dusk.'
'The Champion knows enough to kill me, but he didn't do so.'
'That means he is undecided.'
'He doesn't want to act without certainty.'
When Nick noticed that this article could be edited by anyone, he knew what the Champion wanted to do.
He wanted to communicate with Nick.
Nick took a deep breath.
'If I don't act, the Champion might kill me.'
Nick pressed the edit button and added more to the story.
Nick the Farm Ender arrived, and it immediately started to act horribly.
It killed sheep and subjugated others.
And yet, the farm owner didn't do anything about it.
The owner just took the corpses away to an unknown place.
The farmhand hated Nick the Farm Ender, but without the owner's permission, he wasn't allowed to stop its rampage.
One day, the farmhand secretly followed the farm owner, and that's when he saw something shocking.
The farm owner gutted the corpses and fed them to the wolves.
Since this was a fable, the wolves and sheep could talk.
In exchange for the sheep meat, the wolves rewarded the farm owner with gold.
The gold they gave the farm owner was far greater than what he would have gotten by selling the wool.
"We scare them," the lead wolf said. "You protect them."
"Like this, they will stay in one place, and we have an easy meal."
The farm owner agreed.
But just before the lead wolf left, he gave a last comment.
"Your flock is growing too big for the enclosure. Get a bigger one or cull them."
The wolf smirked.
"But if you kill them, make sure to give us all the meat!"
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