Everything had been prepared.
Now, it was time to put it into practice.
For the next years, Nick dealt with managing the world.
Everything had to work properly so that the Sun didn't grow suspicious of Nick's absence.
After all, he was going to spend a lot of time away from the light.
The humans had already realized that there were no more powerful Specters.
The only things they found were a couple of Hatchlings.
Yet, to normal humans, even Hatchlings were dangerous.
The humans had already built their first fortifications, and they had gathered in groups.
Food was not an issue yet, but in the future, it would become one.
When Nick saw that everything was running as intended, he retreated into the underground.
It was time to start.
The first thing he did was to retrieve all of the Zephyx he had stolen from the aliens.
He needed a lot of it.
Then, he started to create several extremely advanced machines.
Almost all of these machines were used to create Pure Energy materials.
After that, Nick started his construction.
This underground city would be very different from the last one.
First of all, it would be able to withstand attacks from the Ninth Realm.
Second, it would be made with Pure Energy materials.
Third, it completely blocked the hidden Zephyx tax.
The Empire was most likely found out because of the Zephyx tax, but that was because the Zephyx production had suddenly dropped.
Yet, if the Zephyx production was never increased in the first place, it shouldn't be suspicious.
Finally, Nick started the creation of the city.
He placed it deep beneath the ground in the Atlantic Ocean, far away from the Sun's light.
Creating the city took almost 50 years.
The main reason was the creation of the materials.
The machines could produce such incredibly powerful materials only very slowly.
But when Nick was done with its creation, he looked at it with pride.
It was far bigger than the old city.
This one could house over a million people, and there was an additional space for over 100,000 Specters.
Ironically enough, when speaking about volume, there was more space reserved for the Specters than for the humans.
Just to create the city, Nick had burned through over 98% of the Zephyx he had stolen.
The spatial anchor keeping the city from floating through the chaotic streams of magma was powered by artificial Zephyx generators.
With time, they would need to be deactivated and replaced with organic Zephyx production.
Nick had also recreated the Archive and filled it with all of the accumulated knowledge he had gained during the past era.
The era had just begun, and the people inside the underground city already had access to more knowledge than the Empire during its prime.
'The Starbreaker Base has been created,' Nick thought. 'Now, it's time for the next step.'
He had learned a lot about how to run an underground civilization in the last era, and this time, he wouldn't experiment.
This was not a trial run.
This one was the real one, and he couldn't afford to experiment.
'It's time for the next step of the plan.'
'I'm not the biggest fan, but I have to do it.'
'The next step is crucial for humanity's survival.'
Nick's perception stretched across the world.
The first cities had already been created, but they were a far cry from the cities of old.
They were crude and small.
Nick analyzed the genes of almost every human who was currently alive.
Eventually, he found two people with perfectly compatible genes.
He transported both of them to the safest city in the world and manipulated their memories.
'Free will,' Nick thought as he looked at the two humans falling in love.
'We do what we want, and that is what we consider free will.'
'You two have perfectly compatible personalities and genes.'
'You will never have an argument.'
'Being together will fill both of your lives with happiness, despite the dark world you inhabit.'
'You are together because I brought you together.'
'Yet, what does it matter to you? You two want to be together anyway.'
'Are you together due to your own choices?'
'It doesn't matter.'
'You want this.'
Within a short period of time, the woman became pregnant.
During the pregnancy, Nick changed several things inside the fetus.
He altered parts of its genome.
He sped up some parts while slowing down others.
The genes were perfectly compatible, but the two people would not give birth to a natural child.
Nick had simply used them as a baseline.
The fetus inside the woman's womb no longer resembled either parent.
In fact, it had already started to resemble Nick.
Nick would have created the fetus himself with his new ability to create life, but if he did that, it wouldn't have a Soul.
The fetus required a Soul to become an actual human.
Inside the mother's womb, the fetus was developing things that no other human had.
Its biology became very similar to the biology of the Nightmen, but there were a couple of things that were different.
For example, the fetus didn't have any Specter DNA.
Of course, that came with a problem.
The reason why the Nightmen had parts of the old Emperor's DNA was that they wouldn't be immune to the Nightmare otherwise.
As soon as the newborn baby entered the darkness, it would be affected by the Nightmare, and since humanity's resistance had to hide in the darkness, it wouldn't survive for long.
Because of that, the Nightmen needed the Emperor's DNA.
However, all of this was predicated on one thing.
Eventually, the mother was about to give birth.
Yet, she had been concerned for several weeks already.
Other mothers had been talking about how it felt to have their babies moving in their womb.
Meanwhile, her baby had never moved.
Not even once.
She had expected a miscarriage for weeks,but it never happened.
Just when she was about to give birth…
Everything changed.
She was sleeping in her man's arms.
They had wished for a baby for a long time, but they had never succeeded.
She was not pregnant.
She had never been pregnant.
Nobody remembered her being pregnant.
Everything was normal, and she was happy.
Meanwhile, Nick held the newborn infant in his arms.
He was in the lightless underground city.
The infant didn't move.
It didn't breathe.
It had no brain activity.
It had no heartbeat.
It was dead.
It had never been alive.
The Nightmare could only affect living things.
It had no power over the dead.
Nick looked at the infant for a bit.
Then, he gathered his Zephyx.
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