Nick couldn't see the Earth at all.
A moment later, he changed his biology a bit and grew a makeshift telescope.
His vision narrowed down significantly, but it was easier to look into the distance.
That was when he saw the tiny portal.
There was just a tiny portal floating in the middle of space.
'I see,' Nick thought, getting rid of his augmentation.
'This is another one of the Sun's functions.'
'This tribe is at war with other tribes, and they most likely want to keep the presence of their Zephyx generators secret.'
'The Sun is absorbing all of the light from the actual sun, turning it into a black and empty space.'
'Then, there are different spots on the Sun that reflect some of the sunlight, making it look like stars.'
'Without knowing what to look for, you wouldn't find it.'
'They hid an entire planet. That's not easy to do.'
Of course, Nick wasn't just standing there, doing nothing.
While he was inspecting his new surroundings, he followed the other engineer.
The moon's appearance was just as expected, based on the records of the Ancient Ones.
While Nick was following the engineer, the ship started to walk after them.
The tentacles that had caught the ship pulled back into a couple of holes before vanishing.
The three of them walked across the surface for several minutes at high speeds.
After all, they were in the Fourth Realm.
Eventually, they stopped in front of a random crater.
The other engineer put some of his tentacles into the ground.
Moments later, the ground opened up, and a fleshy cave was revealed.
The Amorphous Race rarely used inorganic materials.
Even their bases were built with organic materials.
The inside of the fleshy opening was a dark purple and pulsed with energy from time to time.
The three of them entered, and the fleshy maw closed behind them.
There was no light inside the fleshy maw since it wasn't necessary.
The engineers didn't have eyes.
They perceived their surroundings via other means.
Nick had created his own, very covert, eyes.
As they traveled through the fleshy passage, Nick's tentacles came into contact with several hormones secreting from the floor.
This was a simple way of identification.
Some seconds later, the two of them reached a big, fleshy cave.
There were no buildings, but Nick could see about ten other engineers.
The other engineers were simply sitting in random places, doing nothing.
Almost like machines, which wasn't far off from the truth.
Since the Amorphous Race didn't have emotions, they also didn't really have desires.
They were like workers inside an ant colony.
All their life revolved around work, and when there was no work to be done, they simply waited for more work.
They didn't desire privacy, entertainment, growth, communication, or nourishment.
As Nick and his partner walked past the others, none of them looked at him.
They just waited for more orders.
Nick and his partner walked to the end of the cave and stopped in front of a wall with a couple of holes.
The two of them put a bunch of their tentacles into the holes and secreted some hormones.
Then, they waited.
While they were waiting, the fleshy cave used an incredibly long, fleshy tendril to send the signals of the hormones to another fleshy cave.
The other fleshy cave interpreted the signals and created its own hormones out of them, which then got sent to a specific part inside of it.
Inside an isolated flesh dome, the two Chief Engineers waited for the report from the monthly maintenance of Earth's machines.
The floor beneath them secreted hormones, and the Chief Engineers interpreted them.
The hormones said that there was nothing out of the ordinary and that the engineers were ready to report.
The bigger of the two Chief Engineers put their tentacles into a hole.
A moment later, the Chief Engineer's perception widened significantly.
They were taking control of the fleshy cave system and establishing a direct connection.
Their perception stretched to the other fleshy cave and focused on the two returning engineers.
At that point, Nick felt a pulling sensation.
His artificial cortex was being aggressively accessed.
It was like someone had entered his biological brain to look around.
Of course, Nick didn't store any of himself in the cortex of the artificial body.
All of Nick was inside his Specter Core.
Concepts were pulled out of the cortex and copied.
There was no sign of care during the process, and plenty of concepts were essentially damaged by the ruthless copying.
The copied concepts traveled to the Chief Engineer, who looked through all of them.
There were no abnormalities in the readings.
The Chief Engineer gave one last order before disconnecting from the network.
"Wait for orders."
Far away, the two engineers pulled their tentacles out of the wall.
Just like the others, they would simply sit down somewhere and wait for more orders.
However, Nick used his abilities to manipulate the other engineer's thoughts.
The two of them walked to the side and sat down near one of the walls, their backs basically leaning on it.
None of the other engineers paid them any attention.
The Chief Engineers had all of them under control, and if these two engineers sat down near one of the walls, that was probably an order.
The engineers didn't question the actions of other engineers.
Nick could probably kill each of them one at a time, and they wouldn't do anything.
The only thing that would react would be the fleshy cave, since it also had a supervisory function.
Naturally, this cave was not the actual base of the aliens.
This was just a storage room for low-ranking engineers.
After some minutes, Nick used his abilities.
He used a lot of Zephyx to change the minds of all of the engineers.
Then, he used even more of it to access the cave.
Luckily, the cave was only in the Fifth Realm.
Nick read its mind and manipulated it.
A moment later, Nick's engineer lost its energy and essentially collapsed.
None of the other engineers or the cave reacted.
'The next inspection will happen in a month. That will be the deadline.'
'Our assault will happen in 25 days. Until then, I have to prepare everything.'
Then, Nick's Specter Core left the engineer's body before passing through the fleshy wall.
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