Silence.
The Nightmen grew excited.
They had done it!
And more importantly, they were still alive!
The solar system was theirs!
Infinite resources!
Nobody could stop them now!
Meanwhile, Daniel looked at the Duskbringer carefully.
"You're the Duskbringer, right?" he asked.
"I am," the Duskbringer answered.
"I thought… Nick scrapped you," Daniel said. "He said that you are a failed project and that he would no longer give you Pure Energy."
"That was a lie," the Duskbringer said. "I… Nick has not gotten rid of the Pure Energy tax. He just reduced it from 50% to 30%."
"But I saw you! You were not this strong-"
Then, Daniel realized something.
"Illusions," he said.
The Duskbringer nodded. "An illusory coating. I- Nick didn't share every technology he knew with you."
"Why?" Daniel asked with narrowed eyes. "If we had more energy, we could have won without you! With the Pure Energy you absorbed, I could have advanced another level."
"Insurance," the Duskbringer said. "Nick's goal was the survival of the human race. He made you, and he knows what you are capable of. He wouldn't exchange the Amorphous Race's terror with a terror of his own creation."
The Nightmen looked with hostility at the Duskbringer.
"You never intended us to survive," Daniel spoke coldly.
"Do not say I am my creator!" the Duskbringer shot back with aggression. "I hate him even more than you!"
"He cursed me with his memories, and he put the fate of all of humanity on my shoulders because he was not strong enough!"
"I hate Nick just as much as you, and I am not Nick!"
The Nightmen didn't seem reassured.
"But that doesn't change our current situation," Daniel said.
"It does," the Duskbringer answered. "Nick is Nick, and I am me. I make my own choices. Nick's plans are not my plans."
"As far as I have seen, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for somebody else. You attacked the big General with all of your power and became helpless as a result. Is that not true?"
The other Nightmen looked at Daniel.
True, he did do that, and they couldn't understand why.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Daniel asked.
"A lot," the Duskbringer answered. "Nick wanted to kill you since he believed that you would terrorize all other humans. Humanity would not be able to rise under your tyranny."
"But I do not think so. Compared to Nick, I want to offer someone my trust first instead of immediately believing them to be untrustworthy."
"I'm going to give you a chance. As long as you can keep your people in check, you can live freely."
The Nightmen were still suspicious.
This didn't sound realistic.
Why would the Duskbringer allow them to survive?
It sounded like an unnecessary risk.
"We have no reason to believe you," one of them said.
"And I don't have one to believe you, but I'm doing it anyway," the Duskbringer answered. "Are you that weak that you can't afford to give someone some trust?"
"You are in the Tenth Realm. Is it that important to you to value security above everything else?"
"Of course," the Nightman answered coldly. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be in the Tenth Realm."
"What do you want?" the Duskbringer asked.
Naturally, the Nightmen were all about profits and security, and the Duskbringer knew that this Nightman simply wanted to gain something out of this.
The Nightmen talked to each other quietly.
After a while, they all came to an agreement, and the previous Nightman looked back at the Duskbringer.
"We want to leave," he said.
"Leave?" the Duskbringer asked.
"We don't care about humanity. We don't care about children, family, friends, or whatever you normal humans care about."
"We want riches, power, money, resources, freedom!"
"You can have this solar system all to yourself and humanity."
"The only thing we want is freedom. We want to leave. We want to go to other solar systems and do whatever we want there."
The Duskbringer looked at the Nightmen.
Right now, his two personalities clashed with each other.
His implanted memories and values clashed with his own values.
Nick would not allow them to leave.
They would just cause chaos in another solar system and become oppressors themselves.
That wouldn't make them better than the Amorphous Race.
Yet, the Duskbringer had his own personality, and due to his hatred for Nick, he wanted to be completely different from him.
"Without your help, humanity would not be free," the Duskbringer said. "You are free to leave and do whatever you want."
"However, if you decide to leave, you will be viewed as humanity's enemy. We do not know how the universe works, and we can't let a select group of people cause trouble for all of humanity."
"If you leave, you will not be allowed to return. That is my condition."
The Nightmen just sneered.
"Sure, we don't care about humanity anyway."
The Duskbringer nodded. "Then, you are allowed to leave."
The Nightmen chuckled at the Duskbringer's naivety.
Then, they all shot into the distance.
Naturally, getting to the next solar system would not be easy with their current speeds.
Sure, they could travel at speeds that were close to lightspeed, but the individual stars were lightyears apart.
But that wouldn't be a problem for long.
The Nightmen were extremely experienced with technology, and if the Amorphous Race found a way to travel through the galaxy, they could also develop one.
They had plenty of time to experiment, and they would come up with a way to travel across the stars.
After all, the potential of Pure Energy was limitless!
Several seconds later, the Nightmen moved so far away that the Duskbringer couldn't sense them anymore.
Then, he turned around to look at Daniel.
"You're not going with them?" he asked.
Daniel chuckled. "There is a reason why I am the Night Emperor, not them."
"Yes, we are extremely powerful on our own, but the combined power of humanity is even stronger."
"What will humanity's future be like? Will humanity grow powerful in the universe?" he asked.
The Duskbringer nodded. "Definitely."
Daniel chuckled again. "So, if humanity grows up to be a major power in the universe…"
"Didn't the four of them make an enemy out of a major power in the universe today?"
The Duskbringer also smirked a bit.
"Yes, they did."
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