Kill the Sun

The Major Relay tried to connect to Pride for quite some time, which was a bit unusual.

That was most likely since Nick hadn’t called Pride before.

All the other times he had talked to her, some other Specter had used the Major Relay to establish a connection.

Accepting a connection was very risky since it was possible to somewhat trace the direction of the Specter upholding the connection.

The tracing only gave a rough direction, but that already eliminated 80% to 90% of all the other directions.

While one single instance of tracing wouldn’t lead to a capture of a Corruptor, two or three could be used to pinpoint the Corruptor’s location in a small area.

Accepting the call of an unknown Specter was very risky.

Nick waited for Pride to accept the call.

At least, he hoped that she would accept it.

When Nick saw the big stone at the front of the Major Relay changing shape, he knew that Pride had accepted the call.

‘She accepted!’ Nick thought.

A moment later, the stone changed shape into Pride, who looked at Nick with narrowed eyes.

“Attack!” Nick transmitted to Pride. “Cloth attack!”

Pride just looked at Nick with narrowed eyes.

Naturally, she understood what Nick was talking about, and she couldn’t keep her disgust for Nick hidden.

The Robe had obviously attacked Nick, and somehow, Nick managed to get rid of the Robe.

Then, he called Pride because he wanted to tattle on the traitorous Robe, not knowing that the Robe had attacked him according to Pride’s orders.

However, Pride was also confused about Nick.

How did he manage to deal with Robe?

Where was the Robe?

She was sure that Nick was not some kind of undercover agent from another Corruptor.

The exchange of information regarding different servants was sacred, and none of them would dare to lie about any of their servants.

If they did, others would get the justification to do the same thing, and to make the justification as solid as possible, they would most likely do it to that specific Corruptor.

Additionally, despite their rivalry, their bosses still worked together, and they were technically allies, although not practically.

Lastly, the cloud of mist was a Force Specter, and the fact that it could communicate at all already made it one of the most intelligent Force Specters that had ever existed.

There was no way that a Force Specter could be a spy since it wouldn’t be intelligent enough to put up even a remotely believable act.

This meant that the cloud of mist couldn’t be working for someone else.

That was also the main reason why Pride had accepted the connection in the first place.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Me greet. Cloth told me attack. I attack. Cloth attack. I run. Cloth follow. I find green place. I enter green place. Cloth enter green place. I confused. I fly around. I find exit. Cloth no exit. Cloth still there. Me here,” Nick explained via transmission.

This meant that the Robe was stuck somewhere.

“What is this green place?” Pride asked.

“Green wall. Weird wall. No hole. Suddenly, hole. I go in. I no see. Wall everywhere. I stuck. I fly. I no stuck,” Nick explained.

Pride looked at Nick for a while.

She hadn’t heard of this thing before.

She understood what Nick was talking about, but she couldn’t really imagine it since his statements seemed contradictory at some point.

But that didn’t mean that he was lying.

He was most likely just too dumb to make sense of his surroundings.

“Is the Robe still in this green space?” Pride asked.

“I don’t know. Dangerous. No energy,” Nick transmitted.

“No energy? Elaborate,” Pride ordered.

“I fly around. I confuse. No energy. Lose energy. I lose energy. I can’t more energy. Energy gone. I nearly die!” Nick explained.

Pride narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you can’t produce Zephyx in the green space?”

“Yes. Zephyx. Forgot,” Nick answered.

This concerned Pride.

“Where is this green space?” she asked.

“There,” Nick transmitted, transforming part of his body into a pointing finger.

“How far is it away?” she asked.

“Not far. Seconds,” Nick answered.

Pride remained silent for a while.

“The Robe is in a hole?” she asked.

“Yes, hole. Hole in green wall. Weird hole. Dangerous hole,” Nick transmitted.

“How big is the hole?” Pride asked.

“This big,” Nick answered, mimicking the size of the hole with his misty body.

When Pride saw that, she realized that this was an issue.

That was an insanely small hole, barely a centimeter wide.

Only Force Specters and a select few Physical Specters could fit through there.

Pride thought about this for a while.

The chances that the Robe was still alive were mediocre.

Maybe it was; Maybe it wasn’t.

Sending someone to rescue the Robe seemed too risky since that Specter could also fall victim to the weird green wall if it acted carelessly due to time pressure.

However, Pride also wanted to know what this weird green wall was about.

“Wait,” Pride commanded. “Someone will come to you.”

“Ok,” Nick answered.

Then, Pride cut the connection.

Nick waited.

But this time, he didn’t need to wait long.

After just 40 seconds, the ground shook.

The next instant, several human hands broke through the ground and expanded.

Nick saw a fountain of human hands coming out of the ground as they changed shape.

A second later, the hands formed a worm-like body with two massive claws.

The hands turned to look at the Major Relay before looking at Nick.

Nick could tell that this Specter was extremely powerful.

‘This has to be a Fallen!’ Nick thought.

The number of Fallen working for one Corruptor almost never reached the double digits.

Pride and War were currently expanding quite a bit, which meant that the number of Fallen under each of them was probably in the high single-digits.

Meanwhile, Envy and Gluttony probably only had three or four each.

In fact, Envy might not even have a single one since it couldn’t use its own power to threaten them.

Lust and Sloth were probably in the middle.

Every Fallen was extremely valuable since they were used to fight directly against Aegis.

The weak Servants were used to scout out cities and to establish a small foothold.

Nick met some of them in Crimson City when he came into contact with Envy.

When those servants said that a city was ripe for the taking, they told the Corruptor and the Corruptor would send someone who specialized in secretly infiltrating cities.

Most of the time, those were Fanatics or weak Demons.

When the city was basically in a Corruptor’s grasp, they sent one of the Demons to harvest the Zephyx.

Late and Peak Demons acted like Agents who supervised a big area with several cities.

If any of the cities needed help, they would help.

Additionally, they sometimes dealt with troublesome caravans or traveling Heroes.

Lastly, the Fallen were special forces.

Their job was to put pressure on Aegis by killing Agents and disrupting information gathering.

In general, Fallen did not interact with any of the cities.

Most of the time, they waited for orders while also following a team of Agents.

Sometimes, they also followed a Protector.

The Fallen were probably the ones that caused the most damage to Aegis.

Sure, Adversaries were more powerful and more threatening, but battles between Adversaries and Shields or Protectors were very rare.

One Adversary or Shield was worth more than 20 Protectors or Fallen. Losing even one of them would be a devastating blow, which was why they became active relatively rarely.

So, in total, Fallen caused more damage to Aegis than Adversaries.

And now, one of these Fallen was in front of Nick.

“Lead me to the green wall,” the abomination of hands transmitted.

Nick flew out of the cave and moved towards the green wall.

The two of them entered another cave, and very soon, the Fallen could see the green wall Nick was talking about.

The two of them stopped in front of the wall, and the Fallen looked at it.

“There is no hole,” the Specter transmitted.

“No touch, no hole. Touch, hole,” Nick transmitted back as he approached the wall.

Then, the Fallen saw Nick suddenly becoming smaller before he vanished.

Naturally, the Fallen could tell that Nick wasn’t strong enough to just vanish from its perception.

It slowly crawled closer and extended one of its long claws to the wall.

The wall felt rough but looked smooth.

One of the child hands making up the claw stretched out a tiny finger and stuck it into what seemed to be an invisible hole.

“See?” Nick transmitted as he came out of the wall again.

The Specter touched the wall some more before wordlessly pulling out several stones from its body.

It seemed like the Specter was traveling with its own Major Relay.

A moment later, it built a connection with Pride, who just looked at the green wall.

She had never seen anything like it.