Kill the Sun

 Nick and Ghosty looked at each other for a bit.

Naturally, both of them were quite surprised.

Ghosty thought that he was about to look at a Specter, while Nick didn't expect that someone else would know about his new status as a Specter.

When the Technician saw their reactions, he scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

Then, several windows popped up on his Barrier, and a second later, he sighed.

"I really should read up more," he commented.

Nick looked at the Technician. "You should."

Ghosty was a bit surprised that Nick talked this casually to the Technician.

Sure, the researchers talked very casually with the Technician since he didn't care about performative politeness, but people generally didn't tend to use a casual tone with a Shield.

Originally, the Technician didn't plan on unveiling Nick's full identity to his assistant.

He would just say that Nick was an artificial Specter.

He didn't plan on telling Ghosty that Nick used to be a human or that he had already worked for Aegis in the past.

But since the two of them already knew each other, this didn't work anymore.

In the end, the Technician made a decision.

He shrugged.

"Well, whatever," he said. "You signed the research contract anyway. Maybe that's even a good thing."

Naturally, the Technician wouldn't want Ghosty to know all of this, but the cat was already out of the bag.

Might as well live with it.

When Ghosty took note of the Technician's decision, he felt some relief.

It hadn't been visible to the outside, but Ghosty knew that getting rid of him could have been presented as a valid option.

If him revealing this secret was a bigger danger than his future contributions, getting rid of him would make economic sense.

After Ghosty came to terms with his new lease on life, he focused on Nick.

"So, you're a Specter, right?" Ghosty asked.

Nick glanced at Ghosty with furrowed brows.

At that moment, Ghosty could feel his mind sending a fear response to his body, which fascinated him.

The last time Ghosty had seen Nick, he had been an Initial Expert, while Ghosty had still been a Peak Specialist.

By now, Ghosty had become an Initial Hero and was well on his way to becoming an Early Hero.

And yet, Ghosty could tell that Nick was a genuine danger to him.

In fact, Nick felt so dangerous that Ghosty felt almost helpless.

Of course, while Ghosty still felt these things, his powerful mind kept complete control of everything, and he looked at his feelings with pure fascination.

This was so interesting!

Meanwhile, when Nick glanced at the Technician, the Technician just shrugged.

The damage was already done.

"Yes, I am a Specter," Nick answered.

"Interesting," Ghosty said, stepping closer to Nick while looking over his body with furrowed brows.

It was like Ghosty was trying to find any scratches on the new research object he had just received.

"Have you always been a Specter?" he asked.

"No," Nick said. "The last time we met, I was still human."

A light appeared in Ghosty's eyes.

It had been forever that something had fascinated him that much.

"So, you turned into a Specter?" he asked.

Nick glanced at the Technician again.

"It's fine," the Technician said. "Just tell him everything. Just don't immediately drop huge secrets without any buildup. If you are talking about things that should remain secret, I still want a chance to interrupt you. Also, keep descriptions of the Maw to a minimum."

Nick nodded.

He had never gotten the instructions to be dramatic for safety reasons before.

"After you left Crimson City, I became the Liaison."

Nick told Ghosty about his five years as a Liaison.

Ghosty didn't have any contact with Crimson City anymore since it was simply not possible to have any contact with a city on the other side of the planet.

When Ghosty heard about what Crimson City turned into, he almost couldn't believe it.

Yes, all of this made logical sense.

Yes, all of this was theoretically possible.

However, this was not how things usually turned out.

Countless things could have gone wrong.

If any single person hoarded that much power, everything nearly always turned for the worse.

Unchecked power was extremely dangerous and there was a good reason why the Governors weren't powerful enough to kill their cities on their own in case of a battle.

If Aegis wanted that, they would have made the Agents the Governors and the Governors the Agents.

Sure, theoretically, a benevolent dictator could accomplish much more than a benevolent group of people, but that was theory.

That just didn't happen.

What? A guy who desperately fought for power until he was the most powerful person was selfish and didn't think a lot about other people? No one could have predicted that!

And yet, Nick actually made this hypothetical scenario real.

He actually tried to improve the lives of the poor people and put his life on the line in a fight against the elite.

Even more, he actually won.

Ghosty felt like he was listening to a fairy tale.

How was this something that actually happened?

After talking about Crimson City, Nick talked a little bit about his time in the trainee camp, but that wasn't relevant to the topic.

Finally, Nick talked about his Consumption, and when Ghosty heard that Nick tried to consume a Peak Elder, he refused to believe it.

That was impossible.

It was literally physically impossible to win against a Peak Elder during the Consumption process.

That was like trying to compete with a theoretical machine in a vacuum by using an actual machine with real parts that exist in the real world.

One had 100% efficiency, while the other one had to contend with innumerable small interferences.

But when Nick talked about the end of his Consumption, Ghosty realized that it was actually possible.

Yes, if the Specter conceded, it was possible.

It was just that nobody had ever managed to make a Specter concede.

When Nick talked about the time his Zephyx Synchronizer was encased by a Specter Core, Ghosty kept asking question after question.

Eventually, Nick told him that all these thought experiments were unimportant since that was no longer the current state.

Finally, Nick talked about the Maw, but he left out almost 90% of everything surrounding that event.

At this point, the Technician also became interested.

After all, he hadn't been able to experiment on Nick since the fusion.

Nick could barely say a sentence before another question hit him.

After around 30 minutes of just answering questions, Nick realized that this might not be the first priority.

"Technician," Nick said. "I think we can talk about all of this later. There are things that require more immediate attention."

For a split-second, the Technician was flabbergasted.

Something more important than his research?!

But he very quickly realized that Nick was actually right.

"Right," the Technician said before sighing. "Politics."

Nick nodded.

The Technician glanced at Ghosty, who immediately understood.

Ghosty nodded and stepped out of the room.

Now, only Nick and the Technician were left.

"Alright," the Technician said. "You've been undercover, right?"

Nick nodded.

Then, he told the Technician about the time he accidentally came into contact with Wrath.

Nick told the Technician everything he knew about Wrath and what his job as Wrath's assassin was.

"That's quite smart," the Technician said. "You got rid of other influences, planted your own influence, and now, you can get rid of that influence in one strike. We can deal with almost ten Demons at once, and they don't even have an opportunity to prepare or react to our attacks."

Nick nodded. "I know exactly who is working for Wrath and if any human is knowingly allied with it."

Naturally, whenever Aegis found out that a city was secretly controlled by one of the Corruptors, it was always a big deal to find out if the Governor knew about this or not.

Governors were all, at least, Early Heroes, and killing an innocent Early Hero was very bad.

However, if they spared a guilty Early Hero, the city might very well fall under the control of a Corruptor again, but this time, they would do a much better job hiding their influence.

"What about Grand Extractor City?" the Technician asked.

"What about it?" Nick asked back.

"It seems a bit different from the other cities. You said one of your main reasons for doing Wrath's work was that you could also improve the lives of people. Introducing Wrath to Grand Extractor City doesn't sound like it would improve the lives of people," the Technician said. "I can imagine a couple of reasons, but I want to know which one actually is the real one."

"Several reasons," Nick said.

"First of all, I wanted to get rid of one of the biggest bastions of one of the Corruptors. That makes them open to more attacks from other Corruptors. The more conflict there is, the higher the chance that Aegis witnesses the ensuing chaos and finds out about the city's corruption."

"Second, I was planning on coming back to Aegis anyway. If I dealt with the city, I would've contacted Aegis. The city would have already been cleaned up by that point. However, I could also just contact Aegis during my mission. The result would be the same. It would just require more investigation from Aegis' side."

"Third," Nick said as his eyes narrowed.

"They're selfish."