SSSSSS!
'Ah, fuck!' Nick thought as he looked at the ground.
Liquid tal was flowing in from the opening and passing by Nick's shield.
CRK! BANG!
At the sa ti, an extrely loud bang exploded from Nick's left, and all the light vanished.
Under the heat, Nick's spear couldn't keep its form anymore and had broken under the pressure of the doors.
It exploded, and the two doors slamd shut again.
At the sa ti, the tal surrounded Nick's shoes and tightly grabbed onto them.
Nick jumped forward, breaking his shoes in the process and landing outside the hole.
Inside the hole, the tal slowly started to solidify, but not before bending and slightly lting Nick's shield.
Nick just looked back at the hole.
'A fucking Specter. It's actually a fucking Specter,' he thought. 'And it has to be a Possession Specter.'
'A fucking Demon Possession Specter.'
Nick rembered Ghosty's hypothesis.
The amount of suffering an object caused would translate into power if it ever turned into a Possession Specter.
How much suffering had this Possession Specter caused?
Also, why was it in there?
'I wonder,' Nick thought. 'Was this thing surrounded by tal before or after it turned into a Specter?'
Nick looked up and rembered how deep down he actually was.
'Is the creation of the Specter related to this building getting buried this far into the ground?'
'Could be, but I can't be sure. I don't have enough information.'
Next, Nick tapped around on his Barrier for a bit, and a mont later, a picture appeared.
This Barrier also made a picture of the light while asuring it.
When Nick saw the picture, he furrowed his brows.
'About as expected,' he thought.
The source of the light was a very bright white ball.
However, Nick wasn't sure if this was just the great amount of light hiding the object or if it was an actual white ball.
'I also can't tell how far away it is. It could be ten ters away, but it could also be a kiloter away.'
'Based on the readings, if the object is just ten or a hundred ters away from the edge, it should be a Demon, but if it's further, it could even be a Fallen.'
'I should asure the building. If it's a Demon, Crimson City can contain it. If it's a Fallen, we need Aegis.'
Nick put the displays on his Barrier away and went back to the wall.
Next, he started to go along the walls and carefully dig through the stone walls of the cave.
After a bit of digging, Nick noticed sothing.
'The building is round. That makes things easier.'
Nick summoned his Barrier and told it to calculate the circumference of the wall by analyzing a small part of it.
After a bit of math, Nick got all the numbers of the building, assuming that it was a perfect sphere.
'Diater of about 100 ters,' Nick thought.
'The walls are around 30 ters thick, which ans the open space in the middle should have a diater of 40 ters.'
'If the thing is in the middle of the building, it should be about 20 ters away from the wall. With that distance and the power of the radiation, I can calculate the approximate power of the Specter.'
Nick did a bit of math.
'Early or Mid Demon. More likely a Mid Demon.'
Nick furrowed his brows.
'Capturing the Big Brain Slug sure as hell was worth the risk,' Nick thought.
'Now, we just need to suppress and contain it.'
Nick thought about the size and danger of the Possession Specter.
'But that's easier said than done. The easiest way would be to carry and transport the entire building, but that thing has to weigh over a million tons.'
'We could shave off the outermost 20 ters, which should reduce its weight by over 90%, but that would still be tens of thousands of tons.'
'We would need Aria to carry it after shaving it.'
Nick narrowed his eyes.
'But that's impossible,' Nick thought as the image of the Plague Vulture shot through his mind.
'If Aria leaves Crimson City for more than a couple of seconds, the Plague Vulture might actually decide to attack the city.'
'That ans I can only rely on my Specialists.'
While Nick kept planning the suppression of the Specter, he kept digging around a bit.
He wanted to make sure that the building was an actual sphere.
After about an hour, he got confirmation.
Yes, it was a sphere.
'This will take a long ti,' Nick thought as he looked at the tallic walls.
Nick could tell that this was going to be a project spanning several years.
Just for starters, they had to dig a hole to this depth to unearth the building, which was already a lot of work.
'I should get back and tell Aria,' Nick thought.
Nick told his Barrier to create a map and to keep this place marked.
Then, he traveled through the caves until he reached the top.
This ti, it barely took two minutes since Nick already knew the way.
On the surface, Nick looked at his Barrier and traveled to the part of the surface that was directly on top of the buried building.
Nick marked the place and left for Crimson City.
A while later, Nick arrived in Crimson City and directly went to the city's headquarters.
When Aria saw him, she sighed in relief.
"You were gone for quite a while," she comnted.
"I got lost in the caves," Nick answered.
"Anyway, I got good and bad news. What do you want to hear first?" Nick asked.
"The bad news," Aria answered with a sigh.
"We have a huge project in front of us that will take years and a lot of powerful Extractors to complete," Nick said.
Aria looked with positive surprise at Nick. "That sounds more like good news. After all, why would you suggest investing that many resources into sothing if it isn't worth it?"
Nick scratched the side of his head. "I guess so."
"Anyway, the good news is that we got a non-sentient Mid Demon Possession Specter."
Silence.
Aria's eyes were opened widely, and she looked with shock at Nick.
A Mid Demon Possession Specter?
That was… insane!
"Are you for real?" she asked.
Nick nodded and told her what he had found.
In the beginning, Aria seed excited, but when Nick told her about the readings and the picture, her excitent turned to worry.
"You said there's molten tal, right?" she asked.
"Correct," Nick said. "It started to flow out as soon as the crack appeared."
"How high was the crack?" Aria asked.
"It started at a height of about one ter and stretched for another 80 centiters upward," Nick explained.
Aria nodded as she furrowed her brows. "Show the picture again."
Nick did just that, and Aria looked at it.
Then, she grimaced.
"There's no reflection," she said.
"Reflection?" Nick asked.
Aria nodded and pointed at the picture. "The molten tal reached your place, even though the crack starts at a height of ten ters. That ans that the lake of molten tal has to be a ter deep, at least."
"However, if it only had that depth, we should be able to see a reflection of the light. The liquid tal should reflect the light like water reflects the Sun's light."
"But there's no reflection," Aria said.
At that mont, Nick started to combine the clues in his head.
The liquid tal had to be high enough to get through the crack, but there was no reflection.
This ant that the actual level of the liquid tal had to be higher than the height of the cara, which, at the ti of the shot, was around 160 centiters.
This ant that at least 80% of the crack's height had been blocked by liquid tal.
Most likely, all of it had been blocked.
The reason why the hole hadn't imdiately been flooded was that the liquid tal was extrely viscous.
Nick looked at the picture again, and with the new context, this picture beca far more intimidating.
Nick's calculations had all been correct.
Everything had fit perfectly…
As long as there was air between him and the object.
However, that wasn't the case.
The object's light hadn't reached his cara through around 30 ters of air.
No, it had reached his cara through around ten ters of air and 20 ters of molten tal.
This thing was visible through 20 fucking ters of molten tal!
This thing could kill Nick in less than a second while shining through 20 ters of tal!
"Nick, that is not a Demon," Aria said.
Nick took a deep breath.
"I realize that now," Nick answered.
"That thing is a Fallen and not a weak one."
Nick did a couple of calculations.
"This has to be a Late Fallen."
"At least!"
Silence.
Several seconds of silence.
"I'm calling Aegis," Nick said.
Aria nodded. "You should."
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