Chapter 183 Chapter 183 – Hatchlings
For a while longer, Nick kept punching and kicking the air.
He knew that it wouldn't help him, but he wanted to know what the Fog actually did.
After all, he would most likely need to work with it in the future.
Might as well learn more things about it right now since it wasn't in a hurry to kill him.
From time to time, Nick managed to push the Fog to the side, revealing a darker place behind the bright grey.
By the looks of things, Nick wasn't in a place with a lot of sunlight.
The Fog wasn't strong enough to completely transport Nick into a parallel dimension or world, which was why Nick had to be somewhere in Crimson Fungus City.
Nick wasn't sure how much time passed, but he started to get hungry.
Surprisingly, even though Nick had moved around quite a lot, he didn't get thirsty.
'The Fog is probably moisturizing my body, which means I need no water.'
'Based on the clear color of the piss I just took, it gives me quite a lot of water as well. That's a healthy amount.'
'However, there is no food.'
'Is that how it kills its victims?'
'It traps them in an endless world of grey until they starve to death?'
'I wonder if that's how it becomes stronger or if it's just corpses.'
'No, it's probably not corpses. Otherwise, it wouldn't feed me water.'
'Most likely, slowly starving inside its domain is what it actually gains power from.'
'Now, is it perpetually gaining power while I am in here, or does it only get a burst of power when I die?'
This was an important question.
If the Fog perpetually produced Zephyx by someone walking through its domain, working with the Fog would be easy. He would just need to send a Zephyx Extractor in there and take them out after a while.
However, if the Fog only got the power after actually killing the people through starvation, Nick would have an issue at hand.
This meant that he couldn't ask any of his Zephyx Extractors to work with it.
Even more, it meant that Nick needed to search for criminals or something like that. He couldn't imagine just sending random people to their deaths like this.
'I can't be sure, but I think it produces Zephyx during the process of being lost. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have been confident enough to trap me since I would have plenty of time to exhaust its Zephyx supply.'
Nick decided to remain inside the Fog for two more hours to see whether or not it would unveil another aspect of itself.
But nothing happened.
Nick's head was still clear, and even though he was sweaty from all the sports, his stamina had already recovered, which meant that the Fog wasn't isolating the Prephyx.
This meant that Nick could heal and recover while lost in the Fog.
'That's probably not something it can do yet, but I would imagine that it can learn something like that in the future.'
'After all, Veterans don't need to eat or drink anything since the Prephyx in the atmosphere nourishes them. If a Veteran were lost in here, they would never die.'
'Maybe the Fog will one day learn the ability to isolate Prephyx?'
Scientists were sure that most Specters were born as Hatchlings, which meant that the Fog had also been a Hatchling before.
They came to that conclusion because they had found buried data depicting a bloody room with two people fighting in it.
They also found pictures of a bloody colosseum with teeth at its edges and several people fighting in it.
The scientists were quite certain that these had been iterations of the Maw, one of the Eternals.
According to history, the Maw had once started out as just a random room, and it was eventually used as some sort of arena.
At some point, humanity must have lost control over it, and it became the terror it was today.
If the Maw had once been a Hatchling, chances were high that almost all Specters had once been Hatchlings.
Except for one.
The oldest Specter known to humanity was the Sun, and as far as they had heard, it had always been there.
The Sun was probably the only Specter that hadn't been a Hatchling.
As a Hatchling, the Fog probably didn't have the ability to nourish someone with water, which meant that it would need to get new victims quicker.
Nick was building a profile on the Fog. After all, it was his job, and the more he knew about his Specters, the better.
Seeing that nothing was changing, Nick decided to become active.
First, he wanted to try if the locator worked.
Naturally, Nick came prepared since he knew that he would meet with the Fog.
Because of that, Nick had received a locator.
He pulled a small rod out of one of his pockets and flipped it open, pulling out a couple of legs.
Then, he placed it on the ground and pressed a button.
The tip of the locator started to slowly shine yellow, which meant that it was starting up.
For a couple of seconds, Nick watched the yellow light.
And then, the light suddenly turned red.
Nick just furrowed his brow. 'That's to be expected, I suppose.'
The red light meant that a foreign force of Zephyx was interfering with the signal.
The locator worked by spreading a special kind of Zephyx, which could be picked up by certain instruments.
However, the presence of the Specter kept the Zephyx from spreading.
It was like a big man surrounding a small mouse with his hand.
The mouse couldn't move out of the hand since it was all around it, and it wasn't strong enough to break through.
'I might be able to escape on my own with the new ability I'm about to obtain, but I can't expect to capture the Fog on my own.'
'I need the help of Dark Dream, and for that, I need to activate the locator.'
'I guess it's time to advance and get my new ability.'
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