Kill the Sun

Nick walked to the fourth floor, the floor with all the Possession Specters.

After he left the Extractor shaft, Nick looked at the Containment Units.

Every single one was filled.

'I'll buy more Containment Units and stack them on top of the current ones. Stacking Containment Units with Possession Specters shouldn't be an issue.'

'To think that the floor for Possession Specters is already filled after just moving in. I guess that's what happens when you only assign one floor to an entire category of Specters.'

Nick had already created a plan for stacking the Containment Units on this floor while working with the Grey Room.

First, Nick walked to the eastern Containment Units and stopped in front of the southern one.

'This shouldn't be too difficult,' Nick thought as he walked into the Containment Unit.

As soon as he entered, Nick saw the Specter in the middle of the room.

It was a beautiful green bush filled with berries.

Yes, this was a Possession Specter.

Possession Specters could not only possess dead objects but also living objects.

There had been cases in which a Possession Specter had been created with an animal.

There was even a human one.

Nick just looked at the bush for a couple of seconds.

It looked and acted just like a normal bush.

If this were a Physical Specter, Nick might have become suspicious, but this was a Possession Specter.

Possession Specters were notoriously stupid.

The Glasses, the Can, the Screaming Coffin, the Blaze, the Rusty Hammer, all of these Specters lacked intelligence.

And the Berry Bush wasn't any different.

Naturally, the Berry Bush was the name of this bush.

The Berry Bush was an Early Adolescent Possession Specter, and it gained power in a very interesting way.

Nick looked at the berries for a while before approaching the bush.

Then, he plucked five of them.

'The documentation says don't take more than five,' Nick thought. 'I'm confident in my power and my conviction, but not following the documentation would be stupid.'

'So, for now, only five.'

Then, Nick grabbed one of the five berries and consumed it.

As soon as Nick bit down, an indescribable explosion of flavor occurred in his mouth.

His mouth produced an incredible amount of saliva, and all the saliva that gathered around the berry seemed to take on its properties, and within seconds, Nick's entire mouth tasted amazing.

The extraordinary flavor of the berry expanded throughout Nick's entire body, and his mind became alert, focused, and awake.

Nick swallowed the berry almost immediately since his body craved it so much.

A couple of seconds after swallowing the berry, Nick took a deep breath.

'That was scarier than I thought,' he thought as he looked at the Berry Bush with newfound respect.

'If it has such a strong effect on a Mid Veteran, how strong is the effect on a normal person?'

'Well, I don't actually need to ask that question. I already know the answer,' Nick thought with furrowed brows.

Nick remembered seeing several people snorting some blue dust in his past, when he had still been in the Dregs.

People who snorted the blue dust craved it and were willing to give anything for just one more hit.

This blue dust had been made of ground berries from the Berry Bush.

The Berry Bush gained power by making people addicted to its berries.

The more people craved its berries, the more Zephyx it produced.

Naturally, since normal people had been snorting the berries, Anatomy had been operating a drug business.

Was that legal?

Well, a powerful organization could bend the law a lot, but there was one aspect of this drug business that made it impossible to legalize.

The fact that it involved a Specter.

Under normal circumstances, only Extractors were allowed to work with a Specter.

If a Manufacturer wanted to involve the general public, the city would demand crazy standards of security and surveillance.

Nearly no Manufacturer would be willing to deal with that.

This meant that Anatomy's little business had been highly illegal.

However, they had enough sway and enough people in the guards that their little business didn't get unveiled.

It was just one of the many illegal things that big business could get away with and one of the reasons why Nick hated the city's government so much.

'Creating laws but not enforcing them,' Nick thought in disgust as he grabbed another berry. 'Might as well not make the laws at all if they don't apply to everyone.'

Nick consumed the five berries and walked out of the Containment Unit.

Obviously, he wanted to eat more since they tasted absolutely amazing, but Nick had a crazy amount of self-control.

Nick wouldn't use the Berry Bush to sell drugs.

Even without the moral component, Dark Dream didn't have the sway over the guards that Anatomy had, making it far more likely to get found out.

'I guess I can use the Berry Bush as a little treat for the Extractors once a day. As long as I control the access to it, there shouldn't be any danger.'

Naturally, eating too many of the berries would cause very bad things to happen, but Nick would make sure that this never occurred.

This was one of the very few Containment Units that Nick wouldn't open for any Extractor.

He didn't even trust Trevor and Jenny with that one.

Only Julian and Nick would be able to enter this Containment Unit.

Just like with the Agonizing Wait.

'I can't check how much Zephyx it will produce since I'm not a good representation of its actual production. I should check after handing some berries to the Extractors.'

Nick walked away from the Containment Unit and walked towards the south of the floor.

There were two more Containment Units on this floor with new Specters.

Nick looked towards the eastern one and took a deep breath.

'Probably only I can work with this one. I don't think any of my employees will be willing to work with that one.'

'I'm really not looking forward to this.'