Kill the Sun

When Nick started talking about the steel door, Julian became very interested.

Nick could tell that Julian was enraptured in the story by the fact that his mouths were not flowing as smoothly anymore.

Instead, they were sometimes flowing faster and slower.

This happened because Julian was no longer focusing on "appearing beautiful and mesmerizing".

"And you went inside?" Julian asked.

Nick nodded.

"What did you find?"

Nick told Julian about the piles of dust, the weapons, the steel armor, and so on.

However, there was one thing he was keeping secret.

And that was what he had seen on the monitors.

These things were going to be seen by Aegis, and Aegis was humanity's biggest shield.

Nick was willing to tell Julian about the building and what it contained, but he didn't want to tell him about the information from there.

Maybe Julian would have suspected that Nick wasn't telling him everything.

However, that thought didn't even occur to him since Nick dropped a bomb.

The machine!

A machine that made Zephyx!

Even if Nick kept something secret, it wouldn't be nearly as big and important as this machine!

"A machine that produces Zephyx?" Julian asked.

"Correct," Nick said. "At least, that's my assumption. I couldn't make sense of any of it."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Julian said with a chuckle. "From what you've been telling me, it seems like this ruin belongs to the Old World."

Nick was a bit surprised.

He hadn't expected that Julian knew something about the ruins.

"The Old World?" he asked.

Julian chuckled.

"The first world," Julian said. "You've seen the ruins below the city, right?"

Nick nodded.

"The first layer of ruins is built on another layer of ruins, which is built on another layer of ruins."

"Each layer has different materials and is made with a different architectural style."

Julian chuckled again. "You remember Albert? Your mentor?"

Nick just absentmindedly nodded.

"He was part of a team that worked on learning about past civilizations. I know all of this by talking to him and his colleagues."

"Apparently, there are tens of thousands of years of history buried beneath Crimson City. Civilizations upon civilizations rose and fell here."

"And as far as I can tell, the ruin you visited came from the Old World, which is the oldest civilization we know of."

"The Old World is one of incomprehensible technological advancement but also one of unprecedented weakness."

Nick's brows rose in surprise. "How is that possible?" he asked.

Julian chuckled some more.

"Because Specters didn't exist back then. At least, that's the theory," Julian said.

"Specters didn't exist?" Nick repeated in shock.

A world without Specters?

How?!

Nick's first thought was immediately about the Sun.

The Sun was a Specter, right?

So, how was the world back then?

Was it completely dark?

And with no Nightmare, was everyone just okay with living in the darkness?

Did people even need eyes, then?

But then, Nick was reminded of the lamps in the ruin.

Right!

Since they didn't have light back then, they had to make their own light!

Without light, they couldn't look at the world, which was why they created their own light!

'A world without Specters,' Nick repeated in his mind.

That seemed absurd.

Specters seemed just as eternal as humanity.

Tens of thousands of years…

That was such a long time.

What had happened back then?

'That also explains why everything was made of steel,' Nick thought. 'Without Specters, there's no Zephyx, and without Zephyx, you can't make Zephyx materials.'

'Wait, but they had Zephyx! They had this machine!'

'But with Zephyx, they also should have access to powerful materials, and the humans should have also been able to become more powerful.'

'But they didn't?'

Nick's mind was filled with contradictions.

Nothing made sense.

"The technologies from the Old World are incomparably advanced," Julian said. "Albert and his team looked at them, and for most of them, they couldn't even tell what they were used for."

"Nobody in the city even has a clue how the technology from the Old World works. The only things that make sense are their normal guns. We know how these work."

"However, the parts needed to construct these guns need to be so incredibly precise that it would take an Expert years to learn to make one, and every gun would take days or weeks of focused manufacturing to produce."

"And for what? For a gun that loses its effect on level two Extractors."

Julian chuckled again.

"The Old World is mystical."

"I'm not surprised that the Old World found a way to create Zephyx."

"But I am surprised that you found such a machine."

Nick was still lost in thought.

So many things didn't make sense.

"Why did you tell me?" Julian asked.

Nick was taken out of his thoughts and looked at Julian.

"Because I don't want to die," Nick said.

"Oh?" Julian repeated. "You think you wouldn't be able to hide it and that I would kill you for keeping it a secret from me?"

"No," Nick said. "It's not you killing me. It's the governor."

Julian remained silent for a bit.

Then, he began to chuckle.

Apparently, he found Nick's logic to be quite amusing.

However, he didn't tell Nick why he found it amusing.

"Interesting," Julian said. "You fear that the governor wants to silence you if you tell him. So, you told me first so that I can tell him since I don't need to fear such retaliation."

Nick nodded. "Also, the information about the ruin's location is probably also worth quite a bit."

"It sure is," Julian answered. "I can get quite a bit out of this."

"Aegis is very interested in ruins from the Old World, and the cities have to tell them if they found one of them."

"Aegis will most likely send some people to look into the ruin, and the city definitely gets something out of this."

Julian chuckled yet again.

"It was smart of you to tell me since you wouldn't be able to make use of this information."

"But I can."