Kill the Sun

Over the next couple of minutes, Mundus and Zarren from Anatomy arrived.

They just threw a glance at Nick before sitting down at their position.

A minute later, Aria Light and Vernon Melfion entered.

Aria greeted everyone with a friendly voice, while Vernon just greeted a couple of people with some casual words.

"Oh, Julian isn't here? What a shame," Vernon said, looking at the empty seat beside Nick.

Then, he just turned to his own seat and sat down.

He hadn't looked at Nick even once.

However, Nick had expected as much.

The incident after Wyntor's death had completely ruined his relationship with the Melfions and had soured Dark Dream's relationship with Kugelblitz.

While Kugelblitz wasn't actively going against Dark Dream due to Julian "being friends" with several of their shareholders and Vernon, they also didn't show much politeness to them.

Aria Light mostly didn't care about all this drama, but Kugelblitz had to appear united in front of outsiders, which was why she also ignored Nick.

But behind closed doors, she didn't support Vernon's vendetta against Nick.

Vernon had said that he suspected that Nick had a hand in his son's death, but there was no proof.

Nick had been just a John back then.

How could someone like that have the connection or ability to mentally manipulate an experienced Veteran and perfectly place them at the perfect spot to kill Wyntor?

Additionally, everyone knew that Nick was a naïve idiot.

How could someone like that plan something like this?

When Vernon had shared his suspicions with Aria, she had asked about Dark Dream's new CEO. Couldn't he have killed Wyntor?

However, Vernon denied the possibility.

He knew Julian very well, and he couldn't imagine Julian doing something like that.

So, in the end, there was no reason to suspect Nick.

Yet, Vernon kept feeling like it was Nick who had killed his son.

Although, that was only partially the reason why Vernon hated Nick.

Much more important was the fact that Nick had humiliated Vernon in front of others!

Vernon hadn't been this humiliated in years!

Naturally, Vernon wanted to take his revenge on Nick, but that had proved to be impossible over the last two years.

Kugelblitz didn't allow any of their owners to use Specialists for personal matters without permission from the other shareholders, but without Specialists, it was impossible to covertly assassinate Nick inside the city.

Usually, Vernon would just send an Expert, but he knew that he couldn't risk letting one of his Experts get caught.

That would cost Kugelblitz billions of credits!

But then, a month ago, Nick had left the city!

Finally, a chance to kill him!

Sadly, he had already gone back into the city before Vernon had even heard about Nick leaving.

And now, Nick was constantly inside the city again!

So, in the end, Vernon was stuck waiting for his chance again.

Someday, he would finally get a chance to kill Nick!

A couple of minutes passed, and finally, the last person arrived.

The governor, Markus Julius, walked over to his seat at the end of the table.

He calmly greeted everyone, and everyone returned his greeting.

"Julian couldn't come today since he is busy in Dark Dream," the governor told everyone.

None of the people were surprised, and they shot a glance at Nick.

Once more, they had to deal with Nick as the sole representative of Dark Dream.

Nick just apologized to everyone about Julian's absence.

"And since we are on the topic of Dark Dream, I might as well announce a couple of things related to them," the governor said casually.

Everyone turned to look at the governor with interest.

If the governor was the one announcing it, it was probably something quite important.

"About a month ago, Dark Dream helped the city not once but twice," the governor said.

Different expressions of intrigue and interest appeared on everyone's face.

Twice?

Everyone had heard about the Spilling Bottle by now.

After all, the Spilling Bottle belonged to the city now, and the city's Specters were not kept secret.

When they heard that the Spilling Bottle came from Dark Dream, they felt annoyed and envious.

The Spilling Bottle was worth a lot!

Of course, the origin of the Spilling Bottle also hadn't stayed secret for long since the Swallowing Swamp had almost completely vanished by now.

When they realized that the Spilling Bottle had been the reason for the Swallowing Swamp, they grew frustrated.

They had all inspected the Swallowing Swamp at least once, and none of them had found the Spilling Bottle!

The fact that Dark Dream could do something that they couldn't annoyed them to no end.

However, what about the other helping hand?

The Spilling Bottle was the first thing that Dark Dream gave the city.

What was the other one?

"During their excursion, Dark Dream found a ruin from the Old World," the governor said.

It was like a bomb had exploded in the office, and everyone looked shocked at the governor.

Even the two from Anatomy looked intensely at the governor.

A ruin from the Old World!

There could potentially be technologies in there that could grant them incredible benefits.

Ghosty especially was interested in the ruin.

"The ruin has been handed over to Aegis, and Aegis has already collected it. You don't need to look for it," the governor said.

'Collected it?' Nick thought. 'Did they put it in their pockets and fly away with it?'

'I'm pretty sure the mountain is still there. I would've heard of it if it just stood up and walked away.'

"Aegis wants to express its deep gratitude to Dark Dream and is willing to support them with a significant financial contribution," the governor said.

"Dark Dream has accepted the contribution and decided to reinvest it into the city by making a significant purchase."

"In a month, Dark Dream will move into the central headquarters of the city forces in the lower layer, and the central headquarters will move towards the building previously owned by the Spartans."

"Additionally, Dark Dream receives the Adult the Talker."