Kill the Sun

Nick and Wyntor were listening to the Parasite intently.

"You're going to love this," the Parasite said. "This Specter is easy to capture, easy to find, and easy to work with."

Wyntor looked at the Parasite with furrowed brows. "That sounds a bit too good to be true."

"And it would be," the rat shouted, "but you guys are in luck."

"The Specter I'm going to tell you about is my competition, and I want to get rid of him. If he weren't eating so many of my corpses, I would never give his location to anyone for just ten corpses."

Wyntor just gestured for the Parasite to continue.

"I'm calling him the Screaming Coffin," the Parasite said.

"Screaming Coffin?" Wyntor repeated. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

"Yep!" the rat said with a smile. "It's a Possession Specter, the very thing all of you Zephyx Manufacturers want."

Wyntor looked at the rat with a suspicious expression. "And you're going to hand that Specter to us just like that?"

"Well," the Parasite slowly said. "Why not view it as a nice favor from me for our future negotiations?"

"Sure," Wyntor slowly said with an uncertain tone. "So, where is this Screaming Coffin, and what does it do?"

"Right here," the rat said. "In fact, you're not even 30 meters away from it."

This surprised Nick and Wyntor, and they looked around.

Sadly, since the sewers were so dark, they couldn't see much.

"This guy eats the same stuff as me, human corpses," the rat said, "but he takes way longer to digest them, and he isn't very fast."

"The Screaming Coffin is moving around the bottom of the sewers, and whenever he finds a corpse, he swims toward it and consumes it."

"While the guy is just a Hatchling, I can't overwhelm him with just my minions, which is why I have to give him corpses from time to time. In fact, I had to protect the corpses you guys gave me quite fiercely just now since he wanted them very badly."

When Nick heard about the Screaming Coffin, he furrowed his brows.

Sure, a Possession Specter was the best Specter possible for Zephyx extraction.

They didn't run away.

They didn't fight back.

They were easy to work with.

A Possession Specter essentially represented free money for a Zephyx Manufacturer.

However, there was one bad thing.

One couldn't attune one's Zephyx Synchronizer to a Possession Specter.

This meant that Nick's issue still wasn't solved.

He still needed a Specter that had a high compatibility with his ability.

"How powerful is it?" Wyntor asked while Nick was thinking about the issue with his ability.

"Not at all," the Parasite said with a dismissing tone. "He has a couple of grabby tendrils, but Nick should easily be strong enough to resist it. Especially since he doesn't technically have a perception since he's just an object."

"In fact, if Nick isn't careful, he might accidentally rip the poor guy into two."

All of this sounded too good to be true, and Nick still felt suspicious.

Was the Parasite planning something?

"Thank you," Wyntor said from the side. "We will be capturing the Screaming Coffin in a couple of days."

"In a couple of days?" the Parasite repeated. "Why not now? The guy is literally below me."

"You said the Screaming Coffin consumes corpses, correct?" Wyntor asked.

The rat nodded.

"And we just procured nine corpses. However, we don't have these corpses anymore."

"If we capture the Screaming Coffin right now, it needs corpses to stay placated, but if we go out and immediately get even more corpses after getting so many just hours ago, the guards might suspect us."

"So, we have to act like we already have the Screaming Coffin and that the nine corpses went to it."

"Because of that, I want to wait for three to five days before capturing it."

The rat didn't seem happy, but the Parasite understood Wyntor's decision.

"Fine," the Parasite answered. "Just call me when you need his location, but don't call me just to chat. Getting one of my minions to this isolated location wastes too much energy, and if I'm getting called for some dumb reasons, I might start charging you for my consultations."

"Of course," Wyntor said. "Thank you for the trade, and we will be calling for you when it's time to capture the Screaming Coffin."

"Sure," the rat said before diving into the water and vanishing.

The next moment, Wyntor turned to Nick. "Close everything up. No one must know what happened."

Nick was pulled out of his thoughts and nodded.

After a couple of minutes, everything had been put back, and Nick looked at Wyntor again.

"I still need a proper Specter for my Ability Advancement," Nick said.

"I know," Wyntor said, "but it's actually extremely good that we got a Possession Specter this time."

A smile appeared on Wyntor's face. "The Screaming Coffin probably produces a lot of Zephyx since it is consuming human corpses. Specters that consume humans tend to produce a lot of Zephyx in very little time."

"With it and the Dreamer, we will be producing a great amount of Zephyx every day, which will allow us to buy more advanced things."

"Your advancement is still over a year away, and we have plenty of time to accumulate wealth during that time," Wyntor said. "Don't forget that there are not only Specters roaming around that we humans haven't found yet but that there are also ones that are simply too troublesome to capture and contain."

  "With enough money, we might even be able to get a Containment Unit for a Force Specter," Wyntor said with a smirk.

Nick's eyebrows rose in positive surprise.

If Nick could also choose from some Force Specters, his number of choices would improve tremendously. 

In the end, Nick accepted that getting a Possession Specter was a good thing. 

Best of all, Nick probably didn't even need to hire more Zephyx Extractors for the new Specter.