"Welcome back, Mr. Melfion," one of the two guards in front of Kugelblitz said politely.

Vernon just smiled and nodded before walking into Kugelblitz.

After entering, Vernon walked through the long hallway until he reached the Extractor shafts.

He typed a couple of things into the console, entered the shaft, and jumped out after reaching the top floor.

Just like with Dark Dream, Kugelblitz's top floor was also only for business meetings and administration.

Vernon walked straight to his office and entered.

After he closed the door behind him, he locked it, making sure that nobody would accidentally enter.

Vernon's smile vanished and was replaced with a cold frown.

He carelessly dumped a briefcase he was carrying on the floor.

SNAP!

The briefcase opened, and a cloud of mist came out.

A short moment later, the cloud turned into Nick, who just looked at Vernon.

Naturally, Vernon did not want to show his hand to the other members of Kugelblitz.

He had already suspected that some of the directors were controlled by Anatomy before the first vote had even happened today, but he had only been sure after the vote was done.

Yes, every human was greedy, but they were not greedy to such an insane degree.

Something else had to be going on.

Sadly, there was no way to check or report these things.

Checking the Directors and owners would warn Anatomy and might provoke them into attacking immediately.

Reporting sadly didn't work since the governor seemed to always cut Anatomy some slack.

Most likely, if they reported that Anatomy was controlling 60% of Kugelblitz, the governor might just directly argue that Kugelblitz belonged to Anatomy now.

Of course, that was bullshit, but that didn't matter.

The person who made the rules was not bound by said rules, only by their own morals.

A parent could enforce a rule of the house on the children, but who could stop the parent if they didn't follow that rule themselves?

Because of that, Vernon didn't want anyone to see Nick or to find out what he was planning.

Vernon went to the back of the room and pushed some furniture aside, revealing a small door at the bottom of the wall.

He fidgeted with the door for over half a minute before he carefully opened it.

Nick didn't look towards Vernon's direction.

He didn't want to antagonize Vernon needlessly.

When Nick had that thought, he almost laughed bitterly.

'I'm careful not to antagonize Vernon now?' Nick thought. 'The guy basically knows that I killed Wyntor. I don't think there's much I can do about that.'

Nick just slightly glanced towards Vernon's back.

'Although, he seems more interested in his profit than the death of his son.'

Eventually, Vernon turned around and put a sheet of metal on top of his table.

The big sheet of metal had countless runes of unknown origin carved into it, and Nick could feel incredible amounts of Zephyx inside the material.

This was definitely not something cheap.

After putting the sheet down, Vernon went to a locked cupboard, opened it, and carefully retrieved something.

It was a perfectly white sheet of paper.

When Nick saw that paper, his eyebrows rose in surprise.

'That's not paper! That's pure Zephyx in the shape of paper!'

Vernon carefully put the paper in the middle of the plate before retrieving an ornate fountain pen.

Then, he very slowly started to write on the paper with red ink.

Nick had to wait for over 20 minutes until Vernon was done writing.

"Come over and see if this is okay. Don't touch the paper," Vernon said, moving to the side.

Nick walked over and looked at the contract.

Nick had signed thousands of contracts within his 17 years of being a Chief Zephyx Extractor, and he was also very confident in being able to spot shady passages in one.

However, the contract seemed to be fine.

It stated exactly what they had agreed upon.

Nick would try his best to deal enough damage to Anatomy to give Kugelblitz a fighting chance.

He was not allowed to run away or retreat unless he genuinely believed that this was the best course of action for damaging Anatomy and keeping Kugelblitz alive.

In exchange, Kugelblitz would give Nick one Elixir before the mission started, as well as access to a Specter of his choosing for ability advancement.

And if Nick succeeded, Vernon would do his best to give Dark Dream an Elder that could be relatively easily worked with.

Originally, Nick asked for more since he would basically be saving Kugelblitz's ass, but Vernon wouldn't budge.

According to him, the Elixir was already worth more than a normal Elder.

Kugelblitz only invested in one Elixir every three years on average, and Vernon was already annoyed that he had to give Nick one of them.

"Looks good," Nick said.

Vernon nodded, went back to the paper, and signed at the bottom.

Then, he held the pen out to Nick without looking at him.

Nick grabbed the pen and signed at the bottom of the page.

Vernon carefully put the pen away and went to another locked cupboard.

Some seconds later, he took out seven crystals of Zephyx.

Each one was about five centimeters high and in the shape of a rhombus.

Each crystal represented exactly one kilo of Zephyx.

Vernon put the seven crystals on round outcroppings of the sheet of metal.

WHOOOM!

When he put the last one on it, Nick suddenly felt like some kind of force was suppressing him from all sides.

Immediately, some kind of terrifying presence seemed to enter the office, and Nick was forced to look over.

The office seemingly vanished, replaced by a portal that led to a dimension of eyes.

All of the eyes looked through the portal and focused on Nick and Vernon.

A cold shudder ran down Nick's back, and even if he could move, he wouldn't dare to.

A moment later, Nick felt like death touched his heart.

And then, the portal closed, and everything returned to normal.

Nick couldn't help taking a deep breath before looking at Vernon, who looked just as exhausted as him.