?Nick's body was rapidly pulled to the side as the platform started to shoot into the actual Containment Unit.
As soon as the door opened, Hera had already vanished, her body hidden behind a wall of light that suddenly appeared between the two of them.
Nick's entire world had already been replaced with white.
The only way Nick could tell that he was moving was his sense of balance since the white world in front of his eyes seemed unending and unchanging.
DING!
The platform stopped abruptly, and Nick finally saw something slightly different.
It was very difficult to see, but there was one spot in Nick's vision that was a bit whiter than the other spots.
Sadly, Nick couldn't tell how big or far away the spot was.
The only thing that he could tell was that he was in immense discomfort.
Nick had just seen the brightest thing in his entire life, and his reflexes acted accordingly.
Nick's eyelids wanted to close, but they couldn't.
Nick wanted to turn away from the light, but he couldn't.
Nick's hands wanted to cover his face, but they couldn't.
"Ah, fuck!" Nick said with pain as his eyes tried their best to look to the side.
Yet, his eyes perfectly pointed forward, and he couldn't move his body.
The next moment, he felt his eyes becoming hotter and hotter.
It felt like somebody was heating up the inside of his brain!
Nick's pupils had already turned into pinpricks, and the white eyeball surrounding his iris was turning red as it got filled with blood.
Nick gritted his teeth as the pain got worse and worse.
He felt like all the moisture was leaving his eyes!
He wished for nothing more than to be able to rub them.
Except for Nick's groans of pain, everything else was silent inside the Containment Unit.
Nick's eyes had already started watering in an effort to keep them moist.
But it didn't matter.
The water vanished in an instant.
After an unknown period of pain and misery, Nick couldn't see any white light anymore.
He wasn't even sure what color he saw.
Was it grey?
Was it white?
Was it black?
It was like the things his eyes were delivering to him no longer made any sense.
Nick assumed that the small part of the retinas behind the pupil had been destroyed and that the worst part was behind him.
Sadly, that wasn't true.
Nick could still technically see by expanding his pupil, which meant that he wasn't blind yet.
He would only be blind when his eyeballs had become useless.
So, it continued.
Nick's eyeballs lost more and more of their moisture until they actually sunk into his skull as shriveled bags.
The pain was immense.
At that moment, Nick remembered something.
Wyntor had the Blinding Light's ability.
Additionally, Wyntor had needed to work with the Blinding Light several times to get it.
Lastly, Wyntor had gotten that ability when he was just a child.
This meant that Wyntor had gone through this thing several times when he was just twelve years old or something like that.
Surprisingly, thinking about that made it easier for Nick.
If even a child could do that several times, why couldn't he?
So, even though the pain Nick was feeling was immense, he still tried to focus on the Zephyx in the surroundings.
Since Nick was in the process of becoming blind, the Blinding Light had to be producing Zephyx.
It wasn't easy to focus, but Nick managed to feel the presence of Zephyx.
Ever since he had entered Zephosis, Nick's ability to perceive Zephyx had increased tremendously.
He tried his best to relax his body and to let the Zephyx in the surroundings enter him.
The pain still made him cramp up from time to time, but he was slowly making progress.
Some time later, Nick felt something near the bottom of his neck.
Right in front of the foreign Zephyx that Simon Francium had given him was Nick's Zephyx Synchronizer.
At this moment, Nick felt a feeling similar to having a stomach filled to the brim with water.
It felt a bit like being hungry but being unable to eat.
Nick focused on that feeling.
The next moment, he felt the Zephyx in the surroundings rapidly entering him.
It was like a whirlpool had suddenly opened up at the place where his Zephyx Synchronizer was.
At the same time, the muscles all over Nick's body tensed.
Between the brutal waves of pain, Nick could feel himself growing more powerful.
He was doing it!
He was advancing!
At that moment, things became far easier.
The pain was still there, but it no longer mattered as much.
He was becoming a Veteran!
He was coming closer to his goal!
And suddenly, he stopped moving.
He just looked into the light aimlessly.
His advancement was forgotten.
His pain was forgotten.
A couple of seconds later, Nick advanced to becoming a Veteran.
And yet, he wasn't even thinking about that.
No, he was thinking about something completely different.
'My goal?'
Silence.
'What goal?' he thought.
'Wasn't my goal to help the people in the Dregs?'
'Didn't I want to make things right for Horua?'
Silence.
'But the people in the Dregs are dead.'
'They're all dead.'
'And I killed them.'
Nick just kept facing the light.
'I don't have a goal anymore.'
'The only reason why I was doing all of this was to redeem myself.'
'But instead, I only made everything worse.'
'By trying to make things right, I only ended up making them worse.'
Nick had finally become a Veteran after years of hard work.
And yet, that didn't matter.
It made no difference to him.
Nick wasn't interested in power.
He was interested in being happy and making things right.
Sadly, he couldn't do that anymore.
So, what was the point of growing more powerful?
'Why am I even doing all of this?' Nick asked himself again.
'I don't even have a goal anymore.'
Nick kept looking at the light in front of him aimlessly.
There was so much light.
Sadly, his eyes couldn't see any of it.
