Nick immediately charged into the dark hole.
The hole was around two meters wide and led deep into the mountain.
As soon as he jumped into the hole, terrifying faces appeared all around him.
They were all laughing maniacally as they tore into Nick's flesh.
Nick tried his best to ignore them, but it wasn't very easy to ignore the sensation of being torn into pieces.
"Petra!" Nick shouted as he landed somewhere after falling for a while.
"Boss!"
Nick gritted his teeth as Petra's voice came from all directions at the same time.
He had no other choice.
WHOOOM!
In an instant, an explosion of light appeared around Nick, banishing the Nightmare's influence.
This was the ability Nick had gained after working with the Blinding Light.
For just a short moment, a picture of Nick's surroundings was burned into his eyes.
He was in a long, wide, and dark cave.
It was almost three meters high and around five meters wide.
Even more, the cave was actually pretty straight.
At that moment, Nick had also heard sounds of fighting from one direction.
Sadly, everything became chaotic again as the darkness returned.
Nick narrowed his eyes and started to shine, but this time, he was giving off a weak light continuously.
It was barely anything, and the cave was still quite dark, but it was enough to weaken the Nightmare's influence to a point where Nick could actually navigate his surroundings.
At the same time, he felt a strong drain.
This ability was not designed to be used continuously, and the drain on Nick's Zephyx was terrifying in relation to how little light he was producing.
The conversion of Zephyx to light was horrible.
Nick immediately charged down in the direction in which he had heard the fighting.
He rounded a corner and heard the shuffling getting louder.
Even though he had only used his light for a couple of seconds, he had already lost nearly 50% of his Zephyx.
When Nick rounded another corner, he deactivated his light after looking at the layout of the pathway in front of him.
The faces returned, and Nick jumped forward with all of his speed.
BANG!
Nick hit the wall at the end with his arms and immediately jumped forward again.
This time, he didn't know what awaited him at the end of the hallway since he had only seen the beginning of the hallway.
BANG!
Nick hit the wall again.
But then, Nick's eyes shone.
His ability had just deactivated!
WHOOOOM!
Nick exploded into a burst of light again, using up an entire 20% of his Zephyx.
In that short moment, Nick could see his surroundings.
About 20 meters away, down another hallway, he saw a man who was nearly 2.5 meters tall.
The man perfectly blended into the dark surroundings, and his black eyes had been looking at Nick.
The man had six extremely long and thin arms with thick hairs growing out of them.
They looked almost like the limbs of a spider.
In the middle of those limbs was a dark, elongated sphere.
This had to be where Petra was.
Nick had seen all of that in an instant before the cave became dark again.
As soon as the cave became dark, Nick's ability reactivated.
This was the effect and purpose of his ability.
By sacrificing a big part of his Zephyx, Nick could create a powerful burst of light with a strong blinding effect.
Nick immediately jumped down the hallway with all of his power as the faces returned to tear chunks out of him.
In an instant, Nick hit the wall again.
That was bad.
After all, he had jumped towards the Specter's location.
It seemed like the Specter had evaded to the side, dodging Nick's charge.
As soon as Nick landed, his ability also deactivated due to the sound.
Most likely, the Specter was right beside Nick.
Nick had to make a decision.
Use up even more of his Zephyx?
Blindly attack but risk killing Petra?
Retreat?
In an instant, Nick gritted his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and made his decision.
He quickly put his forearms in front of his face.
CRKSH!
Amongst all the unending pain the Nightmare was inflicting on him, Nick felt an actual impact on his chest.
Sadly, he couldn't tell how much damage he had taken since he was being torn apart in his perception anyway.
Did he receive a harmless punch, or did his entire lower torso just vanish with that attack?
Nick couldn't tell.
He only knew that he had been attacked by something real.
And that was what he had bet on.
Nick immediately jumped forward and felt something solid, which he then toppled over.
His hands grabbed something.
WHOOOOOM!
That was when Nick unleashed another explosion of light.
Several things appeared in Nick's perception.
The dark Specter's chest was right below him.
The Specter's human but blank face looked directly at Nick with a dead expression.
Several long appendages were readying to strike Nick.
The dark orb that should have been Petra was below Nick.
Lastly, Nick could see how injured he was.
There were three red spots on his torso.
However, Nick could tell that his abdominal muscles were still in mostly one piece.
This confirmed his guess.
'This is not an Adult but a strong Adolescent!'
Earlier, Nick had decided to deactivate his Barrier to take a hit.
Like this, he wouldn't lose any more of his precious Zephyx.
However, if the enemy were an actual Adult, Nick would have been torn apart.
Yet, wouldn't an Adult have directly attempted to kidnap him?
Or what about Jenny?
A weak Adult would have taken Jenny since she had five times as much Zephyx as Petra, and a strong Adult would have taken Nick.
So, Nick was sure that this had to be a strong or average Adolescent.
And by getting attacked, Nick could tell where his opponent was in the dark.
As soon as Nick realized that he had been correct, all uncertainty vanished from him, and he looked into the dark eyes of the Specter.
