Kill the Sun

?The group walked towards the exit of Crimson City.

Nick wanted to know if anybody was following them, but that wasn't possible right now since his teammates were also looking at him.

Nick walked near the front, together with Clayton.

Behind the two of them were Petra and Jason, walking side-by-side but with a bit more distance than there was between Nick and Clayton.

Jenny was in the middle, in the back.

The positioning of the team wasn't related to authority but to where everyone would be most useful during a battle.

If one looked at their position from above and drew a couple of lines, one could see that the five of them were walking in an upside-down pentagram formation.

Jenny was well-defended at the back, and nobody could approach them from the front or the sides.

After a bit, they reached the bridge.

There were four Johns guarding the exit of the city, making sure that no normal people or Newbies left.

The outside world was extremely dangerous and leaving would be akin to suicide for most people.

Nick approached one of the guards and showed a sheet of paper to him.

The guard read through the paper, nodded, motioned for his colleagues to step to the side, and stepped to the side himself.

After the guards stepped to the side, the guard nodded at Nick. "Good luck out there," he said.

Nick nodded, and his group walked past the guards onto the bridge.

The bridge was only two meters wide, which meant that the group had to shrink their formation.

As the five of them walked across the bridge, their Barriers activated.

Even though the bridge kept most of the red mist at bay, a bit of it still floated across the bridge.

Luckily, they could survive this little bit of mist.

As they walked across the bridge, they felt quite claustrophobic due to the gigantic red "walls" surrounding the bridge.

"Can we walk faster?" Clayton asked in a deep voice from beside Nick. "My Barrier is using more Zephyx than I like."

Nick glanced at Clayton, turned to the team, and motioned forward.

The next moment, they sped up and ran across the bridge.

Nick still felt like he was walking at a comfortable speed, but the three Initial Johns were already running with a lot of power.

About a minute later, they reached the end of the bridge.

Since all Extractors in Dark Dream were required to have a certain level of fitness, none of them had run out of stamina.

One had to remember that advancing a level only increased the multiplier of one's base strength.

A scrawny Peak Newbie who barely moved daily might not be stronger than a top athlete who wasn't an Extractor.

While not every Extractor in Dark Dream had the physique of an athlete, the weakest among them were at least used to running for about ten minutes every day.

The five of them were highly interested in how the outside world looked like and looked around.

Sadly, they only found themselves in a corridor.

This corridor had been created to keep people from looking backward and accidentally seeing the Crimson Sea.

There were two people standing guard where the corridor met the bridge, and they just glanced at the team of five with a bit of interest.

The guards on this side of the bridge were vastly more powerful, with both of them being Experts.

The entire city only had a bit more than 80 Experts, and only about 20 of them worked for the city at a time.

Having two Experts stationed here meant that 10% of all Experts were stationed here.

This showed how serious Crimson City was taking the city's entrance.

Although, it actually made sense.

While the two Experts guarding Kugelblitz's entrance didn't make the most sense, guarding the entrance of the city seemed to be a sensible thing.

The two guards didn't ask any questions after seeing Nick.

By now, most Experts and Veterans had seen Nick before and knew who he was.

Someone of Nick's profile wouldn't sneak out of the city.

He was just too recognizable.

The group of five walked past the guards and walked through the corridor.

After about ten meters, the even floor turned into stairs.

Crimson City was on top of a cauldron filled with ruins, but there was also a natural earthen wall surrounding that cauldron.

The earthen wall was around ten meters high and was essentially just a hill that surrounded the city.

After a couple of stairs, the five of them reached the top, and they could already see the exit.

The five of them walked forward and stepped out of the corridor.

When they left the corridor, they had officially left Crimson City for the first time in their lives.

Less than 1% of people would ever see the outside.

And they were finally part of these select few people.

Beside the entrance were four Veterans, all focusing on the endless world before them.

Jenny, Petra, Clayton, and Jason took deep breaths as they saw the outside world for the first time.

It was so big!

It was endless!

They could always see the end of the city from the roof of any building, and the city had been their world for all their lives.

This meant that they had always been able to see the end of their world.

But now, they could no longer see the end of their world.

The next thing that hit them was the sheer lack of metal.

There was absolutely no metal visible anywhere!

Just dirt, sand, and stone.

Almost everything that the eye could see was either light-

brown earth, light-brown dust, yellow sand, or grey stone.

There were dusty valleys, stony hills, and mounds of sand.

That was it.

That was the world.

Plants?

No.

Animals?

No.

Buildings?

No.

People?

Extremely few.

Life?

Almost nonexistent.

If one got rid of all of the life within Crimson City and left behind a world of metal, there would be just as much life inside the city as outside the city.

The world was huge and endless…

But also pointless and lifeless.

Except for the Specters and their minions.