Chapter 553: End of a Dream

Aria left Nick's office again.

Nick only looked at the sheet of paper on the table.

He was trying to focus on reading the paper, but he kept rereading the same line again and again.

It was like he couldn't remember the sentence he had just read.

He felt like he was in a dream, but he also felt like he had just woken up from a long dream.

Aria had told Nick about how the relationship had been for her for almost ten minutes.

She said that she wanted to help Nick.

But she couldn't.

She tried and tried, but no matter what she did, she didn't have the power to help him.

And she believed the reason was that he didn't want to help himself.

She also said that a relationship was supposed to improve the lives of both partners.

Yet, Nick had only made Aria's days worse.

Sure, in the beginning, it was great, but after the initial excitement vanished, she was filled with worries and frustrations.

And then, she said something that really hit Nick.

"And I don't think this relationship improves your life either."

That stung because she was right.

Nick had enjoyed the idea of being in a relationship, but he hadn't enjoyed being in one.

He had dreamed about being excited and happy for once.

Yet, deep inside, he knew that this would never happen.

It was impossible.

And when he had finally been confronted with an actual relationship, he only felt guilt and wanted to do nothing but avoid it.

Whenever any happiness came into Nick's life, it was overwhelmed by unending guilt, pressure, and suffering.

This made Nick unconsciously avoid any happy moments.

And talking with Aria made him happy...

So, he avoided Aria on a personal level.

She was right.

This relationship was dead.

It had always been dead, and Nick felt a cold feeling of affirmation inside of himself.

He knew from the very beginning that it couldn't possibly work.

He had known.

And yet, he had still tried.

Like an idiot.

He had dreamed of having a bit of warmth in his life, and for just a moment, he had foolishly convinced himself that he could truly achieve it.

The worst part was that Nick knew that this was all himself.

He knew that this was all in his head.

It was not Aria's fault.

He was at fault.

He was the one that made this relationship impossible.

Yet, logic and emotions were both on his side.

He had killed too many innocent people to logically rationalize that he deserved happiness, and his emotions agreed.

Often, logic and emotions disagreed heavily on something, but not this time.

'Greed,' Nick thought after a couple of minutes. 'I was greedy.'

'I was selfish.'

'Happiness is not why I am still alive.'

'I am here to pay for all the damage I have caused.'

'Wasn't Markus chasing happiness when he accepted bribes from criminals?'

'Wasn't Vernon chasing happiness when he increased the Blood Tax?'

'Weren't the three leaders of Anatomy chasing happiness when they converted all their employees into puppets?'

'People do things that they believe will make them happy.'

'I will feel happier when I have a billion more credits.'

'I will feel happier when I rule the city.'

'I will feel happier when I kill the people who wronged me.'

'People try to amplify positive feelings while trying to get rid of negative feelings.'

'And if you're not careful, you will soon lose yourself in a whirlpool of greed.'

'But I'm not any better.'

'Am I not chasing happiness by trying to redeem myself?'

Nick's mind started to think about something, but he couldn't decipher what his mind was thinking about.

He only knew that he was thinking about something, but he didn't know what he was thinking about.

Maybe he was just trying to process his new reality.

For almost 30 minutes, Nick just stared at the wall.

Ironically, the thing that hurt the most was that it didn't hurt a lot.

It had been inevitable.

He had been prepared for it.

He knew it would happen.

That was the worst thing because it meant that there was no hope left.

If Nick had truly had some hope, he would feel worse.

But he didn't.

'What now?' Nick thought.

Silence.

'I guess back to work.'

'Nothing has truly changed.'

'We will still talk about the same things as before.'

'We might have officially been in a relationship, but we haven't truly been in one.'

Nick sighed.

'I can't have a relationship.'

'I will only end up pulling my partner down, and I, on the other hand, might get distracted from the true purpose of my life.'

'Bettering humanity.'

'I was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand people, and I need to improve the lives of at least a million people in return.'

'When I've accomplished that, I can think about happiness.'

Nick put his ex out of his mind and focused on planning for his departure from Crimson City.

While Nick was planning, he felt like everything happened automatically.

It was almost like he was watching someone else working on something while he just looked on.

He tried to tell himself that everything was over and that he had to go back to work, but it wasn't that easy.

He was a human, and humans were not machines.

Eventually, it was like nothing had happened that day.

And yet, Nick still felt different.

Distant might be the right word.

Over the next few days, Nick finished a 20-year plan for Crimson City's development.

The plan wasn't supposed to be followed strictly since unforeseen incidents were bound to happen.

It was more meant as a guide and checklist.

It included the goals the city should achieve and what things needed to be avoided.

Naturally, the plan also included detailed explanations about why these things had to be avoided.

Everything was for the long-term prosperity of the city.

And then, Nick was done.

There was still one last day left before the inspector would come, and Nick didn't have anything left to do.

The city was already running on its own.

He didn't even need to talk to Aria anymore.

From tomorrow onward, she would rule the city on her own, and Nick had already given her all his tasks.

At this moment, Nick was only a watcher.

So, that was what Nick did.

Nick left the headquarters, turned into mist, and entered the city.

He didn't want to be recognized while looking at the city one last time.

Tomorrow, he would leave, and Nick wanted to take one last look at the city.

His first stop was the Dregs, specifically the place where he had lived.

Sadly, the place had become completely unrecognizable.

The alley in which he had met Albert and Horua's house had both fallen into the Crimson Sea when it broke out.

The place where he and Wyntor had caught the Dreamer was also unrecognizable.

All of these changes reminded Nick of what he had done.

He was the reason why all these old places were gone.

He was the reason why the Dregs no longer existed.

In the bad and in the good sense.

Eventually, Nick reached a very familiar street.

A hotel and a warehouse.

The hotel was where Nick had taken care of Horua, and the warehouse had been Dark Dream's first building.

As Nick looked at the warehouse, he felt like he was transported back to his youth.

He had been so uneducated...

But he had also laughed so much.

Had he been happy back then?

Maybe not, but he had definitely been closer to being happy back then.

Then, Nick went to another big building in the Outer City.

Dark Dream's second building.

Sometime within the last decade, someone had finally moved the big building to a proper place.

Keeping such a big building leaning on the megastructure didn't feel safe, and the fact that it wasn't moved earlier was a good example of Markus' corruption.

Something like this should have been dealt with within months at the latest.

Nick thought back to the time when he worked in that building.

He had already felt pretty bad back then, but things had been simpler.

Nick had believed that he would change Crimson City, but he didn't have the power back then.

But now, he did, and that put a lot more pressure and responsibility on him.

Things had been easier back then.

Eventually, Nick entered the Inner City and looked at the outer part of the new headquarters.

This was the building that had once belonged to the Spartans.

The events from that day went through Nick's mind.

Back then, he wouldn't have believed that this little mission would change his entire life.

Finally, Nick looked at the center of the Inner City, at the new headquarters.

This had been Dark Dream's last building before it fused with Solace to become Sky Dream.

In a way, Nick's home hadn't changed since then.

Over the next minutes, Nick also looked through the middle layer, but there wasn't anything interesting to him there.

He decided against looking into the upper layer since he only felt disgust for it.

That was it.

For a couple of minutes, Nick looked at Crimson City.

And then, he went to work with one of the city's Specters.

By the time he was done, the day of departure would have already arrived.