’It can’t be... right?’

Grey didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, he was certain that this wasn’t Zone 234. Nothing about it was the same. There weren’t even any of the ruins.

However, were the ruins supposed to surround the city like that in the first place? What if they were unleashed by something else?

The Registration Phase of the Genesis Games seemed like a throwaway challenge, but what happened after Grey successfully formed an outpost pointed in a different direction.

Grey had been rewarded with the title of knight for what amounted to just clearing ruins. Clearly, the city didn’t want them there and was trying to get rid of them.

The assumption Grey had made was that the ruins had always been there. But why would he make such an assumption? Who the hell would build a city in the middle of chaos like that by choice?

What if the city was built first, and then the ruins manifested long afterward because some idiot thought too much of himself and poked a bear he shouldn’t have?

This line of thought might explain that this could very well be Zone 234 in the past, and this was truly Bishop Calixan—maybe a Bishop Calixan who didn’t quite understand what he had summoned this time around.

When it came to the abyss, though, that was a far harder leap to make... far harder except for the fact that of all Grey’s theories, the abyss was at the top of the list in terms of what he thought Giyoto might be after...

And if Giyoto was really after whatever was at the bottom of that abyss, then it also meant that Giyoto felt the Savage Altar he got his hands on was exactly what he needed to clear it.

The armor that Grey had seen in Globb’s hidden basement had a pattern identical to what he had seen on Joaquin, which was identical to what he was seeing on Blood now.

And Calixan had just told Grey that Blood was half vampire and half goblin.

All of these coincidences were starting to stack up far too much, and every one of them seemed to only be capable of leading him down a single conclusion.

However, even with all of that speculation, there was little chance that Grey was correct about the abyss... until he saw Calixan’s reaction to what he said.

That was when Grey knew for certain.

Calixan really was aiming for whatever was in that abyss, and if Grey was correct, whatever was in that abyss had left the soon-to-be old man in a terrible state and completely ruined Zone 234.

"Damn, I’m a fucking genius." Grey said. "Alright, let’s go, old man. I’ll allow it."

Calixan blinked as though he was actually surprised that Grey agreed. That reaction didn’t bode well for their middling alliance, but Grey didn’t mind it too much.

He was fairly certain that he was going to have to kill Bishop Calixan to get what he wanted out of this Instance anyway.

It was obvious that these Instances weren’t really sending him back in time, but instead just projecting what had already happened. If it was really sending him back, Grey would have already been stuck in a paradox since he had killed Esmeralda’s past self after he killed her future self.

’At the very least this Bishop Calixan person didn’t have the audacity to get stronger than his future self. He also has a badass name.’ Grey sighed. ’Temolt is barely passable. I can work with that. But Calixan... that’s sweet. That sounds like I should be leading crusades and insurrections.’ 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Bishop Calixan had no idea what weird thoughts Grey was thinking. It took him a moment to recover before he nodded.

"The puppet needs to be fed first." Bishop Calixan said. "Then we can go."

Grey frowned. By fed, it was obvious what Calixan meant. He wanted to use the prisoners. That was why they were here in the first place.

Grey hadn’t forgotten why he had been so pissed off before, he had just pressed it down for the time being. He still planned to pay Calixan back in full later on.

But this made Grey’s eyes narrow. Then, seemingly realizing something, he sneered.

"I think your giant here will be just fine."

Calixan seemed startled by Grey’s sharpness.

If Calixan hadn’t said anything, Grey would have glossed over it and maybe forgotten about it, but the fact he had mentioned it made Grey realize something.

Calixan hadn’t just brought all the injured here, but he had also trapped the other teams as well. Trapping those teams like he had seemed to suggest that he had the same goal for them as he did the injured, it was just a matter of when he would get around to using them.

But Calixan had already flooded Blood’s body with a large amount of, well... blood.

Grey had been paying a great deal of attention. He might not have known exactly what was going on, but he knew that the blood wasn’t sacrificed to whatever God’s Mark Calixan was calling down. It was used to fuel Blood’s body.

Why would Calixan need to fuel something that had already been fueled?

Unless, of course, it was Calixan’s way to increase his little three-hour time limit.

"Lead the way." Grey said, a little bit of a biting edge of murder in his tone.

Calixan felt his spine grow cold.

This Calixan wasn’t nearly as powerful as his future self, and the latter Calixan hadn’t faced a Grey that was so strong either. If not for Blood, Calixan would fare better than Sir Pebble, but his odds at killing Grey would at best be 50/50.

That was enough to be incredibly apprehensive.

"... Okay." Calixan said calmly.

To the Bishop’s credit, he quickly regained his composure and did begin to lead the way.

They descended into the dungeons once more, but when they got to the third level, Calixan turned into the hallways, opened a cell, then found a hidden passageway before continuing down further.

Soon, they had entered catacombs Grey recognized all too well.

The abyss lay before them.