Chapter 671: Inception

Grey found an Outpost less than ten minutes later, the familiar Safe Room circuit flashing beneath his hand before the wall split open and allowed him inside. He had already pulled the Elemental blueprints out of Cyber Space by the time he stepped through, but the sight of the frog man standing behind the counter made his steps slow almost immediately.

Barkeep Ji was staring at him.

There was no grin this time, no amusement hidden behind narrowed eyes, and Grey had known the man long enough to understand what that meant without needing him to say a word.

"Not you too."

Grey rolled his eyes.

Ji didn’t answer, though the silence was an answer in itself.

Grey shook his head and walked toward the counter, holding out a hand before Ji could find some indirect way to make his opinion known. The frog man looked at it for a moment before accepting the handshake, and once Grey released him, he planted both hands against the counter and stood a little straighter.

"Before I left Melix, I got word that an army was already moving toward the territory." Grey’s expression settled. "I don’t know exactly who’s in it yet, but how much do you want to bet a pretty large percentage of them are Elementals?"

Ji remained silent.

"If you want me to be a cuck and bend over while saying yes daddy, you’re asking the wrong one."

Grey slapped the bundle of blueprints onto the counter.

Ji finally lowered his gaze, his fingers passing over the first few pages without any visible surprise as he understood what Grey had made. His eyes moved from the Proving Class designs through Established, Vector, Vanguard and Command before eventually reaching the Dominus versions, and several seconds passed before he spoke.

"A cycle that perpetuates another cycle."

"Maybe so."

Grey leaned against the counter, watching him.

"But that cycle ends after everyone learns to stop pissing me off. As far as I’m concerned, this is just a warning shot."

Ji looked up.

Then he grinned.

Not the small, knowing smile Grey was used to seeing whenever Ji thought he’d figured something out before him, but a wide grin that stretched across the frog man’s face until he looked borderline insane.

Grey’s eyes narrowed.

"You fucker. You’re standing here trying to tone police me when you’re crazier than I am."

Ji laughed, the sound carrying through the otherwise empty Outpost.

"How do you think I ended up here?"

Grey’s eyebrow slowly rose. For half a second, he expected Ji to explode.

That wasn’t even an exaggeration. Grey had spent enough time around the barkeep to know how absurdly careful he usually was with what he said, and half of the useful things Grey had learned from him had come from following strange pauses, unanswered questions and expressions Ji probably wasn’t technically allowed to give him.

Now the man was practically volunteering information.

Grey waited but Ji only continued smiling.

"I could have spoken my mind from the beginning."

Grey’s lip twitched. "You’re literally the one who told me you couldn’t."

"Did I?"

Ji tilted his head, appearing genuinely thoughtful. "I can’t remember."

Grey gave him a deadpan stare.

For several seconds, neither of them said anything, and then a soft pulse came from Virtueless against Grey’s back. The angel lady’s voice followed soon after, carrying considerably less amusement than either of them.

"The restrictions have changed."

Grey glanced toward the black rod.

"Earth?"

"Earth’s integration with the Genesis System, yes."

Grey’s attention sharpened immediately, and even Ji’s ridiculous grin weakened as the conversation moved somewhere more important. The angel lady seemed to consider how much Grey already understood before continuing.

"The Genesis Games were never intended to exist in their current form. They were certainly not created to be a spectacle for audiences to watch while outside powers manipulated Candidates for entertainment."

Grey thought of the Great Udon, the broadcasts, sponsors and every convenient little rule that somehow became considerably less convenient whenever someone powerful wanted him dead. He had known for a long time that the Games had been warped by outside influence, though he’d never seriously considered what they might have looked like before that influence began.

"The restrictions you know now were built over time," she continued. "Many were reactions from the Genesis System itself, attempts to contain excessive interference without possessing the freedom to simply remove those interfering with it."

Grey’s fingers tapped once against the counter.

"So every time the Council finds a new way to cheat, Genesis adds another rule."

"That is an inelegant explanation."

"But is it wrong, though?"

"... No."

Grey nodded.

"Then we’re good."

The angel lady ignored him. "What you call the Genesis Council has existed around the Games for an extremely long time, and much of the structure you currently know is the result of that struggle. The System adapts, the Council responds, then the System adapts again."

Grey’s eyes narrowed as something clicked into place.

"The Cracked Worlds."

This time, Ji’s smile disappeared completely.

The angel lady took a moment before answering.

"The first Cracked World was not an accident."

Grey became completely still.

"It was an evolution."

Her words settled over the Outpost while Grey’s thoughts began moving faster, pieces he’d never realized belonged to the same puzzle slowly drawing together. Cracked Worlds broke rules ordinary worlds didn’t, their structures created openings Genesis normally refused to allow, and Grey himself had spent most of his time benefiting from loopholes no normal Candidate should have possessed.

"The Genesis System was attempting to break free from the hold the Council had established over it," the angel lady continued. "Cracked Worlds were one result, environments where the normal structure could be altered enough to produce outcomes the Council had greater difficulty controlling."

Grey looked down at the Elemental blueprints still sitting beneath Ji’s hand.

"So where does Earth fit into this?"

"Where do you think?"

Grey’s gaze slowly returned to Ji.

The barkeep was watching him quietly now, and for the first time Grey understood why his restrictions suddenly seemed to have vanished. Earth hadn’t simply begun integrating with Genesis, it had apparently shoved itself into the middle of a fight that had been going on long before humanity even knew the Genesis System existed.

The angel lady’s voice lowered.

"Your actions have helped the Genesis System considerably, Grey Temolt. Right now, the Genesis Council has less control over the Games than it has had since their very inception."