Grey had a feeling he knew what this Instance’s route wanted you to do.
Honestly, he hadn’t learned much about Instances. Maybe he should have asked Barkeep Ji about them, but by the time he figured out the whole situation with the Helion Frame and decked himself out in Epic equipment, their time had run out.
What he did know from the last historic Instance he had entered, though, was the fact that the answer to what to do wasn’t always all that straightforward.
There was an objective, and that had been to kill two people—Esmeralda and the Vampire Lord. But exactly how they did that was entirely up to them despite the fact the Instance would provide a path.
To kill Esmeralda, Grey used her need for a prosthetic mech, and then he got lucky enough to be able to use her eye for a power boost to kill the pimp.
However, when he thought about it, that probably wasn’t the route the Instance provided for the highest chance of success. In fact, he was pretty sure that they were supposed to loiter around in the Dark Kin’s lair, and the room they had been in might have even been a safe room.
There had been an altar in the room they were summoned in, and all the chaos and loops between the last time Grey had seen it made him forget one very key detail...
That altar in the room they had spawned in was eerily similar to the altar that Baron Giyoto was hiding in his.
They weren’t exactly the same, but it was so close it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
So, if Grey was correct, they were probably supposed to slowly clear the Dark Kin’s lair while retreating to the safe room, probably using sacrifices to project some sort of shield of protection from the altar.
Then, at some point, the rivalry between Esmeralda and the pimp would boil over and lead to some sort of clash that severely weakened the both of them. Only then were you supposed to attack them to kill.
Was this all just speculation on Grey’s part? Yes. He had no idea if any of what he said was true at all, but he had a hunch that if this place wanted to mimic a video game so much, then it should probably have video game-like mechanics.
It should have been very difficult to clear the Instance. But impossible? No. That didn’t make sense.
Why was all of this suddenly important now?
Well, other than the fact that Grey wanted to add another piece to his growing puzzle, he was seeing a similar pattern in this Instance as well.
If he was correct, the right way to do things here was to survive the battles long enough for the Church to attack, then piggyback off of the Church to escape. At that point, you would prove yourself enough to the Holy Knights to join their makeshift army for a short time, and only then would you finally get around to launching a final assault on the king and take him out.
That was how things would go in a video game sequence, anyway.
Grey didn’t have the time for all of that.
Whether it was Globb, or Memm, or the fact the Bishop was still waiting and Terran’s head was still on his shoulders...
There was no time to take things the slow route.
And the BOSSes in this Instance weren’t nearly as powerful as the Blood Witch and the Vampire Lord.
BANG.
Grey sent another guard flying, their body piercing through the door that was on the verge of closing, taking with it the guard doing his damndest to do exactly that.
Crashing through, Grey found himself coming out of the other end of the tunnel into what looked like an armory.
A half dozen guards spun back to meet Grey, their eyes lit with a fire of rage.
Grey’s response was just a casual thrust downward and through the two guards that were now conveniently stacked atop one another.
They both instinctively reached to their throats as though their palms would stop the blood from flowing out endlessly.
It wouldn’t.
Exhaling a sigh, Grey pulled his new sword back up and rested it on his shoulders.
"You know, they have a word for men who follow fake kings."
Despite addressing the guards, Grey’s eyes were locked onto the king who had sent the two guards still trying to carry him forward flying to the sides. It seemed the man was fed up with being forced to run.
As far as Grey saw it, though, it was just false bravado. With how strong the king really was, if he wanted to stop his guards from making him run, he could do so.
All Grey could see was another idiot in a high school fighting ring telling his friends to hold him back when in reality he was too pussy to fight anyway.
Grey grinned. "They call them cucks."
The guards roared in fury and launched themselves forward.
Honestly speaking, none of the guards were bad at all. Every one of them was in the Established Class. They probably had stats around the 150s, and probably had one or two abilities beyond Level 10.
Each one fell to a single strike from Grey.
It was practically like they had choreographed their movements, Grey’s fluid steps gliding through their weaknesses like they were presented akin to budding flowers to his nose.
He didn’t even have to use his Helion Frame, but he did so anyway. And it made his body move in impossible ways.
Sometimes he would be dodging backward and yet a graceful bit of wind would send him slipping to the side. Sometimes his blade would abruptly stop and change direction as though momentum and inertia meant nothing to him. Sometimes what should have been at least a glancing blow slipped by his skin as though parrying off a blade rather than flesh and blood.
The more he killed, the more he laughed, and the redder the king’s gaze became.