"Zone 234?" there was a flicker in the young Enphro’s eyes. Then he looked over to the Young Forsaken for a moment.
"A border city." He replied with a smile.
"A border city produced a Paladin?"
"And had the death of a Bishop quite recently. What’s up with that?" the smile on the Young Forsaken’s face hadn’t faded, but that smile seemed to have daggers in it.
"Do you know how long it takes to get here?" Grey asked with a raised eyebrow. "How the hell would I know?"
"Fair." The Young Forsaken said with a chuckle. "I don’t believe you, but fair."
"Interesting. Would you believe my—?"
Grey was yanked back before he could say more. He looked back to find Amunet apparently having found quite a bit of strength. Not only that, but she wasn’t shrouded by shadows anymore, instead she was in that cute little Egyptian princess garb she had been wearing before. All she was missing was the eyeliner.
Grey sighed. She was hot, too bad he hated her guts.
’Yes, that’s right. We hate her guts.’
Before he could say something quippy, Amunet spoke.
"Grey here doesn’t take too kindly to threats so he gets pretty prickly with his words. We do have a few guesses as to what happened, we just aren’t sure."
"Oh?" the Young Forsaken raised both his brows and yet his eyes somehow remained squinted, his smile becoming more eerie. "Please do share if you can."
"Of course." Amunet nodded. "We were accosted by an alien race. Three of them, actually."
She pulled something out and tossed it to the ground. Grey raised an eyebrow when he looked at it. He did recognize it. It was none other than the Syrn’s tail, or what mangled mess was left of it.
"We defeated them—."
"We?" Grey asked.
"We defeated them," Amunet continued, hiding her annoyance and Grey’s inability to control his mouth, "but we have no idea how many of them there were."
The Enphro descendant bent down and picked up the mangled tail, cutting himself on the blade when he tried to test its sharpness.
"Huh..." he said, still bent forward. "An alien race, you say? One of the Warring Races again? Do you recognize this race?" he asked the Young Forsaken.
"The only race with a tail for a weapon that I can think of are the Sxiris of the Warring Race, but I cannot confirm, not when it looks like that."
The young Enphro stood lazily, leaving the tail on the ground and sucking at the cut on his finger as though he was lost in deep thought.
"This would be in line with why we were sent here, though. The Dark Kin are going to make a move. It has already been a while since they last wiped out the Giyoto Empire. They may have geared up enough to launch their assault on the Goddess now." The Young Forsaken continued to talk.
"This still isn’t enough to confirm everything. We haven’t laid eyes on anything, and though the sinkhole is somewhat of a confirmation, we still need to see an actual army of Dark Kin before we report back."
Listening to them speak, the final pieces of the puzzle finally slotted into place for Grey.
It was no wonder Joelle and the others were so uncomfortable. They were being used as live bait to confirm a hypothesis.
These two were sent here so that they could see if what had taken out Giyoto’s people would finally be coming for them.
Grey had heard the story from Elowen during one of the last loops, and now he had stumbled into what might have brewed into a retelling of history.
There was no way any of this was a coincidence. The Savage Races had always been fighting against Dark Kin. Just the fact the Mechanical Jaw Spirit was here already confirmed everything for him.
But back when Grey heard the story from Elowen, he had also felt there was something fishy about the end of the Giyoto Empire. The Empress had promised to help, but their failure to do so had ended in the Trolley Clan being wiped out.
Grey was absolutely certain that someone as powerful as the Empress wouldn’t just allow that to happen just to appease a couple of Dukedoms.
She had allowed it to happen because that was what she wanted to happen.
The only question that was left for Grey was... why?
The Quest was far less important to him, because if he was correct, then how could it be so easy for him to get a Dukedom under the Empress’ territory? That was impossible.
The Quest was almost a red herring. It was pointing him in a certain direction and potentially even pulling the wool over his eyes.
BOOM.
The city shook again.
"It sounds like our confirmation is here." The Young Forsaken said with a smile.
His voice echoed and then he sank into the ground like a shadow.
"That’s creepy as hell." Grey said.
The young Enphro laughed. His body was wrapped in white gold and in a flash, a pair of silver metallic wings spread out, its force of wind alone sending several flying. Grey, though, didn’t move a single step.
"You are quite strong." He said before he launched himself into the air, an even wilder wall of wind slamming into Grey.
The other Holy Knights were pressed to the ground.
Grey looked over his shoulder. Those two... they were both headed toward the wall.
"Grey..." Amunet hissed to his side.
"What?"
Grey didn’t keep his voice low at all, so several looked over at him. Annoyance flashed in Amunet’s eyes, but she still covered her mouth and whispered.
"The Frame. It’s here."
Grey’s lip twitched. "This is such fucking bullshit."
Amunet was stunned, not sure why Grey was so annoyed. Wasn’t he going to take the last piece of her Frame? She was honestly just hoping to figure out the pieces she was missing from afar.
"Keep up if you can, I guess." Grey said, then he looked over toward Mauve and Brad. "Hey, if you all could help out my friends here. They’re a bit weak."
After saying that, Grey rushed toward the wall, Amunet trailing a long distance behind him.
When he finally got to the top, his eye couldn’t help but continuously twitch at the sight below.
How the hell were they going to get out of here?