Second Genesis

Grey frowned. He didn’t like the idea of an Ability changing the way he thought.

Even now, he wasn’t 100% certain if Prometheus was something that had just happened to land in his hands or if it was something that the Producers were using to make him suffer.

There hadn’t been anything in the recaps that suggested they knew about his ability to revive from the dead, so it seemed that it probably wasn’t the latter. But how could he know?

Whatever it was about these Genesis Games, they were definitely far above his paygrade. If it could literally bring him back from the dead, then why couldn’t it alter his thought processes?

Even back on Earth there were methods of brainwashing people. Did they work? Probably not all that well without a lot of time and patience. But they existed.

However, they weren’t even remotely close to something like going back in time. Why would he believe in one and not the other, then?

Shaking his head, Grey took a breath and exhaled.

He would monitor this for the time being. But the feeling of control this Ability gave him was shocking. And more importantly than that, he felt like it was just as if not even more effective than the Looping Necklace in helping him to understand his skills.

’There’s nothing of use here, though.’ Grey tossed the gold coins to the side.

Under normal circumstances, he would be jumping for joy. But what good was any of this to him when his death was in about 10 minutes.

He didn’t know how he had ended up wasting so much time in meditation, but he definitely had. Now he didn’t even have a quarter hour left before the pain threatened to rip him to pieces again.

The money was nice, but even if he had the time to take it out of here, or the storage space to do so, these gold coins seemed marked by special sigils he hadn’t even seen in the city before.

Granted, he hadn’t exactly spent an endless amount of time exploring everything. But what was clear enough was that they were probably marked in some way if they were anything like Earth’s currency.

’The main currency in this place seemed to be credits, and it’s digital. If these gold coins are marked and pressed with symbols like this...’ Grey picked up another, running his thumb over it and then nodding as he felt a slight pulse of electricity. ’... they’re definitely digitally marked. Every one of these coins is trackable and the moment I convert them to credits, Giyoto or whoever he stole these from would know.’

Grey tossed the coins back.

Walking through the treasury. He didn’t seem to be moving like someone who only had a short time left to go, but he was endlessly calm right now. He couldn’t even seem to force himself to be agitated if he wanted to be.

At some unknown point, Grey fell into another trance and his legs moved through the piles of wealth as though they already knew where to go.

If one was looking at him from above, it would look like he lost his mind completely. He turned and pivoted oddly, his body twisting in place, and sometimes he would even walk through piles of coins as though they weren’t even there at all.

If he hadn’t been in a trance, he would have realized that most of these had to be fake projections mixed into piles of what was actually real and tangible.

And then he suddenly came to a stop.

Grey shook his head and his eyes sharpened as he awoke.

Before him, there was an altar. Real treasures were splayed out before it, formed into piles of necklaces, bracelets, even what looked like a bedazzled bra.

Every one of them was meant for a woman. Honestly, Grey was starting to think that the Holy Goddess was a misandrist. Why couldn’t he get some Blessed drip meant for a man?

He clicked his tongue and suddenly felt a lot more like himself again.

’That was weird...’

Unfortunately, the ticking timer made Grey realize he didn’t exactly have much time left to work with.

’This should be the most valuable place here, but obviously the dick doesn’t care how many Blessed Items I have. Even if I brought out a million he would just use it as a further excuse. But why is Baron Giyoto gathering so many of them just to dump them here?’

Grey reached forward and touched the altar.

A violent jolt ripped right through his fingers and down his spine, rooting him to the ground.

—

Name: Altar of the Savages

Rarity: Mythic

Accepted Type: N/A

Rejected Type: N/A

Description: An altar of forgetfulness and erasure, but also one of hope and revenge.

Abilities: At the Sacrifice of Blessed Item, accumulate Blessed Aura to form a Blessing Carapace, allowing perfect resistance against the Fog of Chaos and immunity to Holy Type Abilities. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

—

’Immunity to Holy Type Abilities?’

At first, when Grey began reading, he was quite disappointed. This altar had a fancy new rarity rank, but other than that, it wasn’t anything useful to him. Whatever this altar formed was likely better at resisting the Fog of Chaos than his bracelet, but it wasn’t good enough for his current needs.

He wasn’t fighting the Fog of Chaos right now, he was fighting a dick that would take his life at the slightest opportunity.

But, resistance to Holy Type Abilities wouldn’t really help him out all that much either. What good was being resistant? He’d just die a little slower under Terran’s power.

Their gap in strength wasn’t something that could be covered by a little bit of resistance. Unless...

’A Blessing Carapace?’

Grey’s thoughts began to churn.

This sounded like something that would be used to coat the body. Grey was wondering, if he happened to be desperate enough... could he fake a Holy Frame?

Grey’s thoughts jumbled around in his mind. He was running to the end of his time and there was no obvious solution. It felt like this was the only shot he had.

BOOM.

Grey suddenly turned around to find Baron Giyoto having suddenly smashed a path through right to him.

’Well, fuck me.’