Quote Originally Posted by Kesey View Post
This is implicitly stated by the Ascians in ARR.
Implicitly is not explicitly - by definition it is the opposite.

You cannot claim it to be explicitly stated unless they have outright said it will happen, and to my knowledge, they have not.

And as I wrote the first time I asked, the Ascians' plans in ARR seem off compared to everything that has happened since.

I don't know if the quotes in ARR are re-interpretable or not, but I don't think there's been talk of Zodiark's imminent awakening since we started talking about shards and rejoinings.

And again, if not stopping the Eighth Calamity will directly allow Zodiark's revival, that's a stake worth mentioning above and beyond just preventing earthly destruction in the Source. Why the focus on the post-apocalypse being "man fighting his fellow man" as the worst thing that happened if the dark god is unleashed?