>>19090076Completely wrong.
Walk across that gate with a walk-through-walls code, and you end up here, a graphically glitched but otherwise fully functional top part of Route 22. The guard you see, who clips into existence when you walk as far north as I did, is the guy asking for the Earthbadge.
Just continue north from there, and you'll find the entrance and exit to Victory Road and the gate to Indigo Plateau.