The public audit of the Alchemists' Guild, instigated by Elias's forged Ledger entry, sent shockwaves through the Realm. The Guild, a seemingly untouchable pillar of society, was now scrambling, their carefully constructed facade of impartiality crumbling under intense public scrutiny. Elias felt a brief, exhilarating sense of triumph. He had exposed a major player.
But his satisfaction was short-lived. A new decree, an emergency mandate from the Grand Council, arrived on every Bureau terminal, overriding all other priority alerts. It was a single, curt sentence, signed with the collective seal of the Council: "By order of the Grand Council, the audit of the Alchemists' Guild is hereby halted indefinitely pending further review."
A cold, hard knot formed in Elias's stomach. This was too fast, too definitive. It was a direct intervention, not merely a deferral. He immediately pulled up the decree's karmic signature, focusing his Karmic Lens with desperate intensity. The faint, almost invisible trace of a manual override pulsed within the decree's digital essence. And the signature matched. It was the same unique karmic resonance he had detected in the ancient, 300-year-old case that had been quietly erased from the Ledger, the one bearing the mark of High Sage Theronius.
The connection was undeniable, terrifyingly clear. High Sage Theronius, the ancient manipulator of the Ledger, the one who controlled parts of the Sentinels, was now openly acting to protect the Alchemists' Guild.
Elias slumped in his chair, the full, devastating scope of the conspiracy crashing down on him. The Sage wasn't just using the Ledger to elevate favored cultivators or erase old mistakes. They were actively protecting the system's flaws, shielding the very entities that subverted it. The Alchemists' Guild, with its corrupting influence and its power to bribe the Sutra Corps, was not an adversary of the Sage, but an ally. Or perhaps, more accurately, a tool.
The Sage was not trying to fix the Ledger; they were upholding a distorted version of it, a system designed to benefit their chosen few, to maintain the existing power structures that allowed them to remain unchallenged. The Ledger, in their hands, was not an impartial arbiter of karma, but a centuries-old instrument of control.
His fear intensified, cold and sharp. If the Sage was capable of wielding such power, capable of erasing centuries of history and openly defying the very concept of justice to protect their allies, then Elias, a lone analyst trying to expose their truth, was utterly exposed. He was a gnat buzzing around a dragon. The Grand Council, the Sentinels, the Sutra Corps, the Alchemists' Guild—all seemed to be part of a vast, interconnected web, with High Sage Theronius at its insidious center.
His attempts to expose the truth had only confirmed the terrifying depth of the conspiracy. And now, he had directly provoked the most powerful, most ancient entity in the Realm. The net was closing, and Elias was trapped.