The confirmation that the Artificers' Union was assembling a karmic weapon, and their ruthless hunt for active cores, intensified Elias's desperation. He had bought time, but the net was tightening, and his allies were falling. The pressure from the Sutra Corps, the shadow of High Sage Theronius, and the relentless pursuit by the Guild weighed heavily on him.
Then, a new message appeared on his personal Sutra AI terminal at the Bureau. It wasn't a standard Guild communication, nor was it the cryptic warning from the decommissioned node. This one was different, appearing as a plain text overlay on his screen, cutting through all other interfaces. It simply read:
"The Accountant's work is noted. A meeting is desired."
Below the message were coordinates: a specific tea house nestled in a quiet, overlooked alley outside the Bureau's primary surveillance grid. Elias recognized the location; it was notoriously difficult to scry for karmic signatures, a perfect blind spot.
Elias felt a cold prickle of recognition. The phrase, "The Accountant's work is noted," resonated with the earlier message, "The Accountant is observed." This was from the same source, the phantom entity that possessed incredible insight into his deepest secrets. This wasn't a trap set by the Guild or the Sage; it was an invitation from the Phantom User he had been tracking, the one who subtly protected Guild-aligned cultivators.
The dilemma was stark, agonizing. It could be a trap. An ambush. A final, definitive end to his quest. The Phantom User was clearly powerful, able to bypass the Sutra Corps' monitoring and track his actions. Walking into this meeting blind, without his own bootleg core for masking, felt like an act of suicidal recklessness.
But it was also a potential ally. This entity hadn't erased him. They hadn't exposed him. They had observed, and now they sought a meeting. What if they weren't an enemy, but another hidden player caught in the Grand Council's manipulations? What if they held the key to understanding the full scope of the Ledger's corruption, or even a path to truly fixing it? This was a chance to finally confront the enigma he had been chasing, to understand who, or what, was operating with such precise, undetectable influence.
He had to go. The risk of inaction, of remaining in the dark while the karmic weapon was assembled and the purges continued, was far greater than the risk of facing the unknown. Elias, fueled by a desperate hope and a deep-seated need for answers, made his decision. He would walk into the lion's den, but he wouldn't go unprepared.