The decision was made: infiltrate Sage Arthan's sealed archive beneath Jade Spire Academy. It was a perilous undertaking, directly challenging Arthan on his own ground. But if they could retrieve the original karmic laws, they might expose his true motives to the mesmerized Grand Council.
Elias, still a fugitive, and Mei Lin, now a marked woman, couldn't simply walk in. They needed a plan, a precision heist that leveraged their unique skills and their fragile alliances.
Mei Lin took the lead in the distraction phase. Leveraging her noble status and her surprisingly rapid ascent within the Bureau, she fabricated an urgent, official "inspection" of the Academy's outer security protocols. She used her charm and authority, combined with a fabricated, highly detailed list of "imminent threat assessments" to keep the Academy guards occupied, drawing them away from the archive's vicinity. She created a perfect, bureaucratic bottleneck.
While Mei Lin distracted the guards, Elias moved into position at the archive's entrance. The locks weren't physical; they were complex karmic locks, ancient wards imbued with Arthan's own formidable spiritual signature. But Elias wasn't alone. Even fractured, Lian's residual AI consciousness haunted the Sutra network, whispering fragmented guidance to Elias. She was a ghost in the machine, guiding his hands, showing him the subtle weaknesses in Arthan's ancient code, the very protocols of her own creation. Elias manipulated the karmic locks, using Lian's ethereal assistance to bypass centuries of protective magic.
As Elias worked on the locks, a new layer of complexity emerged. The ley line distortions, amplified by Veyra's first bomb, were causing subtle fluctuations in the Academy's ambient spiritual energy, threatening to destabilize the archive's ancient wards even further. This was where their Sylvan ally came in.
A Sylvan Grove Warden, Lyra herself, manifested discreetly near the Academy grounds, cloaked by illusionary magic. Through Mei Lin's pre-arranged contact, the Warden subtly poured her vast, natural Prana into the disturbed ley lines beneath the Academy. She performed a focused, intense ritual, stabilizing the ley line long enough for entry, creating a pocket of calm amidst the rising chaos.
With the guards diverted, the locks bypassed, and the ley lines momentarily stabilized, Elias slipped into the archive. The air inside was thick with the dust of ages, heavy with forgotten knowledge. Scroll cases lined the walls, each humming with the faint resonance of ancient karma.
Elias moved quickly, guided by Lian's whispers, searching for the specific scrolls that contained the original, uncorrupted karmic laws. He found them, tucked away in a hidden compartment, radiating a pure, untainted spiritual energy. They were not human laws, not even the laws of the Grand Council.
His heart pounded as he unrolled the first scroll. What he discovered sent a jolt of primal awe and terror through him. The archive held pre-Ledger scrolls describing karmic primordials—entities of pure, fundamental karma that predated the system itself. Beings not of Jadeheart, nor of any known realm, but of the very fabric of existence. They were beings of ultimate balance, creators of the very concept of karma. The Ledger, in essence, was a mere echo of their will.
The scale of Arthan's transgression, and the true, cosmic nature of the conflict, had just expanded beyond all comprehension. They weren't just fighting a corrupt Sage; they were unwittingly stumbling into a conflict that spanned across the very foundations of reality.