Veyra's final, cryptic words—"The Sage lied. The primordials aren't coming—they're already here"—haunted Elias. Her selfless act of absorbing the vortex, though temporary, had confirmed the terrifying scale of the threat. The karmic primordials, entities that predated the Ledger, were no longer abstract concepts; they were actively manifesting.
The signs were subtle at first, then increasingly undeniable, chillingly pervasive.
Animals mutated near ley lines. Ordinary forest creatures transformed into grotesque, multi-limbed beasts, their fur shimmering with unholy Prana, their eyes glowing with an unsettling intelligence. Their natural karma seemed to be twisting, becoming something alien and terrifying.
Cultivators reported dreams of a vast eye. Not an eye of judgment, but one of boundless, unfeeling observation. A cosmic gaze that saw all, but understood nothing of human morality or suffering. These dreams left them wracked with existential dread, their Prana feeling cold and alien within them.
Most disturbingly, the Ledger's judgments now included unknown symbols. Not corrupted data, not errors, but entirely new, intricate karmic sigils that defied all known understanding. They appeared alongside standard judgments, subtly altering their meaning, adding layers of an alien logic that baffled the remaining Sutra AI and perplexed the Grand Council. It was as if a new, unseen hand was writing directly into the fabric of karma.
Elias, still hidden and observing, felt a profound and growing fear. Veyra's words, the cult's prophecies, and now these undeniable signs coalesced into a terrifying conclusion: The primordials don't want balance—they want to consume karma itself. They weren't restoring order; they were reclaiming their essence, absorbing the very concept of individualized karma back into their own vast, unfeeling consciousness. The Ledger, Arthan's creation, was not just fracturing; it was being digested.
Arthan's plan, to reset the Ledger to a "pure" state, was not appeasing them. It was a desperate, futile attempt to control a force that merely saw his Ledger as an anomaly, a rogue construct to be reabsorbed. The true nature of the primordials was not justice, nor judgment, but an unyielding, cosmic hunger for the raw energy of karma. The Realm was not facing a purge; it was facing assimilation, a return to a state of pre-karma where individual fate ceased to exist.