Mei Lin's unwitting act of lethal justice sent a chill down Elias's spine. He had armed her, and now her idealism was proving to be as dangerous as any malice. But his focus was quickly diverted by a new, critical threat emanating from the Guild's ongoing experiments with the karmic weapon.
Reports from remote divination posts began to filter into the Bureau, quiet whispers of natural unrest. Not earthquakes, but subtle, pervasive shifts in the spiritual landscape. Elias accessed the deeper layers of the Ledger, pulling real-time data on environmental prana flows. His grim suspicion was confirmed: the Guild's bomb tests, conducted in remote, isolated locations, had warped a minor ley line near Jadeheart.
The immediate effect was widespread but subtle: local cultivators suffered karmic feedback. Minor spiritual afflictions, difficulty in channeling prana, headaches, even temporary cultivation blockages. Their karmic records, normally stable, showed faint, erratic fluctuations. The ley line distortion was a precursor, a localized echo of the devastation the full resonance bomb could unleash.
As Elias analyzed the data, a sudden, sharp cry from Mei Lin tore through the quiet of the Bureau. She gasped, clutching her chest, her face contorted in pain. Her karmic signature, usually clear and vibrant, shimmered violently, displaying the same erratic fluctuations he had just observed in the Ledger's data. The ley line anomaly was affecting her. She, like many others, was suffering from karmic feedback.
Elias reacted instantly, his analytical mind overriding his emotional shock. He couldn't let her be crippled. He couldn't risk her becoming a casualty of the very weapon he was fighting. He pulled out the fragment of Juro's bootleg Earth Core, the one he had salvaged after Juro's sacrifice. It was unstable, dangerous, but it resonated with ley line energies.
"Mei Lin, focus on me!" Elias commanded, pressing the core fragment against her forehead. He channeled his own cultivation, carefully, precisely, into the fragment. He used its raw, unrefined ley line resonance to attempt to stabilize her karma, to push back against the chaotic feedback. It was a desperate gamble, using a chaotic tool to impose order.
The fragment hummed violently, drawing heavily on Elias's Prana. For a terrifying moment, Mei Lin screamed, the chaotic energies battling within her. Then, slowly, the shimmering in her aura subsided. The pain eased, and her breathing returned to normal. Her karmic signature stabilized, the erratic fluctuations replaced by a strong, albeit slightly altered, resonance.
He pulled back, exhausted, the core fragment vibrating faintly in his hand. Mei Lin looked at him, her eyes wide, not with fear, but with a strange, dawning realization.
"I... I can feel it," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I can feel the flow... and I can feel you."
Elias felt a cold dread. In his desperation to save her, to stabilize her spiritual essence, he had inadvertently created a profound, intimate connection. The Earth Core fragment, a tool of primal resonance, had forged a spiritual bond between them. Now, she could sense his every subtle manipulation of karma, every distortion, every shadow. More terrifyingly, she could sense his lies. The karmic resonance of his deceits would now register directly with her.
He had saved her, but at a terrible, irrevocable cost. His deepest secret, the very essence of his hidden methods, was now laid bare to the very person he had sought to protect, and manipulate.