With the horrifying truth of Sage Arthan's ancient experiments and Lian's origin laid bare, Elias felt a desperate urgency. The Guild's weapon, a rediscovery of Arthan's void-creating technology, was on the verge of completion. He had to stop it.
He turned to Mei Lin, who now observed him with a cold, clear scrutiny, but whose resolve to fight for justice remained unwavering. "We need to know the bomb's location," Elias stated, his voice devoid of his usual pretense. "The Guild is moving it."
Mei Lin, remembering the Sylvan charm, turned to her newfound connection. She reached out to her Sylvan contact, Lyra, the Grove Warden, through the subtle, unspoken channels of their shared karmic anchor. Sylvans, deeply attuned to the land's energies, could sense shifts in ley lines and large-scale movements of disruptive Prana.
Days passed in tense silence. Then, a message arrived, not through Bureau channels, but through a unique, nature-attuned frequency that only Mei Lin could perceive. Lyra, the Grove Warden, had sent a dire warning: the Guild was moving the weapon.
The intelligence was chillingly precise: the Guild was transporting the resonance bomb to the Emberfall's border.
Elias immediately accessed detailed topographical maps, cross-referencing ley line networks and population centers. Emberfall. That was not Sylvan territory. It was the barren, volcanic lands bordering the Stoneborn territories.
"The target isn't the Sylvans," Elias realized with a gut-wrenching dread. "It's the Stoneborn. They're going to detonate it on the Stoneborn border, and frame humans for an atrocity. They'll ignite a full-scale war, a devastating conflict between humans and Stoneborn, blaming it on us while their chaos reigns."
The implications were catastrophic. A full-scale war, fueled by a void-creating weapon, would shatter the Realm, destabilize the Grand Council, and allow Arthan and the Guild to seize ultimate power amidst the chaos.
He had to act. He had to alert the Celestial Sentinels, the Realm's enforcers. But he couldn't just give them the location. Veyra, the Phantom User, was already anticipating his moves, watching his every step.
Working with the Observer's guidance, Elias crafted a precise, anonymous leak of the location to the Celestial Sentinels. He made it appear as a breakthrough from a deep-network intelligence operative, a highly accurate but unconfirmed report of a major "illegal elemental arms cache" being transported. He emphasized the potential for inter-species conflict, knowing the Sentinels would be compelled to act on such a threat.
The Sentinels mobilized with impressive speed, their forces converging on Emberfall's border. Elias watched their movements on the Ledger, feeling a sliver of hope.
But then, just as the Sentinels were closing in, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift rippled through the Ledger. Veyra. She had anticipated him. She subtly diverted the Sentinels, feeding them false trails, leading them on a wild goose chase through the jagged, treacherous terrain of Emberfall. A small, seemingly innocuous detour, a re-prioritization of a "secondary target" that would delay them just long enough.
Elias cursed under his breath. Veyra was always one step ahead, always anticipating his counter. The Sentinels were chasing shadows, and the Guild's bomb was still moving towards its catastrophic destination. Time was running out.