They crashed into a sprawling, multi-layered city built entirely of salvaged electronics—a blinding, chaotic maze of flashing lights, sparking coils, and whirring fans. This was Circuit Central, the Syndicate's metropolis.
The ground was a lattice of cracked circuit boards, and the sky was blocked by miles of humming power lines. The air was thick with the smell of ozone and burnt plastic.
"Report!" Elara commanded, stabilizing herself and checking the Nomads. Thorne and Sira, thanks to their Foundation Realm brute strength, were merely shaken, their heavy armor absorbing the impact.
"My temporal beacon is intact," Orrin reported. "But the Scanner's last known location is deep within the city—the Viceroy's central data tower."
Lira, however, looked energized. "The Viceroy is already here. He wouldn't just cut the power; he wants to see who dared hack his Wire. His guards will be hyper-efficient Kinetic Cultivators—masters of predictable movement."
Before she finished speaking, four figures descended from the overhead power lines, their armor glowing with intense magnetic energy. They were Viceroy Enforcers, each wielding two massive, magnetically-charged batons.
"Unquantified variables," the lead Enforcer crackled, his voice amplified by his helmet. "You violated the Data Authority of the Viceroy. Surrender all exotic relics."
The Enforcers moved with incredible, predictable speed—not the time-warping elegance of Realm 4, but a perfectly calculated kinetic assault based on optimized Newtonian vectors.
"They are too fast for us to engage directly!" Thorne warned, drawing his staff.
Elara smiled grimly. "They are fast, but they are predictable. Their speed is based on a flawless calculation of the environment's resistance. They have no concept of chaotic variables."
Elara channeled the CEB and executed a low-level Entropy Weave. She didn't attack the Enforcers; she targeted the ground directly beneath them.
The solid circuit board floor, under the influence of the Dragon-God's essence, momentarily lost its structural integrity—a small, precisely defined area of matter forgot how to be stable.
The Enforcers' flawless kinetic proofs instantly failed. Their perfectly calculated forward momentum carried them through the unstable ground. They crashed into the electrical lattice beneath, their magnetized armor short-circuiting violently.
"Chaos is the ultimate unpredictable variable," Elara said, stepping over the smoking debris. "Now, we find the Scanner."