Mei Lin's burgeoning skill with karmic loopholes was a source of both pride and profound unease for Elias. He was shaping a formidable weapon, but one that could, eventually, turn against him. His attention, however, was violently wrenched away by a new, more immediate threat.
A faint, almost imperceptible tremor vibrated through Elias's desk. It wasn't an earthquake, but something far more personal. He quickly pulled out his Karmic Lens, sweeping it across the room. There it was: a familiar, erratic pulse, a deep resonance emanating from beneath the city, from the very spot where he had buried Juro's bootleg Earth Core in the ancient Necropolis of Whispering Souls. The core was activating, emitting a location ping.
Juro's warning, that the Artificers' Union was tuning stockpiled cores to a single frequency for a karmic weapon, screamed in Elias's mind. This pulse wasn't accidental; it was a deliberate activation, a test, or perhaps even a final calibration before unleashing their destructive power. His carefully buried secret was now a beacon.
He couldn't let them find it, not without revealing his own desperate maneuver. He needed a decoy, a distraction that would lead the Artificers astray while confirming their grim intentions.
His eyes fell upon an old, emaciated homeless man huddled in a nearby alley, shivering despite the afternoon sun. A surge of guilt, quickly overridden by the cold logic of survival, washed over Elias. He approached the man, offering a small pouch of gold Prana-coins.
"Friend," Elias said, keeping his voice low and firm, "I need your help with a simple task. Carry this, unseen, to the market square and leave it by the fountain. No questions, just deliver it."
He pressed into the man's hand a small, heavy package, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. Inside was a smaller, less valuable, but still unstable, decoy core that Elias had acquired years ago during an early, aborted experiment. It was a crude copy of the bootleg, deliberately designed to pulse erratically. He subtly focused his will, amplifying its chaotic resonance for a brief, critical period. It was just enough to give a fleeting, strong signal.
The homeless man, his eyes wide with surprise at the sudden fortune, nodded eagerly and shuffled off towards the market. Elias waited, hidden in the shadows, his Karma Lens fixed on the faint, pulsating signature of the decoy core.
Within minutes, a surge of concentrated spiritual energy erupted from the direction of the market square. Not Sentinels, but the distinctive, heavily armored figures of Artificer enforcers descended, their Prana Amplifiers humming. They moved with chilling efficiency, converging on the market fountain. Elias watched as they apprehended the confused homeless man, quickly seizing the decoy core. The enforcers then vanished as swiftly as they appeared, leaving chaos in their wake.
The grim realization settled over Elias with the weight of a physical blow. The Artificers' Union wasn't just tracking cores; they were actively hunting cores—not to recover them, but to complete their karmic weapon. The captured core, however minor, would be integrated into their arsenal, another piece in their apocalyptic puzzle.
He had sacrificed an innocent, but he had confirmed his terrifying hypothesis. The Union was amassing power, building a device that could unleash chaos on a scale unimaginable. And he, a lone analyst, was perhaps the only one who truly understood the scope of the coming storm.