The evacuation was underway, a testament to Elias's final, grand manipulation. Jadeheart's most powerful cultivators were fleeing, unknowingly preparing for a life stripped of their essence. Elias, his body aching from the karmic debt, his mind resolute, made his way to the ley line nexus beneath Jadeheart, the city's spiritual heart. It was a vast, ancient chamber, pulsating with the raw, chaotic energy of the distorted ley lines and the contained vortex Veyra had left behind.
He stood at the very convergence point, the primordial karmic shard clutched in his hand. It hummed with a profound, almost living power, vibrating in resonance with the churning ley lines. This was it. The final act.
He took a deep breath, and with a guttural roar, Elias drove the shard into the ground.
The effect was instantaneous and absolute.
A blinding, silent wave of pure, unadulterated karmic energy exploded outwards from the shard, ripping through the ley line nexus. It wasn't an explosion of destruction, but of absolute severance.
The vortex collapsed in on itself, not dissipating, but being utterly absorbed into the blank slate created by the shard. The chaotic hum of the ley lines abruptly ceased. The air became still, heavy with a profound, spiritual silence.
Above ground, the entire Ledger went dark. Its complex sigils vanished from terminals, its ceaseless hum faded from the Bureau. It was no longer merely fracturing; its connection to the Realm's core energy, to the very source of karma, had been severed. It became a dead system, a silent, inert memory.
And then, the true, intended cost. Every cultivator in Jadeheart lost their powers. Their Prana channels slammed shut, their spiritual cores went cold. The connection to the vast reservoir of karmic energy was gone. Novices and Grand Masters alike found themselves mere mortals, their abilities extinguished, their life's work unmade. The screams of confusion, the bewildered cries, began to echo through the city as cultivators realized their powers were gone.
But the most devastating cost was personal. The karmic backlash, unleashed by the shard's ultimate act of severance, didn't just flow into inert objects. It tore directly through Elias's body. He had willingly borne his own karmic debt, but this was different. This was the raw, fundamental backlash of severing the Realm's connection to karma itself.
His body convulsed, his skin burning, his bones feeling as if they were being ripped apart. His vision blurred, then faded into consuming darkness. He had paid the ultimate price, his very being sacrificed to reset the Ledger, to prevent the primordial consumption.