Elias's plan was set: use the primordial shard to sever the Ledger's link to the ley lines, stopping the vortex but erasing all cultivation in Jadeheart. He knew the cost, and he was prepared to pay it. But he wouldn't sacrifice innocent lives if he could help it. His final act would be, ironically, his most calculated manipulation yet, a grand deception to save those he could.
He accessed the Ledger, navigating its fractured, chaotic data streams. He leveraged the remnants of Lian's fragmented consciousness, the lingering echoes of her access, and his own unparalleled mastery of the system. He needed to create a final, undeniable truth, one that would move the powerful, yet unsuspecting, cultivators of Jadeheart.
He meticulously forged a Grand Council decree. It was an emergency mandate, appearing to originate from the Council's deepest, most secure protocols, bearing Arthan's manipulated signature, giving it an aura of unquestionable authority. The decree ordered all Rank 5+ cultivators to immediately evacuate Jadeheart, citing an urgent, yet entirely fabricated, "imminent spiritual backlash" from the spreading ley line vortex, advising them to seek refuge in remote, isolated mountain strongholds.
His purpose was clear: to minimize casualties when the shard activated. The lower-ranked cultivators, those below Rank 5, would remain, experiencing the sudden loss of their powers, but surviving the immediate collapse. The powerful ones, those who would feel the severing most acutely, those whose spiritual cores might shatter under the sudden void, would be safely out of the city. He was saving them, even as he stripped them of their very essence.
The decree spread like wildfire through the Bureau and beyond, amplified by the Council's manipulated authority. High-ranking cultivators, driven by instinct and years of obedience, began to evacuate, their Prana humming with nervous energy. The city's spiritual landscape subtly shifted as powerful cultivators departed.
The irony was bitter, almost poetic. His entire life had been a series of manipulations, of calculated lies, all in pursuit of a hidden truth. And now, in his final act, his last desperate attempt to save lives, he was weaving his grandest lie yet. He was sacrificing his own karmic integrity, plunging deeper into the very deception he despised, all to serve a greater good. The Accountant, at his very end, was still balancing a ledger of lives and lies.