The Nomad shuttle shuddered as it stabilized above the Foundation Realm. The air was thick and heavy, smelling of ozone and sun-baked concrete—the predictable, crushing weight of Earth's gravity, felt intensely after the volatile freedom of the Abyss. Below them, the massive Great Pyramid of Giza—no longer mere stone, but an active, buzzing fusion of ancient geometry and alien, glowing circuitry—acted as a colossal nexus, the First Anchor.
Elara wrestled with the controls, the shuttle barely responsive under the Foundation Realm's strict Newtonian physics. "The Earth-Wards are active," she gritted out, forcing the nose up. "They're not complex, high-level proofs, but they're absolute. They reject any cultivation that violates basic mass and velocity. We're too fast; the atmosphere is trying to tear us apart using drag proofs."
"They're designed to keep the higher Realms out, using the most basic, undeniable math," Lira confirmed, her light-shadow filaments weaving an internal heat-sink across the stressed hull. "But we're not alone. Three contacts, rapidly closing. Kinetic cultivation, pure Newtonian force."
Below, the figures resolved into armored warriors: the Foundation Realm Guardians. They weren't using energy shields or quantum entanglement; they were using simple, perfected physics. They leaped from the dunes, their power surging into their armor, increasing their mass and generating astonishing kinetic energy. Their jumps were precise ballistic arcs, and the kinetic weapons they carried—oversized sledgehammers and railgun rifles—were designed to deliver brutal, bone-shattering force, obeying every law of motion.
"They are the Helix's brute force," Thorne rumbled, securing himself in the rear compartment next to Sira. "Cultivators of the physical prime. They respect only weight, leverage, and momentum."
"They're running simple proofs—F=MA made manifest," Elara realized. "We can't outrun them, but we can't fight them in open air. Their mass manipulation will throw off our balance."
One Guardian, a giant whose armor glittered with fused sand and rebar, generated an immense surge of Weight Proof, slamming the ground and sending a shockwave of kinetic energy tearing through the air toward the shuttle.
"Brace!" Lira shouted, activating the shuttle's limited shields. The impact was like hitting a brick wall at speed, rattling their teeth and knocking the life support offline for a moment.
"We need to disrupt their vectors! Lira, you can't use complex quantum entanglement here, it'll crash the shuttle," Elara ordered. "Use Relic Realm 2 principles—electromagnetism. Attack the integrity of their armor's magnetic lock!"
Lira nodded, focusing her Unmaker binders. She didn't weave a complex illusion. Instead, she threw out a quick, vicious burst of highly focused electromagnetic pulse—a simple, elegant energy spike.
The Guardian who had struck them stumbled, his armor briefly sputtering as the EMP attacked the magnetic locks holding his weight proof in place. He lost his cultivated mass for a split second, falling back to normal weight and crashing hard into the sand.
"One down, two closing!" Lira confirmed, grinning faintly—the thief's satisfaction at a successful, surgical strike cutting through her tension. "Simple math, simple solutions."
Elara seized the opportunity. "Thorne, Sira! I need a localized Nomad Rune-Anchor—something to momentarily stabilize the surrounding air mass. Just long enough for a controlled deceleration."
Thorne and Sira began chanting immediately, their voices low and ancient. Frost-etched runes flared across their hands, channeling their energy into the shuttle's landing gear. The air around the descending shuttle briefly shimmered, becoming incredibly dense and stable, resisting the aerodynamic tear.
Elara slammed the shuttle down hard, creating a massive dust cloud that immediately shielded them from the remaining Guardians' kinetic rifles. The impact was rough, but controlled.
"Out! We need to move on foot. The shuttle will be destroyed," Elara commanded, grabbing her Reckoner Staff.
They burst out onto the chaotic desert floor. The Great Pyramid loomed before them, its alien metal gleaming beneath the punishing Earth sun. The two remaining Guardians, having calculated the precise moment of their exit, charged, their kinetic sledgehammers swinging in wide, devastating arcs.
"Lira, the Guardian on the right—his momentum is flawless, but his center of gravity is predictable! Vector manipulation!" Elara shouted.
Lira didn't need to be told twice. As the Guardian swung his massive hammer, Lira used a small burst of light-shadow filaments to attach to the sand just behind the Guardian's trailing foot. She didn't pull; she simply applied a minuscule amount of magnetic resistance.
The Guardian's foot snagged for a fraction of a second. That tiny delay, less than a single Newton-second, threw off his entire momentum proof. His massive swing became a dizzying, uncontrolled rotation.
WHUMM!
The hammer, instead of hitting Elara, struck the First Anchor's pyramid base. The Pyramid reacted instantly: a blinding flash of circuitry flared, and the Guardian was encased in a perfect, glowing sphere of pure, crushing gravity. The force of his own momentum was turned against him, the simple Foundation Realm law of Mass x Acceleration becoming his prison.
"That was almost elegant," Elara muttered, adjusting her glasses.
The second Guardian halted, staring in confusion at his imprisoned comrade. His armor's internal AI, trained on deterministic Newtonian combat, was struggling to parse the failure.
Elara didn't give it time to recover. She charged, her Reckoner Staff crackling with Prime Qi. She didn't use a flashy energy blast; she ran a simple Friction Proof along the ground beneath the Guardian's feet. The sand instantly solidified into super-slick glass.
The Guardian, focused entirely on his center of gravity and weight proof, lost all footing. He slipped, falling hard onto his armored back. Before he could recover, Elara was on him, using the Nomad Elder's teaching: anchoring her qi to the fundamental mass of the Earth, she jammed the tip of her staff into the microscopic seam of his armor's neck-plate.
A tiny, precise surge of Prime Qi—pure, Foundation Realm energy—was injected into the Guardian's core stabilization circuit. The circuit overloaded with too much perfect harmony.
The Guardian went limp, his armor inert.
Lira ran up, panting, watching the still-spinning, imprisoned Guardian. "We have maybe five minutes before their comms beacon draws reinforcements. Get that console, Reckoner. Find the cure."
Elara nodded, her eyes fixed on the Pyramid's intricate, circuit-etched walls. "The Anchor's logic is exposed. Let's find out how the Helix engineered the end of the world."