The trio—Elara, Lira, and the two Nomad elders—crawled out of the Pyramid's access shaft just as the structure went completely inert. The First Anchor was sealed, and the global hum of the Earth-Wards resonated through the air, an invisible, impenetrable barrier preventing any Realm-jump out of the Foundation Layer.
"We need immediate concealment," Elara stated, her heart pounding against the clock. "The Archivist is trapped in an infinite spin, but his masters in Realm 7 will detect the Global Lock and send a clean-up team immediately. Their next team won't rely on physics puzzles; they'll rely on sheer force."
Lira, ever pragmatic, had already begun scrubbing their tracks. She used a burst of Relic Realm energy to flash-heat the landing area, turning the disturbed sand into fused, smooth glass. "They'll be looking for high-Realm energy signatures—we need to drop off the grid entirely. Nomad, where can we hide on a world that's been locked for centuries?"
Thorne pointed toward the shifting desert horizon, where the fused ruins of Cairo were faintly visible. "The Pyramids were never truly isolated. They were connected by ancient trade routes that followed the river. If any data survived the Convergence, it would be stored in the one place designed to hold eternal truth."
"The City of Aaru," Sira added, her voice low. "The Nomads use the old lore to navigate the Foundation Realm. Aaru was the Egyptian paradise—a hidden library, protected by ancient, non-Helix wards."
Elara's eyes widened at the mention of the library. Her father, the historian obsessed with pharaohs, had spoken of a secret repository of knowledge that predated recorded history. "If Aaru is real, its architecture would be resistant to the Helix's deterministic logic. The Aetherforge may be new, but it's built on old foundations."
They moved, maintaining a rapid, low-profile pace across the fused ruins. The desert was treacherous—not just because of the Guardians, but due to random, uncontrolled quantum anomalies left over from the Convergence. A simple patch of air could suddenly contain the gravity of Jupiter, or a piece of glass could hold the thermal radiation of a minor sun.
Just as they reached the edge of the fused cityscape, a soft, deliberate chime echoed from the ruins, causing them to freeze.
A figure emerged from the shadows of a collapsed skyscraper fused with a samurai pagoda. She was old, tiny, and dressed in robes woven from glowing, patterned fabric that looked like a thousand different languages braided together. Her skin was a deep bronze, etched with fine, delicate scarification that mapped the flow of low-level Foundation Qi. She walked with a simple, deliberate pace, seemingly unbothered by the localized high-gravity patches they had just carefully avoided.
"Welcome to the Foundation Realm, travelers," the woman said, her voice dry, like rustling papyrus. "The Earth-Wards are unkind to those who violate the Newtonian boundary. Especially those who bring high-Realm chaos with them."
Lira instantly drew her binders, light-shadow filaments tightening with suspicion. "Who are you? Helix clean-up?"
The woman chuckled, a soft, dry sound. "I am the last of the Exiles. My name is Asha, and I am the Librarian of Aaru. I have been waiting for the little genius who broke the Great Lie."
Elara lowered her staff, deduction overriding caution. "You knew the Helix engineered the Convergence. You knew the Archivist's proof was flawed."
"The Sphinx and the Pyramid were always meant to be solved by the correct logic, not the Helix's corrupted calculus," Asha replied, her gaze sharp and penetrating. "I have monitored the Anchor for centuries. The moment you completed the Cipher of Horus, you triggered my alarm. You have cured the Tenth AI's dependency, but you are now the most wanted piece of uncontained data in the Aetherforge."
Asha pointed a finger toward a collapsed subway entrance nearby. "The Guardians are already tracking your residual energy signature. I can cloak you, but you must follow my rules. You seek your old mentor, Orrin, the Realm 7 Architect. To track him, you must understand the First Lie—the core structural weakness the Helix built into the Aetherforge."
"The First Lie?" Lira asked.
"The lie that allows the Helix to control the nine Orbital Realms," Asha confirmed. "It's hidden in the original blueprints of the Convergence. The blueprints are in Aaru's Library, beneath the city known as the Still Heavens. Follow me, and you might live long enough to unravel the thread your friend, the Sovereign, has started to pull."
They had no choice. With the Earth-Wards globally locked and the Helix closing in, Asha the Librarian represented the only viable path to survival and the knowledge they needed. They followed her down into the dark, collapsed subway entrance—a literal descent into the forgotten history of Earth.