Aloy and Varl make their way to the border, where Tenakth Marshals stop them until Marshal Fashav arrives and convinces others. At the border, Studious Vuadis begins to officiate the Embassy, but he is interrupted by a voice booming through the valley. Standing atop a ridge, Regalla sentences them to death. After a lengthy fight, Aloy emerges victorious and challenges Regalla to come down and fight her, but Regalla refuses. Later, Aloy heads into the Forbidden West. Aloy follows the coordinates Sylens gave her, bringing her to a workshop built beneath a Horus. Sylens contacts Aloy via hologram and reveals that the facility behind her contains hundreds of GAIA backups. She manages to make her way inside, where the backups are stored within a massive contraption. Aloy realizes that she could use the original subordinate functions to rebuild GAIA piece by piece. Using LATOPOLIS's scanner, she manages to locate MINERVA in the mountains west of Plainsong. However, an alarm sounds, and Sylens confesses that he sent out a signal to some people he claims very powerful. To Aloy's shock, the intruders open the gene lock on the door, forcing her to hide. Four humans enter the chamber one of whom is another clone of Elisabet Sobeck, accompanied by several Specters. As the clone, Beta, retrieves the second intact GAIA kernel, Aloy's cover is blown. One of the intruders, who appears to be the leader, orders another, Erik, to kill Aloy and leaves with the other two. Aloy quickly realizes that Erik is somehow invulnerable to her attacks: with no other option, she breaks the supports for the contraption, causing to fall through the chamber's floor: while Erik is stunned, Aloy escapes into the flooded area below, evading Specters as she tries to flee. Aloy eventually finds a way out, but accidentally triggers a structural collapse, violently ejecting her from the facility in a powerful current. She washes up, wounded and barely conscious, on the shore just outside. She is found by Varl.