[Timeline: Year 2 of the Intermission]

[Location: The Ravine of Whispers – A Hidden Facility]

Time soon passed, and after helping the other elves escape, Lyra soon made her way to where the cultist directed.

However, upon getting there, she was shocked.

The ravine didn't look like a military base, It looked like an open wound in the earth.

Hidden beneath a massive illusion barrier, one that shimmered like heat haze over the jagged rocks, lay a sprawling complex of tents and carved stone entrances.

Lyra lay flat on her stomach on the cliff edge, peering down through the grey mist.

Her [Nature Assimilation] was active. To the magical sensors sweeping the area, she was nothing more than a patch of moss.

'No guards,' she noted, her violet eyes narrowing. 'Why are there no guards?'

The Twilight Association was paranoid. They usually had patrols every ten minutes. But here, the entrance was wide open.

A smell wafted up from the depths. It wasn't the metallic tang of blood she was used to. It was the sharp, stinging scent of alchemy.

Formaldehyde. Sulfur. And beneath it all... the smell of rotting meat.

She moved.

Dropping down from her initial position, she caught the air currents, slowing her descent like a feather, and landed silently on the stone floor of the ravine.

Quickly, she slipped inside the main tunnel.

The walls were lined with white tiles, clean, pristine, and completely out of place in a damp cave.

Magelights hummed overhead, casting a sterile, blinding glow.

Unfortunately, before she could have time to admire her surroundings, what she saw next made her freeze up with anger

Through a glass window, she saw one of the most disturbing scenes she had ever seen in her life

Inside, an elf lay strapped to a metal table, awake but in obvious pain.

His chest had been cut open, the ribs spread wide with silver clamps. But they weren't healing him.

To his right, a man in a white robe, probably the so-called 'Flesh-Crafter', was carefully stitching a pulsating, black organ into the elf's chest cavity.

The organ didn't look like a biological one. Instead, it looked like solidified shadow.

The elf screamed in question tried to scream, but no sound came out. His vocal cords had long been severed.

Lyra's watching this unknowingly tightened her hand until her nails dug into her flesh, leaving drops of blood on the ground.

Turning her face away, she forced herself to keep moving.

'Not yet. Find the heart. Kill the root.'

However, as he moved deeper, the more her heart ached.

The facility was nothing short of a labyrinth of horrors.

She passed tanks filled with green liquid. Floating inside were limbs.

Not elf limbs. Massive, clawed arms covered in obsidian scales. Eyes the size of dinner plates.

'Void Beasts,' Lyra realized, a chill running down her spine. '

They are harvesting parts from Void Beasts.'

Reminiscent of the cultists' mana, as well as creatures like Krog and Charron she had faced, she was all too familiar with this aura.

Soon she reached the end of the hall. A massive set of double doors stood slightly ajar. Voices drifted out.

"...Subject 44 is rejecting the graft," a woman's voice said, sounding bored.

"The Elf physiology is too fragile. It burns out the moment we introduce the Void Essence."

"Increase the dosage of the suppression serum," a man replied.

"The Bishop wants a working prototype by the solstice. If we can't capture the High Elf Queen's brat, we have to build a Vessel."

Lyra pressed herself against the wall.

'Build a Vessel?'

"The Demon Soul requires a container of immense mana capacity," the man continued.

"Elves are the best candidates. If we can fuse their mana channels with the durability of a Void Beast... we can create a body capable of hosting a General."

Lyra's breath caught in her throat.

They weren't just torturing elves. They were trying to manufacture an artificial Demon General.

She peeked through the gap in the doors.

The room was a massive amphitheatre. In the centre stood a cage reinforced with runic steel.

Inside was... a girl.

She looked to be no older than twelve. Her hair was the golden blonde of a Sun Elf. But her left arm was gone.

In its place was a massive, twitching claw made of black chitin and oozing purple slime.

Her right eye had been replaced by a glowing red gem that seemed to be drilled directly into her skull.

She was huddled in the corner, whimpering.

"Run the test," the man ordered.

A researcher pulled a lever.

Arcane lightning surged into the cage.

SCREEEECH!

The girl could no longer scream like an elf, instead she shrieked like a monster.

The black claw spasmed, slashing at the bars with enough force to make the entire room shake. Purple mana erupted from her body, cracking the floor.

"Stabilization at 40%!" the woman shouted over the noise.

"She's holding it! The Void corruption isn't spreading!"

"Excellent," the man grinned.

"Prepare the next batch. We need to refine the stitching process."

Seeing this, Lyra's patience had reached its limit

The cold calculation in her mind vanished. The "Ghost" disappeared. In its place was pure, white-hot rage.

Instantly she kicked the doors open.

BANG.

The heavy steel doors flew off their hinges, slamming into the wall with a deafening crash.

The researchers spun around.

"Who—?!"

Lyra stood in the doorway. Her cloak swirled around her like smoke.

Her eyes were glowing so bright they looked like violet stars.

She didn't say a word.

She simply raised her hand.

[Phantom Wind: Thousand Needles]

The air in the room condensed into hundreds of tiny, invisible spikes.

She clenched her fist.

Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip.

The spikes launched.

It was a massacre. The researchers didn't even have time to cast shields. The wind needles pierced their eyes, their throats, their hands. T

hey dropped like sacks of grain, blood spraying across the sterile white floor.

Only the Head Researcher, the man who had given the order remained standing. He had activated a panic shield just in time.

"Intruder!" he screamed, fumbling for a red button on his console.

"Release Subject 44! Kill her!"

The cage door clicked open.

The monstrosity, the little girl with the Void arm, leapt out.

She moved with unnatural speed, a blur of gold and black. The massive claw swung at Lyra's head.

However, Lyra didn't draw her bow. She knew she couldn't shoot.

It was a child, a victim.

She dodged, ducking under the claw. The wind pressure from the swing cut a gash in the stone wall behind her.

"Help me..." the girl moaned, her voice distorted by two sets of vocal cords.

"It hurts..."

Then, the red gem in her eye flashed. The Void took over. She roared and lunged again, jaws snapping.

Lyra danced back, her heart breaking.

"I can't save you," Lyra whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The girl lunged again.

This time, Lyra didn't dodge.

She stepped forward, embracing the girl.

The massive Void claw stopped inches from Lyra's back. The girl froze, confused by the contact.

Lyra placed her hand on the girl's chest, right over her heart.

"Sleep," Lyra choked out.

[Phantom Wind: Internal Rupture]

She sent a pulse of vacuum mana directly into the girl's heart.

It was instant. Painless. The heart simply stopped.

The girl went limp in Lyra's arms. The purple glow in her mechanical eye faded. For a second, she looked like a normal child again.

Lyra gently laid the body on the floor. She closed the girl's remaining human eye.

Then, she stood up.

She turned to the Head Researcher, who was cowering behind his console.

The sorrow was gone.

Lyra walked toward him. The wind in the room began to howl, picking up scalpels and glass shards from the tables, creating a swirling vortex of shrapnel around her.

"You wanted to study anatomy?" Lyra asked, her voice sounding like grinding stones.

The researcher backed up against the wall. "Wait! I have information! The Central Continent! We aren't the main branch! The Grand Bishop—"

Lyra raised her hand. The vortex of blades stopped, hovering inches from his face.

"I don't care," she whispered.

She snapped her fingers.

SHRED.

The whirlwind collapsed on him.

Lyra turned and walked out of the lab. Behind her, the room was painted red.

She didn't look back. She didn't wipe the blood from her cheek.

She walked back into the mist of the ravine.

She pressed her hand against the stone wall of the tunnel entrance.

[Wind Blast]

She pumped every ounce of her remaining mana into the tunnel supports.

RUMBLE.

The entrance collapsed, burying the laboratory, the horrors, and the victims under a million tons of rock.

Lyra stood in the rain, watching the dust settle.

She looked at her hands. They were trembling. Not from fear. From hate.

"Flesh-Crafters," she spat the word.

She looked North, toward the Central Continent. The researcher had mentioned it before he died. The Main Branch.

"I will find every single one of you," Lyra vowed to the silent forest. "And I will take you apart, stitch by stitch."

She pulled her hood up and vanished into the shadows. The Ghost was no longer just hunting; she was exterminating.

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