[Timeline: Year 4 of the Intermission]

[Location: The Ashen Belt – Northern Wastes]

Time in the wasteland was measured not in hours, but in heartbeats and kills.

Two years had passed since the destruction of the Ravine Facility.

In that time, the legend of the "Pale Ghost" had spread across the Northern border like a plague.

The Twilight Association knew they were being hunted. Every convoy that strayed too close to the woods vanished.

Every research outpost went dark. They doubled their guards, employed anti-magic barriers, and hired 5th Order mercenaries.

It didn't matter. The Ghost didn't care about shields.

Deep in a canyon of petrified trees, a campfire crackled.

A group of Wood Elf refugees sat around it, huddled in fear.

They were starving, their clothes tattered. They had escaped a slave camp three days ago, but they were lost.

"Did you hear that?" a young elf whispered, clutching a broken spear.

"It's just the wind, Silas," an elder muttered. "Go back to sleep."

"No," the young elf insisted, his ears twitching. "The wind... it stopped."

From the darkness beyond the firelight, a figure emerged.

The refugees scrambled back, weapons raised. But they froze when they saw her.

She was an elf. An elf unlike any other elf they had seen.

Her pale grey skin from Damien's contract made her an outlier among elves wherever she went; however ,Lyra did not care

Her hair was a stark, bone-white, cut unevenly short.

She carried no weapons. No sword at her hip. No quiver on her back. She had abandoned physical tools years ago.

Wood and steel were too heavy, too loud, and too fragile for the speeds she now moved at.

Lyra walked into the light. She ignored the spears pointed at her. She carried a haunch of raw meat from a mana-beast she had killed minutes ago.

Without any hesitation, she tossed the meat to the starving elves.

"Eat," Lyra rasped. Her voice was rough, like gravel grinding together.

She hadn't spoken to another living soul in months.

The refugees stared at the meat, then at her.

"Who... who are you?" the elder asked, trembling. "Are you the Ghost?"

Lyra didn't answer. She sat on a rock, watching the perimeter.

"The Twilight patrol is three miles south," she said flatly.

"They are tracking your blood trail. If you stay here, you'll die."

"We can't move," the elder wept.

"The children are exhausted. We have nowhere to go."

Lyra looked at the children sleeping near the fire. She felt a flicker of the old Lyra, the girl who wanted to save everyone.

But it was distant now. Buried under layers of ash and necessity.

"Then hide," Lyra said. "I will draw them away."

"Why?" the young elf asked, lowering his spear. "Why help us? You... you look like one of them. The monsters."

Lyra paused. She looked at her hands. The grey skin, the sharp black nails, the faint aura of Void mana from all the years hunting cultists.

Damien had taught her to hunt monsters. Queen Aelinor had taught her to become the forest.

But the forest she had become was not green. It was dead. It was a forest of thorns and poisonous roots.

"I look like a monster," Lyra agreed softly, standing up.

"Because to kill monsters... You have to become something worse."

She turned to the dark.

"Put out the fire," she commanded.

"And don't make a sound."

She said, vanishing into the night.

….............…

[One Hour Later]

Lyra stood on a ridge overlooking the valley. Below, the Twilight patrol was moving, fifty men, heavily armored, led by a Red Templar.

The Red Templars. The elite executioners of the Association. Successors to the fanatics Damien had slaughtered in the Capital years ago.

Lyra checked her internal reserves. Her mana was calm, a deep ocean of wind and shadow.

She touched the black gem embedded in her bracelet, the Contact Gem Damien had given her.

It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic heat. It was the only thing that kept her grounded.

'Stand in the sky,' he had told her.

'I'm trying…,' she thought. 'But the ground is so sticky with blood.'

She focused. She didn't reach for a distinct skill. She simply let her [Phantom Wind] element saturate her body, turning her physical form semi-corporeal.

[Phantom Art: Umbral Drift]

Following this move, her senses seemed to change..

Dropping from the ridge. She sank into the shadow of a boulder, her outline blurring until she was nothing more than a distortion in the air.

After which she surged forward along the ground, a living patch of wind moving at sixty miles per hour.

Before anyone could react, she emerged directly under the rearguard.

SLASH.

Two blades of compressed vacuum materialized in her hands. She swept them outward.

Bang!

Two soldiers collapsed, their chests opened. They couldn't even scream. The vacuum consumed the sound.

"Contact!" the Red Templar roared, spinning around.

"Rear flank! Light Formation!"

Flares went up. The valley was bathed in blinding magical light.

Usually, this would reveal a stealth attacker.

But Lyra wasn't hiding anymore.

She stood in the center of the light, her grey skin smoking slightly as the magic burned her flesh. However, she didn't flinch.

Instead, in retaliation, she raised both hands.

[Phantom Wind: Cyclone Shredder]

A vortex of grey wind exploded outward from her body. It tore up the ground, turning rocks and debris into lethal shrapnel.

The soldiers screamed as the storm hit them. Armor buckled. Shields shattered.

The Red Templar charged through the wind, his sword glowing with holy fire.

"Die, filth!"

He swung.

However, Lyra simply stepped into the air currents created by his own sword.

[Wind-Walk: Intangible Step]

For a split second, her body became mist. The flaming sword passed harmlessly through her torso.

She resolidified instantly behind him, her hand pressed against the back of his neck.

[Phantom Bind]

Ropes of pressurized air shot from her fingers, wrapping around the Templar's throat and limbs, locking him in place with the force of hydraulic clamps.

He gagged, dropping his sword.

Seeing this, Lyra leaned in, her lips brushing his ear.

"Where is the Nursery?" she whispered.

The Templar struggled, his face turning purple. "The... Void... will consume... you..."

Lyra tightened the grip. The wind began to crush his windpipe.

"I don't care," Lyra said coldly. "Now stop talking nonsense, and I'll let you die quickly."

The Templar's eyes bulged. He realized she wasn't lying. This wasn't a hero. This was an executioner.

"The... Void Nursery..." he wheezed. "Sector 7... Beneath the... Old Iron Mines..."

"Sector 7," Lyra repeated, memorizing the location. "Thank you."

She snapped his neck.

The remaining soldiers broke and ran. Lyra didn't chase them. She let them go. Let them tell the others. Let the fear spread.

She stood alone in the valley of dead men.

She looked at her reflection in the Templar's polished breastplate. The grey skin. The violet eyes looked too old for her face.

She realised the young refugee was right. She didn't look like an elf anymore.

"I am the dirty hand," Lyra whispered to the reflection. "I do the things the Queen cannot. I do the things the Hero will not."

She looked North, toward the Old Iron Mines.

"I'm coming for you, Subject Zero."

She dissolved back into the shadows, leaving only silence in her wake.

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