[Timeline: Time skip Year 4]

[Location: The Old Iron Mines – Sector 7 Holding Cells]

The syringe was heavy in Lyra's hand. The liquid inside glowed a sickly, neon green, [Stabilization Serum – Type V].

Lyra stood in front of the first cell. The elf girl inside was snarling, slamming her bone-claw against the reinforced glass.

Her eyes were voids of madness, her mind consumed by the conflicting energies of her own biology and the Void corruption.

'This might kill them,' Lyra thought, her grip tightening on the glass vial. 'But they are already dead.'

Holding the syringe, she didn't know how far this so-called stabilization serum work, after all the girls were still in such a state.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Red lights began to flash in the hallway. An alarm blared, echoing off the sterile white tiles.

"Security Breach in Sector 7," a mechanical voice announced.

"Lockdown initiated. Purge Squads en route."

Lyra looked at the blast doors at the end of the hall. She could hear the heavy thud of boots. Dozens of them. The Red Templars were coming.

She didn't have time to hesitate.

She smashed the glass of the cell with a concentrated burst of [Phantom Wind].

CRASH.

The feral elf lunged at her instantly, jaws snapping.

Sidestepping the clumsy attack she didn't flinch, instead she grabbed the girl by the throat, slamming her against the wall.

"Quiet," Lyra hissed.

She jammed the syringe into the girl's neck and depressed the plunger.

The elf stiffened. Her back arched violently.

A scream half-elven, half-monster ripped from her throat. Black veins bulged under her grey skin, pulsing in time with the serum.

Then, she collapsed.

Lyra didn't wait to see if she woke up. She moved to the next cell. And the next.

She moved with the speed of a gale. Shatter. Inject. Move. Shatter. Inject. Move.

By the time the blast doors began to glow orange from the heat of cutting torches on the other side, Lyra had injected all twelve of the surviving test subjects.

They lay on the floor, twitching. The mana in the room was chaotic, a storm of Void and Nature energy fighting for dominance.

Then, the first one stirred.

The girl Lyra had injected first pushed herself up. She looked at her hands, at the jagged bone claws. She touched her face, feeling the scales.

No longer growling like before, she blinked her eyes in confusion. eyes while still black, but the madness was gone.

Replaced by a terrifying, cold clarity.

"What..." the girl rasped, her voice sounding like dry leaves. "What am I?"

The others began to rise. They looked at each other in horror shocked by their monstrous appearances.

"We're monsters," one sobbed, curling into a ball. "The Light... it burns..."

BOOM.

The blast doors shook. Sparks showered the room. The Templars were cutting through.

"You are not," Lyra said.

Her voice cut through their panic. She stood in the center of the room, her grey cloak swirling around her. She looked at the twelve disfigured elves.

"Look at me," Lyra commanded.

They looked up. They saw an elf who looked like them. Grey skin. Violet eyes. An aura of darkness.

"The World Tree couldn't save you," Lyra said, her voice hard.

"The Gods abandoned you to this rot. You prayed for salvation, and they sent you silence."

CLANG.

A massive dent appeared in the blast doors.

"They call you failures," Lyra continued, walking among them.

"They call you refuse. Biological waste to be burned in a furnace."

She stopped in front of the girl with the bone claws. She reached out and took the monstrous hand. She didn't flinch.

"But I don't see waste. I see people in need of help."

Lyra's violet eyes began to glow.

"The Light rejected you? Fine. Then embrace the Dark. Use the claws they gave you to tear their throats out. Use the Void they put in your blood to swallow their souls."

The blast doors groaned, metal shrieking as they were pried open.

"We serve a new Lord now," Lyra announced.

"He does not care if you are beautiful. He does not care if you are pure. He only cares if you can fight."

The doors burst open.

Smoke poured in. Through the haze, the armored silhouettes of thirty Red Templars appeared. Their swords glowed with holy fire.

"Purge the room!" the Templar Captain roared. "Burn the specimens!"

The elves on the floor flinched. Instinctive fear of the "White Robes" seized them.

Lyra turned to the door. She summoned two wind blades.

"Stand up!" she roared at the girls.

"You are not slaves anymore! You are Valkyries! Show them the teeth of the Void!"

The girl with the bone claws looked at the Templars. She felt the serum stabilizing the mana in her veins. She felt power, raw, ugly, violent power, surging through her.

She stood up. A low, vibrating growl started in her chest.

"Burn..." she whispered.

She vanished.

No longer using her innate wind magic. She used a new [Void Step].

Like magic she seemed to become one with the void

She reappeared instantly in front of the Templar Captain.

"What—?!" The Captain didn't even finish the word.

SLASH.

The girl's bone claw tore through his holy plate armor like it was paper.

It ripped his chest open, splashing hot blood across her face.

To this, she licked her lips, a ferocious smile appearing on her face.

The fear in the room vanished. The other eleven elves stood up. Their black eyes locked onto the Templars.

They smiled. And it was a smile full of shark teeth.

"Kill them," Lyra commanded.

The room exploded into violence.

It was a battle that wasn't a battle. It was a feeding frenzy, it was a massacre.

The Void Valkyries were unrefined, clumsy, and feral.

But they were fast. Unnaturally fast. And their bodies were living weapons.

One elf caught a Templar's sword with her bare hand; her skin had hardened into obsidian scales.

She laughed as the blade shattered, then drove her fist through his helmet.

Another opened her mouth and unleashed a scream of pure Void energy, liquefying the brains of three guards instantly.

Lyra moved through the chaos like a conductor. She deflected holy void fire with wind barriers, hamstringing Templars to leave them vulnerable for her new sisters to finish off.

In less than sixty seconds, the hallway was silent.

The floor was slick with blood. The thirty Red Templars were dead. Dismembered.

The Valkyries stood amidst the carnage, panting. Their Void corruption pulsed, drinking in the residual mana of the dead mages.

The girl with the bone claws turned to Lyra. She was covered in gore, but she wasn't crying anymore. She looked... euphoric.

"Who..." the girl asked, her voice steady. "Who is this Lord we serve?"

Lyra wiped a speck of blood from her cheek. She looked at her new squad. Twelve monsters. Twelve sisters.

She pulled out a black cloth from her pocket and wiped her blade.

"His name is Zero," Lyra whispered.

She turned to the open door, leading to the reactor chamber.

"Now come. We have a factory to burn."

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