[Timeline: Time skip Year 4 ]

[Location: The Old Iron Mines – The Inner Sanctum]

The final blast door wasn't locked like the others. Instead, it was melted shut.

Lyra stood before the warped wall of steel, the heat radiating off it hot enough to singe hair.

Behind her, the twelve Valkyries panted, their breath misting in the cold air of the tunnel.

They were covered in blood, not their own but the blood of their foes

Their eyes were glowing with a feral, restless hunger.

"Open it, Alpha," Lyra commanded.

The Valkyrie with the bone claws, the Alpha of the pack, stepped forward.

She let the team so well that Lyra had decided to name her Alpha

And Alpha, hearing this command, instantly acted.

She jammed her jagged, ossified fingers into the seam of the door.

SCREEECH.

Metal groaned and tore like wet paper.

With a roar that sounded more beast than elf, she ripped the door off its hinges, tossing it aside.

Seeing this, Lyra walked through the breach.

The Inner Sanctum was vast.

It was a spherical chamber carved directly into the bedrock, dominated by the humming, unstable Void Reactor suspended in the center.

But Lyra didn't look at the reactor. She looked at the figure standing beneath it.

She was an elf. Or at least, she had been.

She stood nearly eight feet tall, her body a twisted masterpiece of flesh-crafting.

Her skin was gone, replaced by plates of living obsidian armor that had been fused directly to her muscle fibres.

Her arms hung low, ending in massive, hydraulic-assisted gauntlets made of runic steel.

Even her face was hidden behind a smooth, white porcelain mask. No eyes. No mouth. Just a single, glowing red sigil painted on the forehead: 0.

Subject Zero. The Prime Vessel.

"Target identified," a mechanical voice buzzed from the mask. It wasn't the elf speaking; it was the artifact controlling him.

"Hostile entities detected. Engaging Purge Protocol."

BOOM.

Subject Zero moved.

For a creature of that size, she shouldn't have been fast. But she vanished.

Lyra's instincts instantly screamed.

"Scatter!" she yelled.

Without waiting for anyone's reply, she threw herself to the right, dissolving into a mist of wind.

Where she had been standing a microsecond before, a crater exploded.

Subject Zero had slammed her fist into the floor, sending a shockwave of purple Void energy rippling outward.

Two of the Valkyries weren't fast enough. The shockwave hit them, lifting them off their feet and slamming them into the far wall with bone-breaking force.

Fortunately thanks to their strengthened bodies, neither of them screamed.

Instead, they bounced off the stone and landed on all fours, hissing in pain.

Their Void-infused bodies knitting the fractures back together in seconds.

"He's fast," Lyra noted, reforming on a catwalk above. "And she hits like a monster."

Looking at the crater that was just formed, Lyra knew that she couldn't afford to be careless; one wrong move and it would be game over.

Thinking of this, her eyes narrowed in apprehension as she suddenly sensed new movements.

Subject Zero had turned her faceless mask toward the Valkyries.

Raising her hand. The air around her palm distorted, gathering into a sphere of pure annihilation.

[Void Cannon]

"Alpha! Left flank!" Lyra barked. "Beta, Gamma! Restrain her legs! Do not let him fire!"

Calling the Valkyries by the names she had given them before, Lyra began to fight back.

The Valkyries moved instantly. They didn't fight like individuals; they fought like a hive mind, guided by Lyra's voice.

Alpha leapt, her bone claws glowing with corrupt mana. She struck Zero's shoulder, sparks flying as bone met obsidian armor.

It didn't cut him, but it staggered him. The Void Cannon shot wide, vaporizing a support pillar instead of the squad.

"Now!" Lyra shouted.

Four Valkyries lunged at her legs, sinking their claws into the gaps of her armor. Two more jumped onto her back, stabbing at the connection ports on her spine.

Subject Zero roared, a digital, distorted sound. She thrashed, throwing two elves across the room, but the others held on.

"Target lock compromised," the mask buzzed. "Rerouting power to proximity discharge."

The red sigil on her mask flared.

Lyra felt the mana buildup. It was massive. She was going to turn himself into a bomb.

"Get off him!" Lyra screamed.

She leaped from the catwalk.

In mid-air, she materialized her [Phantom Bow].

She drew the string of compressed air to her cheek. Not aiming for the armor, she instead aimed for the mask.

'Be the wind.'

She released.

[Phantom Art: Piercing Gale]

The arrow was invisible, a needle of vacuum moving at Mach speed.

PING.

It struck the porcelain mask directly on the sigil.

The mask under this force instantly cracked.

Subject Zero froze. The buildup of Void energy fizzled out. She stumbled back, pawing at her face.

"Error... Error..." the voice glitched. "Control... severed..."

For a second, the mechanical posture slumped. The monster looked... tired.

Under the cracked mask, Lyra heard a sound. A whimpering, human sound.

"Kill... me..."

The voice was faint, buried under layers of magical suppression.

Lyra landed softly on the floor. The Valkyries circled the giant, waiting for the command to tear her apart.

However, when she looked at Subject Zero. She saw the torture in her posture. She saw a mirror of what she could have become if Damien hadn't found her.

She lowered her bow.

"I can't save you," Lyra whispered, her heart heavy. "But I can set you free."

Subject Zero shuddered. The red light in the mask stabilized. The control protocol tried to reboot.

"Re-engaging..."

"No," Lyra said.

She raised her hand.

[Phantom Wind: Guillotine]

She gathered every ounce of wind mana in the room. The air pressure dropped so low it made her ears pop.

Above Subject Zero, a massive, crescent blade of vacuum formed.

"Sleep," Lyra commanded.

She brought her hand down.

SHUNK.

The blade fell.

There was no resistance. The obsidian armor, the flesh, the bone, it all separated cleanly at the neck.

Subject Zero's massive body stood for a moment, then collapsed with a thunderous crash. Her head rolled across the floor, the mask shattering into pieces.

The red light in the sigil flickered and died.

Silence filled the room.

The Valkyries stood over the corpse, breathing heavy, their bloodlust slowly fading.

Lyra walked over to the severed head. She looked at the face beneath the mask. It was a young elf, her face scarred by a thousand surgeries. She looked peaceful now.

Suddenly, a small device embedded in the neck of the mask beeped.

[Data Transmission Complete.]

[Combat Data Uploaded to Main Branch: Central Continent - Academy District.]

Lyra froze.

She stomped on the device, crushing it under her heel.

"They were watching," Lyra realized, a cold dread settling in her stomach. "They watched the whole fight. Those bastards!"

The facility groaned. The Void Reactor, no longer being regulated by the systems Subject Zero was connected to, began to pulse rapidly.

The purple light turned a violent, unstable red.

[Critical Failure. Core Meltdown Imminent. T-Minus 2 Minutes.]

Lyra looked up at the reactor. The air was already vibrating with lethal radiation.

"Squad!" Lyra barked, her voice snapping the Valkyries out of their trance.

"Move! Ventilation shafts! Now!"

Alpha looked at the corpse of Subject Zero, then at Lyra. She nodded once.

The twelve sisters turned and ran, scaling the walls with their claws like spiders.

And Lyra took one last look at the dead vessel.

"Rest in peace," she whispered.

Then she dissolved into the wind and sprinted for the exit. The mountain was about to fall.

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