THE GHOST OF A BURNT TOWN

(Flashback)

The sun was shining in the forest glade. Sylas was laughing, a genuine and uncommon laugh, as a young brown-haired girl tried, unsuccessfully, to braid a wreath of flowers

— You give up too easily, Lia — he said.

— And you're a very harsh critic — she replied, sticking her tongue out at him. She was his little sister.

A messenger orb floated up to him, glowing with the official seal of the Sovereign Queen, Seraphina. He opened it. A female voice, which he recognized as that of one of the queen's attendants, relayed the news to him.

— Lord Sylas, we have good news. Your hometown, Valle Argénteo, has been secured by our forces. You have suffered no attack. You can continue your mission with peace of mind. —

An immense relief swept through Sylas. He had been racked with worry. — You see? I told you they'd be fine — he told his sister with a beaming smile.

A few hours later, he said goodbye. His mission was to investigate strange disappearances in the east. Little did he know that the information he had received was a deliberate lie, an influence of the Puppet Master Morwen, who had already begun to corrupt the communications of the higher-ups.

When Sylas finally arrived in Valle Argénteo a week later, he did not find his home. He found a graveyard of ashes. The smell of burning flesh still hung in the air. The houses were black skeletons. And in the town square, he found his relatives, dead.

The scream that came from his throat was not human. It was the sound of a soul shattering. The happy Sylas died that day. All that remained was a ghost, a specter whose only reason for existing was to hunt the shadows that had taken his world from him.

(Present)

— Let's balance the scales a bit — Sylas said, his voice a tired whisper. His giant claymore stood between Nocturne and the chained Mitsu.

Without missing a beat, he wielded his claymore and launched himself against the two Void Generals. The battle was an explosion of violence. Sylas was a whirlwind of steel. His fighting style was not elegant like Mitsu's, nor brutal like Ikel's; it was efficient, every move designed to kill.

Kaelus, the Jailer, tried to trap him with his magical chains, but Sylas cut or dodged them with astonishing precision. His real target was Nocturne. The battle turned into an epic duel between the swordsman and the master of illusions.

Nocturne was not fighting on the physical plane. He was attacking Sylas' mind, bombarding him with visions of his village in flames, of the faces of his dead family. — Why do you fight, little star? — Nocturne's voice whispered in his head — You've already lost everything. —

Sylas screamed, a mixture of rage and pain, as he fought against the demons of his mind and the physical chains of Kaelus. He underestimated the combined power of the two Generals. While he was trapped in a nightmare, one of Kaelus' chains managed to snag his leg, and a shadow claw from Nocturne inflicted serious wounds to his side.

But the pain anchored him to reality. With a roar that was pure fury, he channeled all his power and grief into a single blow. 

— Requiem for the Silver Valley! —

His claymore glowed with a silver light and unleashed a massive shockwave. Kaelus was thrown backwards, his chains shattered. Nocturne, the main target, took the full impact. The purifying energy disintegrated him, his psychic scream faded into nothingness.

Sylas, having expended all his energy and severely wounded, fell unconscious just in time to see Kaelus, seizing the opportunity, laugh. The General grabbed the chains that still bound Lyra and, without a word, opened a portal to the Void and escaped with her before his eyes.

A desolate silence fell over the battlefield.

— NOOOOOOOO! — Ikel, furious at his impotence, pounded the ground with his fist, cracking the stone. 

They had won, but they had lost. They had defeated one General, but the other had taken their healer, their friend. Mitsu, freed from his chains, looked at the scene with cold resignation.

There was nothing more they could do. The mission now was different. They had to return to the fortified city. They had to warn everyone of what they had seen.

With heavy hearts, Ikel and Mitsu lifted Sylas' unconscious body. Their brief, heroic intervention had saved their lives, but the price had been terrible. The war against the Void was not about winning battles, but about seeing who could take the most losses. And they, at that moment, felt they were about to break.