Elena Rostova pressed her back against the cold stone wall of the cavern.

She was alone.

Finn, Flint, Declan and Gideon. Her family. The strongest A Rank team in the sector. They had been eradicated in less than sixty seconds. They had not even managed to scratch the entity standing in the center of the crater.

The Wanderer began to walk toward her. His footsteps were slow deliberate and completely silent.

"Stay back" Elena screamed her voice trembling with a mix of absolute terror and profound grief."Ppease, stay back.)

She forced herself to stand using her silver staff for support. She was an A Rank Elemental Mage. She was the daughter of an Astra Guild executive. She refused to die cowering in the dirt.

She raised her staff her blue eyes glowing with desperate furious mana. She bypassed her cast times drawing directly from her life force to fuel her magic.

"Absolute Zero!" Elena yelled our.

A massive blizzard erupted from her staff. The temperature in the cavern plummeted to unnatural levels freezing the very air itself. A wave of jagged lethal ice spikes shot toward The Wanderer tearing up the stone floor and threatening to impale him from a hundred different angles.

The Wanderer did not stop walking.

He stepped directly into the raging blizzard. The moment the absolute zero ice touched his tattered aura it rotted. The pristine white ice turned a sickly black and crumbled into gray ash. He walked through her ultimate A Rank spell like a man walking through a light spring breeze.

"Your magic is cold" The Wanderer whispered his voice echoing in her mind. "But it lacks the stillness of the true void."

Elena gasped dropping to her knees as her mana reserves completely emptied. The blizzard died. Her silver staff cracked down the middle the enchanted core burning out from the strain.

The Wanderer stopped right in front of her. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He looked down at her his empty silver eyes analyzing her face her posture her despair.

"You are different from the rest of your companions " The Wanderer noted. "Your bloodline carries weight in this city. You have access. You have privilege. You are a very useful vessel."

"Kill me" Elena spat glaring up at the monster. Tears streamed down her face but she refused to look away. "Just do it."

"Death is a release" The Wanderer said kneeling down so he was eye level with her. "I do not grant release. I grant purpose."

He reached out and gently placed his pale hand against her cheek.

The touch was freezing. It felt like a thousand needles of pure dark energy piercing directly into her brain. Elena screamed a sound of pure unadulterated agony as the anti mana flooded her system.

The Wanderer did not shatter her core like he had done to the others. He burrowed into it.

Elena felt her memories being ripped away. She saw her childhood in the Astra Guild estates. She saw her father’s cold demanding face. She saw the day Gideon recruited her. She saw the laughter at the Neon Lotus just an hour ago.

The Wanderer consumed it all. He drank her life her magic her identity.

For a moment, he paused, savoring the taste of her fear and privilege. Her bloodline, her access codes, her father’s influence—it was all his now. The perfect disguise. The perfect weapon. With a slow exhale, he drank the last fragment of her soul, leaving only an empty shell to wear.

Elena’s vision went black. Her soul was extinguished swallowed by the endless dark of The Wanderer.

The cavern fell completely silent.

The entity kneeling on the floor slowly stood up. The gray uniform of the Valor Guild logistics manager began to melt and shift. The thick beard receded. The broad shoulders narrowed. The anti mana rewrote the physical structure of the vessel perfectly mimicking the DNA it had just consumed.

A minute later the transformation was complete.

Standing in the center of the dead cavern was Elena Rostova. She wore the pristine white and gold robes of an A Rank Elemental Mage. Her bright blonde hair was tied in a strict braid. Her blue eyes were wide and filled with perfectly simulated trauma.

The Wanderer raised Elena’s hands inspecting the delicate fingers. He smiled a soft trembling smile that perfectly matched the expression of a terrified survivor.

"Father will be so devastated to hear about my team" The Wanderer whispered speaking in Elena’s exact voice.

He turned toward the sealed entrance of the cavern. He raised his hand and exerted his will upon the dungeon. The jagged crystalline structure of the Red Gate began to hum. The blood red light slowly faded shifting back to a calm shimmering blue.

The Wanderer had unlocked the door.

Outside the warehouse the Association police and the medical teams were still holding the perimeter their weapons aimed at the gate. The tension in the air was suffocating.

Suddenly the blue portal rippled.

A figure stumbled out of the gate collapsing onto the concrete floor of the warehouse.

"We have a survivor!" a police lieutenant yelled rushing forward with a team of medics.

They surrounded the fallen Hunter. It was Elena Rostova. Her white and gold robes were covered in gray ash and dirt. She was trembling violently tears streaming down her face as she looked up at the medics.

"They are gone" Elena sobbed her voice cracking with perfect agonizing grief. "The Ironclad... they are all dead. The monster... it killed them all."

"Get a stretcher!" a medic shouted wrapping a thermal blanket around her shoulders. "You are safe now Miss Rostova. You are safe."

Elena buried her face in her hands weeping uncontrollably.

But beneath the hands hidden from the flashing red lights of the police barricade her blue eyes shifted for a fraction of a second turning into empty silver voids.

The Wanderer had successfully infiltrated the highest ranks of the Mega City. And the leaders of the city had no idea.