The Crimson Dawn command center buzzed with static and whispers. A dozen high-rank hunters pored over raid reports, guild disputes, and anomaly charts. But Selene stood alone, staring at a single frozen image on the main screen.
A crater.
A word scorched into the ground.
VALE.
Behind her, the others debated whether it was a rogue guild or a rival nation causing the chaos. But Selene had long stopped listening.
Phantom.
That name hadn't left her mind since the last meeting.
He was supposed to be dead. No… he had died. She saw his blood on the Tower floor. Saw his body vanish when the gods struck him down.
And yet...
Too many coincidences. Too many precision strikes that only he could pull off. Timing. Style. The eerie lack of mana traces.
She pulled up a side screen—a list of minor mercenaries and low-tier hunters. Names that had started popping up in raids with uncanny survival records.
One in particular caught her eye.
"Cain."
Weak on paper.
But every time he showed up… chaos followed.
Selene zoomed in on a blurry security photo. Cain's back, his hood up, exiting a failed dungeon.
Her breath caught.
His stance. That slight lean. That unnatural stillness just before movement.
Just like him.
She pressed her palm to the screen, whispering, "...Rael?"
Her thoughts swirled back to the past—the training camps, the raids, the nights they talked beneath the stars after surviving impossible odds.
He never asked her to love him. Never said a word.
But she remembered every moment.
She straightened, frost curling around her boots.
"Pull all data on Cain," she ordered coldly. "I want his raid history, his teammates, his mana imprint—even if it's buried beneath suppression seals."
One of the officers blinked. "Commander, is this really worth—?"
Her glare silenced him instantly.
"Mark my words," she said quietly. "The Phantom didn't die. He simply stopped letting people see him."
---
Selene's hunt has begun.