[Timeline: Year 2 of the Intermission]
[Location: The Borderlands – Between the Human Empire and the Silver Woods]
The forest here was a graveyard.
It wasn't dead in the natural sense; trees still grew, and rivers still ran. But the spirit of the land was broken.
This was the Lawless Zone, a stretch of territory abandoned by the Human Empire after the war and too corrupted for the Elves to reclaim.
The sky was permanently overcast, choked by a swirling grey mist that dampened sound and mana alike.
Through the fog, a group of figures moved silently.
They were Elves. Twelve of them.
But they were not the proud, pristine warriors of the Silver Woods.
Their clothes were rags, their feet were wrapped in bloody bandages, and their eyes were hollow with the kind of terror that never truly fades. They were escaped slaves.
Leading them was a figure wrapped in a tattered black cloak.
