Leaving the village of Inaho behind, the echoes of their cheers and gratitude a stark contrast to the curses of her past, No One walked on. The lone raven that had landed on her shoulder remained, occasionally making a low, contented click in its throat. She found herself absently stroking its sleek head with a single finger as she walked, a small, unconscious gesture of comfort. She processed the events, not all humans, she realized, were hateful and cruel like those who had cast her out; these had shown fear, yes, but also hope and thanks. But if not all humans were bad, a profoundly unsettling thought followed: did that mean not all demons were bad either? As she continued her solitary journey, walking barefoot under the twilight sky, the lines between human and monster began to blur in her mind, leaving her with much to ponder.
The road stretched north, long and uncertain as the bruised sky began its slow shift into Waning Twilight. The physical toll of the fight with the snake demon settled deep in her muscles. Fatigue was a familiar companion, but tonight it felt heavy, an ache earned by something that felt, for the first time in years, like a meaningful struggle. As she reached a wide, swift-flowing river spanned by a long, weathered bridge, the thought of rest became irresistible. The air near the water was cool and damp. She found a relatively flat spot near the bank to make camp, the rest of her raven flock settling silently in the trees above, their dark shapes taking up a familiar, watchful perimeter. She ate her meager rations in silence before settling down on the cold grass, her wolf-pelt cloak her only cover.
When the Pale Ascent of Waxing Twilight began, painting the sky in hues of muted violet and grey, No One awoke feeling surprisingly refreshed. A thought surfaced—a luxury she rarely afforded herself. A bath. Surveying the river, her keen eyes scanning for any threat, she found the clear water still and seemingly safe. While she watched, a few of the ravens flew down to the river's edge, dipping their beaks to drink. Seeing their calm acceptance of the water, she sighed with something approaching contentment, undressed, and dove into the bracing chill of the river, washing the dirt and sweat of the previous day's battles from her body.
As she pulled herself back towards the bank, a chorus of sharp, angry caws from the ravens jolted her to full alertness. Her head snapped up. A group of goblins, small and green-skinned, were making off with her pack, her weapons, everything. They were already scrambling towards the dark maw of a cave entrance nestled in the rocky hillside. "Stealthy bastards," she exclaimed to the frantic birds, the words raw and unused. Shivering from the cold water, her skin exposed and vulnerable, she scrambled out of the river and began to chase.
There were four of them, two burdened with her heavy pack and weapons. Driven by a surge of cold fury, she lunged, tackling the goblin struggling with her main pack. He went down with a squeal, dropping the bag, her clothes, and her wakizashi. A weapon, she thought, her eyes locking onto the shorter blade.
Ignoring the fallen goblin, she snatched up the wakizashi. The remaining goblins, seeing her armed, stopped their retreat. They turned to face her, the tackled goblin scrambling to rejoin them, his brothers already snatching up her fallen katana and kusarigama. They fanned out, forming a tight cordon. The goblin with her katana swaggered forward, making crude, mocking gestures.
No One's focus narrowed. The decision to attack or wait was made for her.
The goblin with the kusarigama charged directly at her back. A searing flash from the Mark of the Raven's Gaze warned of the chain's clumsy, incoming strike. Acting instantly, No One whirled, her wakizashi biting deep into the goblin's flank as he blundered past.
Before she could recover, two goblins with kunai charged simultaneously. The Mark flared again—two distinct flashes showing the trajectory of their thrown blades. She twisted and leaped sharply to the left, dodging both as they whistled past. As she landed, she was already moving, burying the wakizashi deep in the neck of the goblin closest to her.
The third goblin attempted to reposition. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she sent the now bloodied wakizashi spinning through the air. It struck the retreating goblin squarely in the head, dropping him instantly.
Now, only the katana-wielding goblin remained. He saw his chance—she was disarmed. He charged, roaring, her own katana held high. But he was nowhere near fast enough. As he closed the distance, No One moved under his guard, using his momentum to flip him over her shoulder.
She landed on top of him, straddling his chest. Raw instinct took over. With her free hand, she began to punch, hard and fast, aiming for his face. The first blow landed with a wet crack. The second broke his nose. A few more followed in rapid succession. He writhed beneath her, still gripping the katana uselessly.
As she continued, a new sound cut through the goblin's cries—heavy, rhythmic thumps. Getting louder. The cawing of the ravens overhead turned into a furious, panicked shrieking. Her foresight offered a fleeting, terrifying flash of massive size just before she heard the sound fully.
A hobgoblin. He emerged from the trees near the cave entrance, a towering brute easily ten feet tall. His skin was a dark, mottled green, stretched taut over thick, corded muscles. He was clad in mismatched pieces of thick, crude iron armor: a dented helmet obscured his brow, a heavy chest plate protected his torso, and segmented arm and shin guards covered his powerful limbs. A ragged loincloth of dark fur completed his brutal attire. In one massive hand, he wielded a massive wooden shield, and in the other, a chipped stone sword the size of a man.
He swung his colossal stone sword down towards her, a blow meant to cleave her in two where she knelt over the goblin. The Mark shrieked a clear warning of the devastating impact. Acting on the vision, she barrel-rolled violently out of the way. The stone blade landed directly on the already broken goblin beneath her, silencing his screams with a final, gruesome crunch.
Heart pounding, cold sweat beading on her exposed skin, No One scrambled back. How could she possibly fight this? He swung again, a sweeping, earth-shaking arc. The Mark flashed the danger zone, and she dodged. As the stone blade crushed a chunk of the cavern wall, her eyes landed on her discarded kusarigama. Her only chance. She sprinted, snatching it up.
She circled the hobgoblin, her back momentarily towards the cave opening. The brute bellowed and swung. The Mark flared, and she narrowly dodged again. She flicked her chain outward; the iron weight smacked against the hobgoblin's shield. He raised it instinctively. That's what she wanted.
With a spinning leap, she whipped the chain around his wrist, yanking hard, throwing him slightly off balance. Knowing she couldn't pierce that thick armor, she sprinted in a wide arc, wrapping the chain firmly around his ankle and yanking with all her might. The hobgoblin stumbled forward with a roar, dropping to one knee.
This was the opening. Dashing in, her sickle gleamed as she sliced deep at the back of his knee joint. Blood sprayed as she severed a tendon. The hobgoblin shrieked, swinging wildly. She ducked under his flailing limbs, used the chain to hook and wrench his shield free, leaving him exposed.
He raised his stone sword for a desperate overhead strike. She surged forward, vaulted up his bent leg, and scrambled up his massive body. Reaching his head, she used the sickle to hook his crude helmet, yanking his head back. With his throat exposed, she drove the sickle deep. The hobgoblin gurgled and collapsed.
Her breathing slowed, ragged but steady. The battle was over. The wind rustled the leaves, carrying the faint coppery scent of blood. The flock of ravens landed in the trees nearby, their frantic calls softening to a low murmur as they resettled themselves on the branches.
Ignoring her exhaustion, No One moved with grim purpose. First, she retrieved her wakizashi from the head of the goblin she'd felled with a throw. Then she strode over to the goblin she had beaten into silence, pulling her katana from its lifeless grip. After collecting the rest of her scattered kunai and shuriken, she returned to her pack and methodically began to dress, her movements efficient and devoid of any wasted motion.
She wrapped herself in clean bandages, pulled on the wolf-pelt skirt and draped the larger cloak over her shoulders, the familiar weight a comfort. She strapped her katana and wakizashi to her hips and secured the kusarigama at her waist. As she adjusted the leather straps on her legs, she looked up at the watching ravens.
"I've hated them since I was ten," she said while adjusting her mask, her voice a low, cold rasp that cut through the quiet forest. "Ever since they strung me up in that trap. Laughed at me. Mocked me." She paused, her burgundy eyes fixed on the dark maw of the nearby cave. "But this... stealing from me... making me chase them through the woods with nothing..." A humorless, cruel smile touched her lips. "This humiliation was the last straw."
She finished her preparations, then gathered a sturdy, dry branch. From a pouch, she took out a roll of clean bandages, tore off a strip without hesitation, and wrapped it tightly around the end of the stick. With her flint and stone, she struck a spark, nursing it into a small flame that caught on the cloth.
"They think they are safe in that hole," she whispered to her avian audience, the torch flame casting a dancing, aggressive light on her masked face. "They think the beast at the door was all they needed. I'm going to invade their home, the place they feel safest, and show them what real fear is."
Holding the torch aloft, a beacon of vengeance against the twilight gloom, No One turned and walked into the cave.
The entrance was a narrow, damp fissure in the rock, forcing her to turn sideways to squeeze through. The air instantly grew stale, thick with the smell of wet earth and goblin filth. Her sheathed katana, at her hip, scraped against the rock wall. She paused. Even without drawing it, she knew it was too long for these confines; a full swing would be impossible, the steel likely to ricochet. Keeping the newly lit torch in her right hand, she drew her wakizashi with her left. The shorter blade offered more freedom of movement, a deadly precision tool for the tight quarters ahead. A few ravens, drawn by her heightened resolve, fluttered into the fissure behind her, their dark forms squeezing through the tight space, their low caws echoing in the sudden darkness. She was not entirely alone.
The tunnel sloped gently downward, twisting and turning. Soon, she heard guttural chatter ahead. Two goblin sentries, armed with crude spears, were picking at something on the ground. They hadn't heard her approach. She didn't give them the chance. She surged forward, a phantom in the torchlight. Before the first could fully turn, she drove her torch into its face, the flame catching on its greasy hair with a sickening whoosh. It shrieked, dropping its spear to claw at its burning head. No One was already past it, her wakizashi finding the throat of the second goblin, silencing its cry of alarm with a wet gurgle. She kicked its legs out from under it and, as it fell, turned back to the first, plunging her short blade into its heart. Two down.
She continued deeper. The path widened slightly, but the ceiling remained low, though taller than she. More goblins appeared, drawn by the choked-off cries. A group of five charged her, their rusted knives and clubs held high. The narrow passage turned their numbers into a liability. The first met her wakizashi, a quick parry followed by a fatal thrust to the gut. She used its falling body as a partial shield, the torch in her other hand becoming a brutal club, smashing into the face of the next goblin with a crack of bone. It stumbled back into its kin, creating chaos. She lunged into the confusion, her blade a blur, cutting down two more before they could effectively swing their weapons. The last one turned to flee back down the tunnel. She lunged, grabbing its shoulder and shoving the torch into the back of its neck. It convulsed, screeching, and fell. Seven down. The few ravens that had followed her this far let out agitated caws, fluttering in the slightly wider space.
Further in, the Mark of the Raven's Gaze flared—a warning of steel emerging from a crack in the rock to her right. No One reacted instantly, pivoting on her heel and thrusting her wakizashi into the dark crevice. A goblin shrieked, its crude knife clattering to the stone floor as it was impaled before its ambush could even begin.
Two more erupted from the shadows ahead, charging down the tight corridor, their screeches echoing off the damp walls. She met them without giving ground. She parried the first one's lunge, the shriek of metal filling the confined space, and simultaneously swung her torch in a low arc, slamming the burning end into the second goblin's knee. As it howled and buckled, she finished the first with a quick slash across its throat, then spun to silence the injured one with a final, brutal thrust. Ten down.
The corridor opened into a wider cavern, where a narrow adjoining tunnel offered the only path forward. From within it, more guttural cries echoed. They were foolish. Instead of using the newfound space to flank her, they charged one by one from the narrow passage, creating a fatal bottleneck for themselves. She planted her feet at the mouth of the tunnel, a grim gatekeeper in the flickering torchlight.
The first goblin charged out and ran directly onto her waiting blade. She kicked the gurgling body aside as the second stumbled over it, dispatching it with a horizontal slash that nearly took its head off. A third appeared, hurling a jagged rock. She dipped her shoulder, letting it glance harmlessly off the thick wolf pelt, and stabbed the goblin in the chest as it emerged from the tunnel. The last two hesitated, shrieking curses from the darkness.
"Cowards," No One spat, and hurled her torch past them into the passage. Thick, acrid smoke began to fill the small space. They burst out a moment later, coughing and blinded, directly into the path of her waiting wakizashi. A brutal, efficient slaughter. Fifteen down.
She retrieved her torch, its flame now sputtering. She was now deep within their warren. With each kill, more ravens had joined the flock that trailed her, their numbers swelling in the larger cavern, their presence a low, guttural chorus echoing her own grim determination.
The path began to twist and turn again before opening into a long, straight cavern. She could see the end of it, where the path split into three separate tunnels. But her torchlight also revealed a new danger: the floor was a lie. A wide, gaping chasm filled the center of the cavern, spanned only by a treacherous, narrow ledge of rock running along the left-hand wall. A pitfall for blind intruders. The ravens that had been flying ahead suddenly veered sharply, refusing to cross the open space, instead beginning to circle near the ceiling of the cavern, their unease a palpable warning. With her back pressed flat against the stone, she shimmied carefully across, the darkness below promising a fatal fall.
On the other side, she chose the straight path, the one most likely to lead to the heart of the nest. As she continued down this dangerous new tunnel, a flash from the Mark of the Raven's Gaze screamed a warning. She froze mid-step, her foot hovering over a slightly raised stone. Spikes. She carefully stepped around it, her eyes scanning the ground. A few feet later, another flash—this one of a tripwire and the sting of arrows in her side. She stopped, holding her torch higher. She saw it then: a thin, gut-string wire stretched across the path at ankle height, and in the walls, small, almost invisible slits for the arrows. Cautiously, she stepped over the wire and moved on, the ravens above her letting out softer, more approving caws.
After more twists and turns, she reached a cliff. The path simply ended, opening into a vast, deep blackness her torch could not penetrate. A void trying to swallow her whole. She considered turning back, trying one of the other paths, but a cold instinct told her this was the way. She thought about jumping, anticipating the flash warning of her own death—the impact, the broken bones.
Nothing. No warning came from the Mark.
Trusting the silence of her curse, she took a running start and leaped into the darkness. She focused on her landing, bending her knees, preparing for impact. The ground she hit was soft and yielding, a carpet of refuse, bones, and filth that cushioned her fall. Her torch lighting up a narrow path where only forward was the way to go. She made it to a wall, that she soon discovered was a door with an indent; when pressed, it opened to another room. She entered with caution, eyes flickering from either side as she passed through.
It was a large, cavernous room, far wider and taller than the tunnels preceding it. And it was filled with sleeping goblins. Dozens upon dozens, at least fifty, sprawled in filthy nests of straw and bone. Across the chamber, more crude doors lined the walls, and on a slightly raised dais of rock, a goblin shaman, draped in bones and fetid skins, snored fitfully. No One's heart began to pound, a frantic drum against her ribs. The sheer number, the surprise… As if sensing her sudden surge of adrenaline and apprehension, a torrent of black wings burst into the chamber from the tunnel behind her. The ravens, their numbers swelling dramatically in response to her alarm, filled the upper reaches of the cavern, a shrieking, swirling vortex of feathers and agitated caws.
The sleeping goblins stirred, then scrambled to their feet with yelps of confusion and terror, not initially at No One, but at the sudden, overwhelming avian invasion. Some swatted uselessly at the air, others shrieked and tried to flee from the birds diving and seeking purchase on any outcropping, their panicked movements a chaotic dance of green skin and flailing limbs.
No One didn't hesitate. She used the distraction, a blur of motion as she met the charge of the first disoriented goblins, her wakizashi and torch a whirlwind of death. A goblin lunged; she parried its axe with her blade and shoved the torch into its open mouth, silencing its cry. Another came from the side; she beat it down with the burning brand. But as she fought, a bolt of lightning sizzled past her head, striking the cavern wall with a deafening crack. The shaman was awake and attacking.
She dodged a fireball that exploded against a cluster of goblins still flailing at the ravens, incinerating them instantly. The shaman's power was immense, its attacks indiscriminate. Seeing a momentary lull as the shaman cackled and prepared another spell, No One sprinted, wakizashi leading, aiming to close the distance.
But a volley of three more fireballs erupted from the shaman's outstretched, bone-adorned hands. One obliterated a fresh group of goblins attempting to charge her flank, their green bodies vanishing in a searing flash, their screams cut short by the blast. Another streaked directly towards her; she threw herself into a desperate barrel roll, the fireball exploding just inches from her feet, the shockwave rattling her bones and the heat scorching her wolf pelts.
She came up coughing from the acrid smoke, her ears ringing. Her foresight, a constant storm of warnings from the Mark of the Raven's Gaze, painted images of incinerating death with every direct path she considered. She tried a different tactic, using the remaining, panicked goblins as moving cover, darting between their flailing bodies, trying to find an angle to the shaman on its dais.
But the shaman was too perceptive, its glowing eyes tracking her through the chaos. A jagged bolt of lightning crashed down from the cavern ceiling, striking the ground where she'd planned to move, the air crackling with ozone and forcing her to leap back. Another fireball exploded near her heels as she dodged again, showering her with hot stone and the stench of brimstone. Each attempt to advance was met with a barrage of elemental fury, the Mark screaming a cacophony of lethal outcomes.
Realizing a direct approach was indeed suicide, each attempt thwarted by the shaman's relentless power and her own screaming foresight, she changed tactics.
She grabbed the nearest goblin by its neck, holding its squirming body up as a living shield. A fireball slammed into it, and she tossed the burning corpse aside, already grabbing another. She moved through the horde like this, a brutal, efficient engine of death, using her enemies to absorb the shaman's magic. Each spell that was blocked cost the shaman one of its own warriors. The goblins, confused and terrified, caught between the intruder, the madly flapping ravens, and their own leader's indiscriminate attacks, began to break.
That was the opening she needed. With the shaman momentarily pausing to avoid hitting its last few guards, she sprinted. He tried to flee, screeching a desperate, broken chant as he turned back towards his doorway, but she was on him in an instant. Her wakizashi punched through his bony shoulder with a wet thud, the impact spinning him around to face her, his eyes wide with terror and pain.
Before he could unleash another spell or even scream properly, she rammed the blazing torch directly into his open, chanting mouth, the flames hissing against wet flesh and bone.
With a guttural roar of her own, she shoved him back against the rough cavern wall, the torch still jammed in his mouth, muffling his agonized, gurgling shrieks and filling the air with the stench of burning meat. Pinning him there with the weight of her body and the brandished torch, she began to stab him with her wakizashi, again and again, in the chest, in the gut, each short, brutal thrust a punctuation mark to her cold fury.
His struggles weakened, his painted eyes fixed on hers in a rictus of agony, until his screams finally fell silent and his body slumped against the wall, held up only by the torch still embedded in its smoldering ruin of a mouth.
Only four goblins remained, their earlier bravado replaced by abject terror. They scattered, yelping, trying to flee not only No One but also the swirling vortex of ravens that now dove and harried them from above, their sharp caws echoing in the vast chamber.
One tried to scramble up a pile of refuse towards a high crevice; No One snatched a jagged knife from a fallen goblin and hurled it with deadly precision, the blade embedding itself in the fleeing creature's spine. It pitched forward silently.
Another cowered behind a stalagmite, only for a pair of ravens to dive at its face, their sharp beaks and talons forcing it shrieking into the open, where No One's wakizashi met its throat, ending its flight.
The last two made a desperate break for one of the side tunnels. She ran them down with cold efficiency, her torch casting long, dancing shadows as she cut them apart from behind, their brief screams swallowed by the vastness of the cavern.
The cavern fell silent once more, the only sound the crackle of her torch, the drip of blood, and the rustle of countless raven wings as they settled on ledges and beams above, their dark eyes watching. Fifty more dead.
She stood for a moment, catching her breath. Then, her gaze fell upon the other doors. She approached the first and kicked it open.
The stench that hit her was overwhelming. Inside, chained to the walls, were the defiled bodies of several human women, naked and bearing the horrific signs of prolonged physical torture and degradation. In the filth on the floor, nestled among them, were the goblin young. Some were pureblood, small, grotesque versions of the creatures she had just slaughtered. But others were malformed hybrids, their small, broken bodies a sickening blend of human and monstrous traits, battered from their own tribe's cruelty. One lay dead beside its human mother, who herself bore the marks of a brutal end. It was a grim tableau that screamed of a violent, superstitious tribe that murdered not only its victims but also its own "unclean" offspring for fear of some imagined curse.
No One's face, behind the mask, was a stone. A goblin is a goblin. Her mind was cold and clear.
Why wait 'til they're older when she can do it now?
With extreme prejudice, a cold, methodical fury, she moved into the room. The goblin children, pureblood and hybrid alike, shrieked as she descended upon them. Her wakizashi and torch did their work. There was no hesitation. No mercy.
She moved from that room to the next, and the next, a silent, grim reaper in the dark. Each room held the same horror. Each room she left utterly silent. The ravens above watched, their heads cocked, their presence an unwavering, unsettling gaze upon the carnage, their numbers perhaps even diminishing slightly as her battle fury subsided into cold, methodical extermination.
She was the price for their sins. A price paid in blood and ash.
She emerged from the last horrifying room, the silence of the dead heavy around her. Stepping back into the main cavern, her torch cast flickering shadows on the scores of goblin corpses littering the floor. Her gaze lifted. Several ravens, their forms dark against the distant glow, were flying towards the high ceiling of the vast chamber. They congregated near a small, barely perceptible hole in the rock along a far wall, a faint sliver of the twilight sky's light filtering through. It was in a corner, the rock face there appearing just scalable enough.
An exit.
She let her torch clatter to the stone floor, the flame burning against the damp rock. After sheathing her wakizashi, she began her climb. The ascent was arduous, her fingers searching for purchase on the rough, cold stone, her body still aching from the earlier fight. As she neared the opening, she could feel a faint draft, carrying the scent of wet earth. The hole was small, a narrow fissure. She clawed at the loose rock and impacted dirt with one hand, her other gripping a protruding stone as if her life depended on it. After widening it just enough, she squeezed her small body through the opening, scraping against stone, and crawled out into the open air.
She found herself on a rocky outcrop overlooking the forest, the vast, bruised expanse of the Waning Twilight sky stretching above her. Disoriented for a moment, she took in her surroundings. She was on the other side of the river, the long, weathered bridge clearly visible below her. In the distance, on the opposite bank, she could just make out the previous night's campfire.
A sharp, relieved breath escaped her lips as she recognized the landscape. Her camp. The thought of it, of another bath to wash away the filth of the cave and clean her gore-caked pelts, spurred her on. A rare flicker of excitement propelled her down the incline. She crossed the weathered bridge with a newfound energy, her bare feet moving quickly towards the welcome sight of her camp on the opposite bank.
Dirt, sweat, and the gore of goblins covered her from head to toe and the need to wash was overwhelming. She stripped off her wolf pelts and, for the second time that cycle, submerged herself in the cold, cleansing water of the river. She scrubbed her skin raw, then meticulously washed her blood-stiffened pelts, wringing them out before spreading them on the rocks to dry in the dim light.
Later, with a small fire crackling, she cooked the two fish she had managed during her second bath. As the scent of roasting fish filled the air, the ravens gathered a little closer than usual. Taking the last of the berries and nuts she had found the day before, she scattered them on the ground for her feathered companions. They descended, their movements quick and efficient, accepting the offering without fuss.
She had endured a long and exhausting day, one steeped in violence and bloodshed, but as she ate her own meal, a grim satisfaction settled within her. It was a satisfaction born from the slaughter of goblins, from eradicating a nest of creatures she had hated since they had first shown her their particular brand of cruel sport. As she finally lay down, pulling her still-damp pelts over her, and drifted into a blissful, heavy sleep, her mind did not dwell on the massacre. Instead, it conjured the image of a single raven, soaring high and free against the endless, starless expanse of the Deep Twilight sky.