I was born between a human's scream and a fox's roar—half human blood, half ancient curse.
They called me the child of shame, swearing every step I took would drag ruin in its wake.
I never knew a mother's embrace. I was sold in the market before I could even speak my name. Faces without mercy bargained over me as if I were a strip of flayed hide.
In the slave markets, the air was thick with the stench of leather and fear. Eyes pressed against my chest before hands ever did.
On nights when they used my body for their pleasure, I would glimpse myself in a shattered mirror: fox ears, a tail sprouting like a cursed root, and eyes no longer whole—the iris split in two, as if two worlds were forced to share the same sight. I wasn't human enough… nor beast enough. I was a walking mistake.
Humans feared me, hurled stones, groped and spat, praying for my death.
Beasts despised me, called me a desecration unworthy of existence.
I learned quickly: the world is nothing but a guillotine, its blades forever falling.
Children are sold, women are raped, men are thrown into battlefields like garbage.
Everything has a price… except pain—it is always free.
And yet… I did not die.
They carved a name into me: "the fox cursed by death." It wasn't just a title, it was a verdict. No matter how they tried to end me, my body clawed back to life. My throat once slit—I still breathed. Buried alive, I clawed through the dirt, the earth itself refusing to keep me.
One night, when the moon bled like a butchered eye, I was about to be sold again—like diseased cattle unfit for slaughter, left to rot.
Then, a man walked into the market. He did not move as humans do. He was neither angel nor demon. His steps tore through the air as if rearranging reality itself. His coat was plain, but his aura cut sharper than any blade, and his smile commanded rather than persuaded.
He asked, with a deadly grin, the price of "that white dog."
The trader scanned me as though reading a ledger, then said: "A million gold coins."
The man laughed and replied:
– This girl? Half flesh, half curse. She isn't worth the leather of my boots.
The crowd laughed—a cruel laughter that made me bury my face in my hands, wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
But he tossed a bag of gold on the table and said calmly:
– I'll take her.
I thought he would exploit me like the rest… but I learned he hated exploitation more than anyone.
That first night, he pressed a blade into my hand and said sharply:
– Hold it—not like a girl begging to live, but like one who intends to.
– Remember my name: Raven.
He taught me how to make the knife an extension of my hand, how to breathe without sound, how to stalk shadows before they revealed me, how to kill from behind, and how to weave with darkness as if it were my native skin. Training was brutal; I bled often, but I learned.
At first, I thought he meant to use me as nothing but a tool.
But when the lessons ended, I saw the truth: survival required limits, patience, and merciless killing.
He never called me human—but neither did he call me a burden.
With him, I felt a safety I had never known, even amid cruelty. He often said, drunk and grinning:
– Those who walk with me do not die. Those who live in my shadow cannot be conquered.
With him, I no longer fled from myself. I learned to count breaths like a metronome, to memorize the weak points of every enemy. What bound us wasn't love, but an unspoken exchange: I mastered death, and he gave me refuge from a world that wanted me dead since birth.
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One day, gray clouds smothered the sky, and the wind howled like starving beasts. Raven died of plague. Alone, I learned the world was crueler than any lesson he ever gave.
I left the city where I had been sold like a doll, and I survived by my own hand.
Months later, walking a desolate road, my cursed tail lashed behind me, fox ears twitching to every sound. That was when I found them—a gang of men surrounding elven children, blades glinting.
I had no reason to care, but I had promised Raven: save every child, no matter their blood.
I struck without hesitation, shadows twisting to my will. I killed ten men in quick, silent bursts, my body slick with their blood.
But the leader was different. He seized a young girl and sneered:
– Learn your lesson well, little fox… or she dies.
I froze. No shadow to hide in, no trick to save her. I was trapped. Their laughter echoed—the same cruel sound I had heard when I was nothing but a child for sale.
And then—
A towering knight emerged behind him. His armor was drenched in black, gleaming like wet stone. His sword cut the air as if it sliced reality itself. He struck the leader with monstrous cruelty—ripping his head free, spine dangling, blood spraying like bitter coffee.
The gang scattered, screaming.
I finished the rest, tearing their shadows into silence. None survived.
I clutched the elf child, refusing to let the knight's gaze fall on her. His presence was suffocating, terrifying even to my cursed eyes. I fled with her in my arms, each step tearing through the night, my tail whipping like a banner of survival in a world of death.
When I turned back—he was gone.
Later, when the elven guards retrieved their children, I ran in the knight's direction. Gratitude meant nothing, nor did fear.
What mattered was a single, burning thought:
How can I become as terrifying as him—so no one will ever dare touch me again?