As No One stepped away from Elder Roki's home, the sky was entering The Threshold of Light, the final phase of Waxing Twilight. The ghostly rose hues of the preceding phase had diffused into a widespread, ethereal blush against a backdrop of silver-tinged grays, the world touched by a fragile luminescence that heralded the coming of High Twilight. She left the fading sounds of Sayaka's complaints behind, and her small escort of raven sentinels silently fell into formation, their dark shapes melting into the gloomy sky above as she headed eastward, back into the embrace of the Shadow-Wood. Her steps were silent on the soft, damp earth. The mission felt grim, heavy with a responsibility she hadn't sought but couldn't ignore. Reanimated monks. A direct consequence of her paranoia at the northern temple. Heading toward them felt less like a choice and more like a debt to be paid in blood and ash.
The path east was empty, eerily so. Not a single cart or traveler broke the monotony of the ancient, towering trees. The usual rustle of forest life seemed muted, absent. The ravens flying escort grew restless, their occasional caws sounding sharp and anxious in the unnatural stillness that settled deep in her gut. She thought of the monks she'd slaughtered. Their chants had died on her blade. Their holy grounds had been bathed in fire. And yet… they had returned. Not in body, surely. That would be impossible. Wouldn't it? The thought was unsettling, a cold knot of uncertainty in the pragmatic space of her mind.
The fog began as a thin veil clinging to the earth, wrapping around the gnarled roots and fallen logs like spectral bandages. It smelled faintly of decay and damp, disturbed earth. But mile after mile, as she pressed eastward, it thickened, rolling in like a tide, grey and suffocating. Soon she could barely see ten feet ahead. The light of the sky, now progressing into the Luminous Veil of High Twilight, struggled to penetrate the mist. Its usual stark light, a mix of silver-grays and a hint of tarnished gold, was instead filtered into a disorienting, diffused glow. The air grew heavy, carrying a faint, acrid scent that prickled her nose – something stagnant, unnatural, the smell of old death given new, foul purpose. Her pace slowed, each footfall deliberate, placed with exaggerated care. Her hand rested on the worn hilt of her katana, the familiar weight a small comfort. Her breath grew quiet behind the mask, controlled, listening. Her eyes sharpened, straining through the swirling mist. The Mark on her forehead was cold and silent, offering no premonition, only the oppressive feeling of being watched. The ravens refused to fly into the fog, instead circling tightly above her, their agitated cries a constant, unnerving warning. This wasn't weather, she knew with chilling certainty. This was summoning.
As she approached where the village should be, the scent hit her fully. Blood. Fresh. Metallic. Saturated into the earth and air, so thick she could almost taste it. A massacre had already happened here.
The gates—what was left of them—hung splintered and jagged, ripped inward as if by some colossal force. Deep, unnatural gouges marred the wood and stone. The earth was soaked dark around the entrance, a grim, sticky stain spreading into the mist like spilled ink.
No One slipped silently through the ruins, her senses on high alert. The fog swirled around her like a living, unwelcome shroud, muffling all sound save for a low, rhythmic thumping and a chorus of gurgled groans. Shadows moved ahead—shapes swaying in jerky, discordant rhythms. She crouched low behind a shattered cart, its wheels broken.
Figures—dozens—were crowded around a large, sturdy structure that seemed to have resisted the initial onslaught, the village meeting hall perhaps. They were hammering their fists and shoulders into its stone-reinforced walls with a mindless, unified purpose. The screams from inside were faint but frantic. A woman. A child. Someone still alive.
She leaned closer, studying the attackers. Their movements were too synchronized for a mindless horde. Their groans were low and guttural, like air passing through ruined throats. And then, as the mist momentarily shifted, the dim twilight revealed them clearly. Holy tattoos, once vibrant, now carved into rotting, grey flesh. Orange monk robes, stained dark with blood and dirt, barely hanging off shriveled limbs. She recognized some of them from the northern temple. Others wore the tattered remnants of villager clothing—children, men, and women, their eyes empty, milky, but locked in the same murderous trance.
Her stomach twisted. These were no mindless corpses. This was… deliberate. Directed. A puppet master pulling the strings of the dead. A specific, gruesome act of malice. This was a message. Addressed, perhaps, directly to her.
Her hand gripped the katana hilt. The blade shimmered faintly as she began to rise, ready to strike, fast and clean, before—
Every corpse stopped.
Dozens of heads snapped toward her hiding place, their movements perfectly unnatural, perfectly synchronized, as if a single, unseen puppeteer had just turned their collective gaze upon her. No sound accompanied the movement. No warning. Just instant, terrifying awareness.
The ravens above erupted in a cacophony of panicked screams.
No One froze, her muscles tightening, every survival instinct shrieking. The air grew colder, heavier, charged with a malevolent focus.
"…Shit."
The first wave broke into a sprint. Not a mindless charge, but a swift, loping run, surprisingly fast and coordinated for their decayed forms.
She drew in a deep breath behind the mask, the cool air doing little to quell the sudden heat in her chest—and charged to meet them, her own movements blurring with speed.
Her blade cleaved through the first corpse's midsection, separating upper from lower half in a smooth, arcing motion, a wet, tearing sound filling the air. The body collapsed, twitching, but three more took its place, their empty eyes fixed on her. She twisted, sidestepped a clawed hand reaching for her face, and drove her elbow into a bloated throat—bones cracked under the force with a sickening sound. Her katana slashed upward, taking a face clean off in a spray of putrid fluid and bits of bone. She spun low, kicked out a knee, hearing the snap of dead bone beneath her bare foot, and finished the downed corpse with a vertical stab to the skull. The blade sank in with a wet thud, embedding itself.
Flash—Her ribs crushed in a tangle of limbs, a dozen hands grabbing her, dragging her down, suffocating in decaying flesh…
She reacted instantly, pushing off the corpse, dropping flat as a reanimated monk, ignoring its broken legs, clawed its way forward. She slid beneath a shattered gate and emerged in front of what remained of the blacksmith's hut, mist swirling like something alive, suffocating.
Hands grabbed for her ankles—flash—A broken leg, falling face first into the muck, surrounded, helpless…
She spun on her heel, using the grasping hand as leverage, twisting the arm until it snapped backward with a dry crack, then slammed the flailing body into another corpse that approached from behind. She vaulted backward off a corpse's shoulders, using their momentum, flipping mid-air and landing atop a half-collapsed shed.
But they climbed. With horrible, jerking motions, they clambered up the building like insects, using one another as footholds, their broken limbs finding purchase on the rough wood. One reached the roof edge—she drove her wakizashi into its temple, the smaller blade sinking into soft, dead flesh with a squelch, yanked it free with a spray of foul fluid, and kicked the body into those climbing below. They tumbled in a tangle of rotting limbs, their gurgling moans echoing.
Still they came, a relentless, silent tide of death.
She leapt to the next rooftop, her wolf-pelt tearing as grasping hands clawed the air behind her, just missing her ankles. A corpse was waiting there—eyes milky, jaw broken, tongue lolling from its mouth, orange robes stained dark with decay. It rushed forward, arms outstretched, groaning. She didn't wait. Her kunai flashed once, twice—the small blades piercing its eye and throat with quiet efficiency before it dropped twitching at her feet.
Flash—A blade from the mist, sudden, deep in her side, the tearing pain, a scream caught in her throat…
She twisted, ducking low, letting the unseen blade whistle past her head, a defensive movement born of instinct and foresight. Her mind was calm. Cold. Focused. The chaos of the fight was a language she understood, and the flashes were her brutal, necessary grammar, highlighting the paths of death.
They circled the building now, forming a perimeter. A cage. The fog made it impossible to count, but she knew—there were over a hundred. Maybe more. Corpses of villagers. Monks. Travelers. All drawn here.
All commanded.
Something was controlling them. Something… or someone. A necromancer.
She looked down at the sturdy building beneath her. A child's cries, fainter now, strained with terror, echoed from within. Someone still clung to life.
And these corpses—they were ignoring the sounds of life now. Their focus had shifted entirely. They wanted her.
She stood atop the roof, katana in one hand, wakizashi in the other. Dozens of dead faces stared up at her through the mist, empty eyes locked on her. Some were familiar – faces she might have seen fleetingly in the central village, or the tired countenances of travellers passed on the road. Now they were just puppets, animated by a will not their own.
Then—They stopped. A stillness more terrifying than motion, spreading outward from the center of the village. Their heads all tilted—unnatural, synchronized, listening to something she could not hear, a silent frequency in the oppressive air. A signal. A command.
Then came the pressure. The feeling of a presence, growing stronger, more focused, a cold weight settling upon the scene. Watching her. A spider's awareness, centered on its prey. Somewhere, out in the fog… a mind waited. A controller.
She felt her heart thud once in her chest, a heavy, solitary beat against the silence, a reminder she was still alive, still human.
Flash—Dozens of hands gripping her, pulling her down, the weight unbearable, suffocating… the same chilling vision, closer now, unavoidable if she stayed…
She launched herself sideways off the roof edge, twisting midair, flipping over the first two corpses below and slashing mid-air with her katana, severing a head from its rotting spine with a clean hiss of steel and a spray of dark fluid. Her feet landed hard on the ground, knees bent, momentum carrying her forward, katana already arcing behind her to deflect a lunging blow. The beheaded corpse staggered, arms flailing, still reaching for her throat, defying the natural end of things. Another took its place.
Flash—Her ribs crushed in a tangle of limbs, the same chilling vision, imminent…
She dropped low, sliding beneath an arm and spinning into a wide sweep with her katana that cut through five sets of legs, sending them crumpling to the ground in a tangle of torn robes and broken bone.
They crumpled. Then twitched, dragging their broken bodies forward with horrifying persistence.
No One backed up, breathing sharp through her teeth, her body slick with sweat and blood that wasn't hers. More and more corpses spilled from the mist, crowding the edges of the fight, their gurgling moans filling the air. She climbed a half-destroyed porch post, pulling herself onto a rooftop. They clawed after her, their movements horrifyingly persistent. She landed, twisted, slashed again with her wakizashi. Bodies fell, broken, burning from the inside with an unnatural animation. Still they crawled.
And then she saw her, a figure coalescing from the thickening mist across the square, the source of the unnatural pressure.
A woman wreathed in darkness, her dark blue cloak frayed and swaying as though moved by a wind that didn't exist in the still air. In her hand, a scepter—long, gnarled, and wrapped in veins of glowing purple that pulsed in rhythm with the dead's movements, a dark heart beating in the ruin. Her eyes glowed beneath her hood like violet embers, fixed on No One. The necromancer. The conductor of this macabre orchestra.
Flash—Claws raking across her arm, the tearing pain, a mistake made visible, a consequence of her distraction…
No One's reaction was late—she barely twisted aside as a corpse, suddenly faster than the others, hurled itself from the mist, its claws grazing her arm, tearing the wolf pelt and drawing blood. She retaliated in a blink, severing its limb and kicking it away. Her heart pounded, the frantic beat echoing in her ears. She had fought many things before, but this—this was a flood with no end, a relentless tide of death she couldn't stop with steel alone.
Then a memory snapped into place, cold and sharp, a brutal truth learned in the chaos of the temples. Fire. Fire cleansed rot. Fire erased magic. Fire... made them stay dead. The thought resonated, a brutal, pragmatic solution.
But there was no torch, no flint readily available. Just her blade, sweat, breath—and a storm of bodies closing in, driven by the necromancer's will.
A flash from the Mark—another lunge, another dodge. Every move now carried a consequence, a new danger she'd need to outmaneuver or suffer for it, visible in the split-second warnings of her foresight.
And all the while, the necromancer watched—silent and unmoved in her stance, her violet eyes burning through the mist, her scepter pulsing with dark power, directing the horde with silent, focused conviction.
If No One was to survive this flood of death, she'd need fire—and a way to reach the source of its control.
Leaping from one rooftop to the next, she moved toward the village center, her eyes scanning desperately for anything that might spark. A lantern. An oil barrel. A forge. Anything.
And then she saw it: a blacksmith's hut, collapsed but not consumed by the initial destruction. Broken tools lay scattered, shards of steel glinted in the dim light... and a coal pit smoldering beneath a thick iron hood. A source of fire.
Flash—A spine-shattering fall if she vaulted now, twisting awkwardly, hitting the ground wrong…
Hesitation meant being drowned by the dead.
So she jumped anyway, launching herself from the rooftop towards the collapsed hut.
She leapt. Midair, time fractured—a flash seared through her vision: her ankle snapping on twisted beams. She tucked and rotated, adjusting momentum with a tight twist, landing on a slanted roof with her shoulder instead of her foot, the impact jarring up her body. Wood cracked under the impact. She rolled down the damaged structure, hit the ground hard, the force jarring her bones, momentum carrying her forward into a crouch just as the first corpse slammed into where she'd stood a heartbeat ago.
Her breath tore from her lungs, ragged and sharp, burning with the smell of smoke and decay. No pause. No mercy.
She carved through the corpse's neck with her katana and pivoted, dodging a grab. Flash.—Her spine impaled, a spear of bone driven through her back… She dropped flat as a reanimated monk, ignoring its broken legs, clawed its way forward. She slid beneath a shattered gate and emerged in front of the blacksmith's hut, mist swirling like something alive, suffocating.
The forge still glowed. Dim but warm, the scent of burnt coal thick in the air. Embers pulsed like dying hearts under iron grates.
Flash.—Her hand grabbed, pulled into the smoldering coals, burning flesh… She redirected, slashing through a rotting villager's leg, and shouldered her way into the workshop. Hands grabbed for her hair—she ducked, spun, kicked a jaw off someone's face with a brutal crunch and slammed the door shut, the gurgling moans outside briefly muffled. A second's peace, the heat from the forge a sharp contrast to the damp air.
She looked around the ruined workshop. Broken bellows. A half-crushed coal bin. Iron tongs.
She yanked the tongs from a pile of debris, the metal cold in her hand, jabbed into the glowing embers, and pulled out a half-melted rod, now glowing a sick orange. She exhaled—a controlled breath behind the mask—and kicked the door open, fire in hand.
The corpses recoiled—not from fear, but from command, a ripple of unnatural hesitation passing through the horde. Behind them, the necromancer lowered her scepter slightly, a grimace twisting her lips. For the first time, No One saw her lips move, forming silent, chilling words only the dead could hear, shaping the air with dark intent. The corpses paused, a unnatural tableau in the mist.
And then charged, their gurgling shrieks rising in volume, their empty eyes fixed on the fire.
No One met them head-on, the glowing rod a brutal extension of her will.
She drove the molten rod through a shrieking corpse's mouth and out the back of its skull. It burned with a violent hiss—and this time, it didn't get back up. The unnatural animation died, replaced by the final stillness of ash and cinders.
The rest surged forward, a wave of decaying flesh and tattered robes.
She ducked, flipped onto a fallen beam, using it as a spring, kicked off a wall to gain height, and hurled the firebrand like a spear through another's chest. It ignited on contact, the corpse bursting into unnatural flames, its gurgling shriek turning into a horrifying wail of burning rot. She landed atop two others, grabbed the rod again, pulling it free, and swept through a wide arc, spraying cinders into rotting flesh.
Smoke. Fire. Heat. The acrid smell of burning death filled the air. The undead began shrieking, a sound of unnatural agony.
But it wasn't enough.
For every one she burned, five more filled the space, clawing their way through the smoke. Her katana flicked back into her grip. She spun, ducked, flipped over crawling limbs, severing them as she danced between deaths.
Flash.—Pierced thigh, a sharp pain, a stumble, losing her balance… She redirected her weight, shifting her stance, pushing through the ache in her injured side.
Flash.—Ribs broken, a bone snapping, her breath stolen, falling to the ground… She redirected, twisting away from a grabbing hand, the strain on her injured shoulder a fresh agony. Again. Again. The Mark of the Raven's Gaze was a storm behind her skull now, unleashing a brutal onslaught of split-second warnings—a claw swiping, a corpse lunging, her own body being torn apart. Each movement became a frantic thread between annihilation and survival, her body reacting to each vision an instant before it could become reality.
And still, the necromancer watched—silent and unmoved in her stance, her violet eyes burning through the mist, her scepter pulsing with dark power, directing the horde with silent, focused conviction, a dark pulse in the heart of the chaos.
A whisper of breath escaped No One's lips behind the mask. Then a plan, cold and sharp, formed in her mind amidst the chaos. A chance. The forge. A fire trap.
She needed space, a few precious seconds. Instead of a direct retreat, she feinted left, drawing the front line of corpses into a lunge. Then, with a burst of inhuman speed, she exploded to the right, vaulting over a shattered cart. Her powerful strides devoured the distance, widening the gap between her and the pursuing horde. They were fast, sprinting and lunging with unnatural vigor, but she was a phantom of pure survival.
She didn't run straight. As the horde adjusted its course, still thundering after her, she cut sharply down a ruined alleyway, using the fog and wreckage as cover. She circled wide, a blur of motion moving parallel to the main street, a predator flanking her own pursuers. She reached the ruined workshop from the side, slipping through a collapsed wall just as the first of the corpses began to realize their quarry had vanished from sight.
She had seconds. She didn't sprint; she flew. Shattered planks and oil-soaked rags were hurled into the forge's embers. She located a barrel of old quenching oil and, with a powerful kick, sent it crashing down, its thick contents gushing across the floor. The fire caught the spreading liquid with a hungry whoosh, and flames erupted, devouring the dry wood with a furious roar.
Now she had to draw them in.
She stepped back into the street, battered, bloodied—her clothes torn, her body aching, pushing past the pain—but her stance unshaken.
"They burn just fine," she muttered, her voice a low growl, eyes locking on the necromancer. "Now... what about you?"
The necromancer's violet eyes narrowed slightly at the taunt, a flicker of cold fury in their depths, though her expression remained otherwise unmoved. She made no sound, but simply raised her scepter a fraction of an inch, and a dark pulse of power emanated from it—a silent, focused command. In response, the corpses swarmed, shrieking like a tidal wave of rot and hatred, drawn by her presence, compelled by their master, and completely ignoring the danger of the roaring flames of the fire trap.
She turned and ran into the flaming hut, into the heart of the inferno, every heartbeat counting down to either death—or an inferno that would finally end them.
At the same instant, the raven flock tightened its frantic vortex overhead. Dozens of birds broke from the spiral, circling the now-burning workshop with piercing caws of alarm, some even daring to perch for a moment on the roof's peak, just feet from the licking flames. In response to their master's will, the corpses swarmed, shrieking like a tidal wave of rot and hatred, drawn by No One's presence inside the hut, compelled by their master, and completely ignoring the danger of the roaring fire trap.
No One stood in the doorway of the blacksmith's hut, fire licking up the walls behind her, smoke billowing into the bruised, starless sky, thick and choking. The barrel of oil had split wide, the flames now spreading like a ravenous beast across the cluttered floor, devouring every surface it touched, the heat intense, unbearable to living flesh. The corpses didn't slow—they advanced without fear, their eyes fixed on her, drawn to her like insects to blood, ignoring the danger of the fire.
She didn't run further inside. She waited.
Let them come.
The Mark of the Raven's Gaze unleashed a storm of warnings behind her skull, a constant, disorienting series of flashes—each one a glimpse of her own imminent demise. Each movement became a razor's edge between annihilation and survival, her body reacting to the split-second visions of claws and teeth an instant before they could find purchase.
And still, the necromancer watched—silent and unmoved, her violet eyes burning through the mist, her scepter pulsing with dark power, a beacon of cold conviction at the heart of the chaos she commanded.
No One needed to end this now. The plan that had formed in the forge was her only chance. She feinted, dodging a lunge that sent a corpse stumbling into the growing flames inside the workshop. Seeing an opening, she didn't retreat out the front but sprinted deeper into the burning structure, leaping through a shattered window frame on the far side. A portion of the horde, seeing her escape, broke off and began to pursue her around the building, while the rest continued to mindlessly pile in through the main entrance, drawn to the last place they had seen her.
She was a phantom in the fog, her inhuman speed giving her the precious seconds she needed. She scrambled up the side of the building, her fingers finding purchase in the hot stone and timber, and hauled herself onto the smoke-choked roof. The heat was immense. From a collapsing section, she broke off a piece of burning wood, its end glowing like a baleful eye. Peering over the edge, she saw them—over thirty of the reanimated corpses, a writhing mass of death packed inside and around the workshop's entrance, right above the pool of spilled oil.
As she raised her arm to throw, the Mark flared with a blinding, all-consuming vision: herself on the roof, engulfed and torn apart by the erupting fireball—utter annihilation.
She ignored it.
With a guttural cry, she hurled the burning brand down into the darkness below and, in the same motion, threw herself backwards, launching away from the roof's edge.
The burning wood met the oil. The world erupted in a deafening roar.
The explosion tore through the air, shaking the very ground. The workshop disintegrated in a tower of flame and pressure, splinters and shards of metal whirling like razors through the fog. The horde of corpses, inside and around the hut, was simply obliterated—a gruesome shower of burned and charred pieces raining down amidst the spreading fire. The raven flock, caught in their frenzied, curse-bound vortex too close to the blast, suffered a similar fate. Their panicked caws were vaporized in the roar, their dark forms vanishing in the incandescent flash, ceasing to exist in an instant.
Even as she launched herself away, the blast wave caught her, a physical hammer blow that lifted her off her feet and hurled her violently back across the square. Tumbling uncontrollably through the air, the Mark flashed again, a second, desperate warning: a vision of her head smashing against the thick stone lip of the village well behind her, the sickening, final snap of her neck.
This time, she reacted. With a surge of adrenaline, she twisted her body mid-air, tucking her head and trying to turn the fatal impact into a glancing blow. She was only partially successful. Instead of her head, her right shoulder smashed into the well with brutal, unforgiving force. A wet, grinding crack echoed in her own ears, a sickening counterpoint to the fading roar of the explosion. A fresh, blinding agony exploded through her, and the world finally dissolved into blackness.
Consciousness returned moments later, dragged from the black by a high-pitched ringing in her ears that was quickly consumed by an ocean of absolute, blinding pain. Agony shot through her torso with every shallow breath, but it was the state of her right arm that screamed the loudest. It was motionless, a useless, limp weight hanging from a shoulder that felt like shattered stone—the terrible price of her mid-air twist to avoid snapping her neck on the well.
A patch of her wolf-pelt cloak was ablaze, the cured hide catching fire easily, the flames licking at her skin. She rolled desperately on the damp earth to smother it, teeth gritted so hard her jaw trembled, the taste of blood and ash filling her mouth.
Smoke choked the air, acrid and thick, but through it she saw the devastation. Dozens of corpses had been shredded by the blast, their pieces burning and still twitching, consumed by the unnatural flames. The blaze spread fast—leaping from rooftop to rooftop, fed by dried wood and years of neglect, turning the village into a pyre. The sky above burned orange and red against the eternal twilight, a false dawn ignited by violence and death.
Only one building stood untouched, a solid shape in the inferno—the old granary. Reinforced with stone and sealed tight. It had held.
They were still alive inside. A fragile pocket of life in a sea of death and fire. And the necromancer knew it.
The woman in the dark blue cloak emerged from behind the burning wreckage she had used for cover, gliding like a shadow through the chaos. She was seemingly unaffected by the heat and smoke, her purple-glowing scepter pulsing faster now, a dark heart beating in the ruin. With a silent, focused command, she redirected her shattered forces, feeding her puppets and animating their ruined limbs.
The bulk of the horde—those still capable of moving—was sent to barrage the granary, dragging their burned limbs toward the stone building in a desperate attempt to break in.
A smaller, more grotesque group was sent to finish off No One. Burned torsos dragged themselves toward her, their movements jerking and unnatural. Detached hands clawed the dirt. Their mouths chewed air, gurgling with single-minded purpose. They were damaged but not defeated, a testament to their controller's power.
No One coughed blood, the coppery taste sharp in her mouth, and pushed herself to her feet, her blade in her left hand now, the right useless, hanging limp at her side. Every step was agony, a jarring pain that shot up her leg. Every breath was a war against the smoke and the pain. But she moved. She had to. The survivors in the granary. Her responsibility for this horror.
The necromancer raised her scepter, and the mist around her thickened, swirling like tendrils of shadow, coalescing around her like a shield, obscuring her form. Her face was veiled by the hood, but her eyes glowed—a deep violet burning with hatred. With focus. Directing the remaining horde towards No One and the granary, a final wave of death.
No One broke into a limping sprint, pushing through the pain, cutting down a legless monk as it launched at her with surprising speed, its gurgling moan cut short by the blade. Flash.—An ambush from behind, claws tearing at her back, a mistake in her blind spot… She turned and sliced an arm from the shadows, a defensive parry honed by instinct and countless brutal practice cycles.
Flash.—The ground beneath her unstable, a collapse, a fall, her injured leg giving out… She vaulted off a ruined support beam as it collapsed into flames behind her, landing precariously on her good leg but keeping her balance through sheer will.
Closer. The gap between her and the necromancer narrowed.
The necromancer extended her hand, the scepter pulsing violently, a dark star in the mist. The ground rippled. The corpses burst from beneath it now—fresh ones, buried long before, emerging from the desecrated earth like gruesome seedlings. She couldn't reach her like this, not through this renewed wave of death and the thickening shield of mist.
She grabbed a broken shovel nearby, its wooden handle scarred by fire, and hurled it end-over-end with her left arm, the effort sending a fresh jolt of pain through her side—striking the scepter with a sharp crack. The necromancer flinched, a brief flicker of surprise crossing her veiled face. Not enough to break her focus, but enough to weaken the grip on her puppets for a fraction of a second, the purple glow dimming.
No One had scaled the last standing watchtower, a risky ascent with her injuries, pulling herself up the rough stone and splintered wood with her left arm, her right hanging uselessly at her side. Each handhold was agony, each pull a strain on her damaged body. Reaching the top, she collapsed for a breath, scanning the chaos below through the swirling smoke and mist. The Mark screamed a blinding flash—her left leg snapping on impact, a bone piercing skin, a fatal landing if she came down straight. This brutal glimpse of a possible future solidified her purpose; she had to reach the necromancer, but a direct jump as she'd initially planned was a path to ruin.
But then she saw it. At the very top of the watchtower, still lit despite the surrounding destruction and mist, hung a small oil-lantern. A flicker of opportunity ignited in her mind, cold and sharp. Fire. A lesson learned in blood and ash.
Remembering the extra bandages Sayaka had given her, she reached into her pouch to retrieve them. Gasping softly against the pain in her side, she found a sturdy wooden post and maneuvered her katana, pinning the hilt against the wood with her stomach, the pressure sending fresh agony through her damaged ribs. Using her left hand, clumsy with pain and effort, she fumbled at her pouch, pulling out the white cloth. Painstakingly, one-handed, her muscles screaming in protest, she wrapped the bandage tightly around the blade's tip, her fingers shaking as she worked downwards, the rough cotton catching on scarred steel. Each turn of the cloth was a battle against tremors, against the searing ache in her shoulder, a grueling task performed with grim, unwavering focus.
She pulled the blade free from the post, gripping the wrapped hilt in her left hand. The necromancer was below, still directing her horde, her attention fixed on the granary. This was the moment. The opportunity the lantern had granted her.
With a cry born of pain and grim resolve, No One swung the wrapped blade with her left arm, leveraging her body's weight, striking the glass of the lit oil-lantern. It shattered with a sharp crack, spilling burning oil over the bandaged blade. The cotton strips ignited instantly, roaring to life with a hungry orange flame that cast flickering shadows on the mist.
Her katana was now a burning brand.
No One burst from above—Flash—A searing tear in her shoulder, a scream caught in her lungs, the cost of initiating the leap with her damaged body.
She twisted violently in midair, a brutal, desperate pivot to avoid the foreseen injury, redirecting her fall. Her body became a guided projectile, aiming not for the ground, but for the figure below.
She landed hard, directly on top of the necromancer, the impact jarring her damaged side but using the necromancer as a buffer against the full force of the fall. She gasped, the air punched from her lungs by the unexpected weight. In the same brutal, fluid motion of impact and counter-movement, No One, her katana already in her left hand, drove the blade straight down, impaling the necromancer in the center of her chest.
The necromancer shrieked, the sound inhuman, laced with agony and dark magic. She crumpled to the ground with No One still atop her, the katana buried deep in her chest. The purple glow of the scepter flared violently, its power sputtering.
No One didn't hesitate. Pain screamed through her own body, but her focus was absolute. With a guttural cry, she pulled the katana free from the necromancer's chest with her left hand, a sickening sound of tearing flesh. Before the necromancer could writhe away or raise her scepter again, No One, still straddling the fallen figure, brought the bloodied blade around in a swift, powerful arc. Steel met flesh and bone, slicing off her head with brutal efficiency.
The head rolled, landing with a soft thud on the ash-covered ground, the body beneath No One went limp, and the scepter exploded in a final pulse of raw purple fire that dissipated into the smoke.
Silence fell over the burning village, broken only by the roar of the flames and the crackle of burning wood.
The sky had shifted into the Second Phase of Waning Twilight: The Bleeding Sky. As the unnatural mist began to fade, drawn back into nothingness by the death of its summoner, the world was revealed beneath a lurid new light. Streaks of stormy grays and deep indigos smeared the heavens, shot through with shades of blood-rose that made the burning village look as if it were submerged in a fresh, cosmic bruise.
With the fog gone, the last of the reanimated corpses collapsed where they stood, their limbs falling slack, the unholy animation gone. The acrid smell of necromancy slowly gave way to the simpler, stark scent of smoke and burning timber. The bruised sky looked on, indifferent, a perfect mirror for the carnage below.
No One stood swaying in the clearing smoke, her body wrecked, her clothes soaked in ash and blood, her wolf-pelts charred and torn. The village burned around her, a pyre marking the end of the reanimated threat. The granary held strong, a dark, silent shape against the inferno, a beacon of life. They had survived inside. A fragile pocket of life in a sea of death and fire. She had survived outside. A figure forged in the heart of chaos.
And as she walked toward the granary, limping heavily through the embers, her body screaming in protest with every step, she muttered beneath her breath, the words a promise to herself, a lesson learned in fire and blood: "Next time... I'll bring vials of oil."
The granary was silent…
Thick stone walls muffled the roar of the fire outside, but the villagers had heard it all—the thud of limbs on earth, the scratch of bone against wood, the ghastly moans of things that should have stayed buried. Then came the blast—a roar so immense it cracked some of the inner beams and sent sacks of grain tumbling like frightened birds. Then... nothing. No wind. No whisper. Just the long, agonizing stillness after carnage.
Children clung to their mothers, their small bodies trembling, faces buried in robes. Old men held tools with white-knuckled grips, their faces etched with terror and confusion. A few whispered prayers, though none dared speak above a murmur, fearing even their breath might summon attention. The priest, once a man of confident scripture, now sat against the stone wall, holding his staff as if it were his only anchor to this world. Beside him, the young priestess gripped her talisman—an obsidian disk etched with silver runes. It pulsed faintly, warmly, as if recognizing a change in the air, a cessation of the unnatural energy, a return to something... less wrong.
Inside the granary, the sudden silence after the cacophony of battle was just as terrifying. Then, a new sound—a pained groan from just outside the sealed door, followed by the scraping of stone.
A woman shrieked, the sound piercing the tense silence. Someone else whispered, their voice trembling, "We're all going to die."
But then a different voice cut through the darkness, answering their unspoken fear. It was hoarse, human, raw with pain and exhaustion, but undeniably alive.
"It's over," the voice rasped from the other side of the door. "The… threat is gone."
A heavy thud followed, the sound of a body collapsing against the stone foundation. Then, silence once more, broken only by the roar and crackle of the spreading fire.
Moments passed, stretching into an eternity, before the priest, driven by a desperate hope, gathered the courage to unlatch the heavy wooden bar. The door groaned open on cracked hinges, revealing a vision of hell. Their village was a pyre, the flames reaching hungrily for a sky bruised with the stormy grays and blood-rose streaks of Waning Twilight. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of charred flesh. The ground was littered with the shredded, burning remains of the dead. The survivors huddled back, terrified and unsure what to do.
Then their eyes found the source of the thud. Lying face down on the dirt and ash before their door was the figure who had saved them. A few raven sentinels swooped low over her still form before rejoining the larger flock, which circled high above and cawed into the smoky air, their cries adding to the villagers' fear and suspicion that more death was still to follow.
The villagers didn't move, paralyzed by the devastation and the sight of their strange savior. But the priest, his face grim, stepped out alone into the ruin. He knelt beside No One and carefully rolled her over. He slid his arms beneath her to lift her, and as he did, a sharp, guttural cry of pain was torn from her lips. She winced, her eyes flying open as he jostled her shattered right shoulder.
She regained her strength with a surge of adrenaline, pushing herself away from him and stumbling to her feet. She leaned heavily on her good leg, her broken arm hanging uselessly at her side. With her left hand, she drew her katana, not to fight, but to survive. She jammed its tip into the packed earth and used the long hilt as a makeshift cane, holding herself upright through sheer force of will.
She looked past the priest to the terrified faces huddled in the granary doorway. Her voice was raw, rough with smoke and pain.
"Follow me," she commanded. "To Tasuke village."
With that, she turned and began to walk, each step a slow, agonizing effort, her katana-cane leaving a shallow drag line in the ash behind her. As she moved, the sky above responded. The massive, dark swarm of ravens that had gathered when she fell now moved with her, a silent, suffocating canopy of black feathers that blotted out the lurid twilight. It was not the organized flight of scouts, but a grim, supernatural procession, an omen of death escorting its champion.
No cheers erupted. No wave of relief. The villagers, seeing the sky itself held hostage by this terrifying phenomenon, shrank back from the doorway. The fear didn't reshape into awe; it solidified into a new, more profound dread. They had been saved from one horror only to be faced with another: a savior who was herself a walking portent of death.
The young priestess, Kiyomi, stared at the unfolding spectacle, her hand gripping her talisman. Her training screamed at her that this was a dark curse, a profound blight. Yet, this blighted woman was their only salvation.
It was the priest, Kaito, who made the choice for them all. "Stay behind her," he commanded the others, his voice tight with fear and desperation. "There is no home to return to."
And so they followed. The villagers of Higashimori emerged from the granary not with trust, but out of sheer necessity, keeping a wide, fearful distance from the slow, limping figure and the suffocating swarm of darkness that escorted her through the ruins of their lives.
As the last of the villagers began to emerge from the granary, their faces pale with shock, the priest turned to a young woman clutching a faintly glowing talisman. "Get them moving," he commanded two of the younger men, gesturing towards No One's slowly retreating form. "Follow her. Don't lose her." He then looked at the young priestess, his expression grim. "Quickly. We cannot leave it behind."
While the others began to organize the dazed survivors, the pair hurried back inside the stone structure. As No One limped further into the embers and smoke, the priestess' talisman began to pulse wildly in her hand, a warm, urgent light resonating not just with the wall before them, but also with No One's fading presence—a complex signal of paradox and power.
The priest, guided by an instinct honed by his order, moved to a section of the granary wall, pulling aside stacked grain sacks to reveal a sealed altar slab tucked beneath the floorboards. The old sigils carved into it glowed faintly now that the necromancer's unnatural influence had lifted. With a whisper of prayer, the priestess pressed her trembling fingers against the seals, murmuring ancient words. The stone slab hissed and shifted, revealing a hidden space below. The priest reached in, carefully retrieving a small, intricately carved wooden box—their sacred relic.
They walked in silence through the whispering Shadow-Wood, the sounds of the burning Higashimori Village gradually fading behind them. Above them, the massive swarm of ravens moved in eerie unison, a silent, suffocating canopy of black feathers that blotted out the sky—a grim omen moving with its champion. The priest and priestess talked amongst themselves in low tones the whole journey back, their voices a quiet murmur of awe and bewildered understanding, discussing the strange woman who commanded such a terrifying sign, the power they'd witnessed, and the artifact they now carried.
They finally arrived at Tasuke Village as the sky deepened into Deep Twilight's First Phase: The Shrouding Dark. The world was now a near-black canvas of obsidian and deep indigo, with the lights from the village huts glowing like warm, welcoming embers through the trees. Just as the first of these lights came into view, No One's injured leg gave out completely. She collapsed, falling forward onto the damp earth with a choked cry. The survivors gasped, stumbling to a halt, but none dared approach. The raven swarm overhead seemed to descend and tighten, a churning vortex of silent dread focused on her fallen form.
Only the priest, his face a mask of grim resolve, pushed through the terrified refugees. He knelt and, with a muttered prayer, carefully gathered the limp, broken girl into his arms.
A villager, seeing the strange procession under the sky of birds, had already sprinted ahead to Elder Roki's house. Roki rushed outside, Sayaka close behind him, and stopped dead. He saw the refugees from Higashimori, their faces pale with terror, and above them all, the sky black with ravens. Then he saw the fearless priest, carrying the limp body of the warrior who had left his home just that morning—covered in ash and blood. Urgency replacing his horror, Roki met them at his door and directed the priest to carry her inside to the room she had previously stayed in.
The priest and priestess followed them in, the priest clutching the relic box tightly. While Sayaka, her initial shock giving way to capable action, began tending to No One's gruesome wounds, the priest, priestess, Roki, and some of the survivors gathered in the main room.
The refugees from Higashimori, their voices filled with awe, recounted the horrors they had survived—the reanimated corpses, the fire, and the warrior who had emerged from the chaos to save them. They asked Roki if he knew this strange, powerful woman.
Roki, his face a mixture of profound shock and a reluctant pride, explained his connection to her. "She is the one I sent," he said, his voice heavy with disbelief. "She stayed with us just last night. Arrived from the south, seeking shelter. She's an outcast, I believe, living alone in the Shadow-Wood. When I heard of the trouble in Higashimori and knew you couldn't afford slayers, I asked for her help. I sensed she was capable... though I admit, I found her strange." He shook his head, looking towards the room where No One lay. "But I never imagined she would be facing a horror of that magnitude alone. She never even told us her name."
The eastern villagers, humbled and grateful, praised Roki for sending aid. He waved a hand modestly. "No, the credit belongs entirely to her."
The priest and priestess then introduced themselves. "I am Kaito," the priest said, bowing. "And this is Kiyomi." They explained their presence in Higashimori. "We were dispatched from our order to protect a sacred relic," Kaito said, indicating the box. "We had followed signs that a powerful necromancer was making her way to Higashimori village, seeking to corrupt the land and claim the artifact."
Kiyomi nodded grimly. "The necromancer arrived first and began assaulting the village, raising an army from the dead. We tried to use our rites to create wards, but her power was absolute. We were outmatched, cornered, and on the brink of destruction." Kaito finished, his gaze grave. "That is when she," he nodded towards the room where No One lay unconscious, "arrived. We owe our lives to you, Elder Roki, for sending aid, and to her for facing the necromancer and the horde."
The survivors from Higashimori, filled with gratitude, humbly offered their services to Tasuke Village. Roki, grateful for the influx of people, accepted their offer, his mind already working on how to integrate them. He directed them to a place where they could rest and eventually call home within the village perimeter.
Inside the quiet room, the air was thick with the scent of salves and clean linen. By the low light of a single oil lamp, Sayaka finished her work, her movements no longer sharp with frustration but slow and deliberate with a heavy sort of care. She looked at the still figure on the shikibuton, now cleaned of the grim evidence of her fight. Layers of fresh bandages wrapped a body that was a roadmap of violent trauma.
The priest, Kaito, and the priestess, Kiyomi, entered the room then, their steps silent on the wooden floor. They observed No One's unconscious body, her face, now free of ash and blood, looking shockingly young beneath the black sigil of the Mark.
Sayaka stated softly, her voice losing its earlier edge, now filled with a weary awe, "Her condition is grave. Her right shoulder is shattered, the arm fractured. Several ribs are cracked, and bruises cover her side, hip, and legs." She sighed, pulling a blanket over the still figure. "She will need much rest to recover."
Kiyomi's talisman, which she still held, pulsed with a soft, steady, golden light—no longer a wild warning, but a calm, constant acknowledgement of the power resting in the unconscious girl. Kaito placed the intricately carved relic box on a small table near the shikibuton, noting that the ancient wood of the box seemed to grow warmer in proximity to the girl.
They knelt beside the shikibuton. "No ordinary person could have faced such a horde and survived," Kaito murmured, his voice filled with reverence.
Kiyomi bowed her head, her hands clasped around the glowing talisman. She began to pray silently, not for a simple warrior, but for this strange, paradoxical champion who had delivered salvation through such brutal means—an instrument of both fire and grace.