"Impossible! Our hatred, our agony... even a so-called hero shouldn't be able to endure it better than us! This is the power we traded everything for! Why are you still standing?!"
A white-haired cultist, one who seemed to have retained a shred of sanity, shrieked in disbelief.
"Because you have a death wish," Raven replied coldly. "Those who only seek to die cannot strike me down. If you want to break my will, you'll need at least three times that much madness. You have no chance of winning. Surrender."
"Surrender? We would rather stand and burn to ash than be slaughtered like dogs!" The cultist erupted into shrill, manic laughter.
"...Then I have nothing more to say. To arms, then." Raven recalled the Golden Order's absolute stance on the Frenzied Flame; he realized that even if these people surrendered, they would likely be executed. In this light, offering them quarter felt like little more than a hollow lie.
"It is one thing to embrace the Frenzied Flame for power, but to drag children into it while acting like noble martyrs?" He raised the Sword of Night and Flame.
"You nobles will never understand!" the cultist screamed, brandishing a pitchfork. "Together! Butcher him!"
Raven wasted no more words. With a Carian Slicer in one hand and the Sword of Night and Flame in the other, he swept through the crowd like a whirlwind. He left more than a dozen mangled corpses in his wake, his arms extending as he held back the hundreds of cultists swarming toward him.
Outside the village, Godwyn watched the battlements with narrowed eyes, his raised hand still held steady. However, the old man wearing the Okina mask didn't wait. He rode out on his own, his skeletal old horse wobbling as it trotted toward the village entrance.
"Hmm?" A flicker of irritation crossed Godwyn's face. He moved to rebuke the man, but then decided it was beneath his dignity to argue with such a minor figure.
At that moment, Raven's figure appeared on the wall. He retreated to the breach where he had entered, reached out with one hand, and yanked the banner from the earth-and-stone wall, thrusting it upright into the battlements.
The banner snapped in the wind. Raven leaned against the flagpole as if taking a momentary breath, the towering flames reflecting off his profile as his black hair brushed his shoulders. The sight left the mercenaries momentarily spellbound.
"Raven!"
"Raven!"
"Raven!"
Someone shouted the first cry, and soon the crowd took up the name in a deafening roar.
"All units, advance!" Godwyn finally dropped his hand. "Kill every enemy you see! Do not let a single cultist escape this village!"
"RAAAAAAAAH!" The mercenaries, who had been straining at the bit, surged forward like a dam breaking, howling as they charged toward Dominula.
On the wall, Raven took a step forward. A trail of nearly a hundred corpses stretched from his feet to the other end of the battlements; for a moment, the remaining cultists didn't dare approach. He waved his staff, conjuring a Greatblade Phalanx around him, but his gaze was fixed on the interior of the village.
The wooden clappers beat faster and faster. An endless stream of men, women, and children poured out of the dilapidated hovels, brandishing crude weapons as they rushed up the stairs to reinforce the wall. Raven turned; the remaining cultists on the ramparts tore open their shirts, sparks flickering in their wide-gaped mouths. They were preparing for another wave of suicide explosions.
"Why go to such lengths?" For a moment, he felt a flicker of reluctance to continue the slaughter, but he raised his sword nonetheless. "Come, then."
A flash of blood-red steel kissed the throats of the cultists.
Amidst a spray of gore, the old man in the Okina mask stepped onto the wall. He reached up and untied the straw cord at his collar. His straw cloak slid from his shoulders, falling into the pool of blood on the ground.
Beneath the cloak, he wore a set of heavy armor covered in countless scars and dried blood, its surface dark and lusterless.
Raven recognized it as the heavy armor of the Land of Reeds. He had seen a few Ronin mercenaries in Liurnia with similar gear, but compared to the old man before him, those warriors were like children boasting with wooden toys.
The old man glanced at him and gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Then he turned, walking calmly toward the swarming cultists. He lacked Raven's flashy sorcery and intricate sword techniques; he simply swung his blade. He swung again, and again, striking from every angle with a terrifying, understated efficiency that matched Raven's own lethality.
Raven had only ever seen such mastery of slaughter in the Ringleader of the Black Knives, yet this was entirely different. Alecto was silent before she struck, but when she moved, her killing intent was like an erupting volcano. This old man, however, showed no killing intent at all. It was as if he weren't locked in a life-and-death struggle, but was merely a woodcutter splitting kindling.
If not for the fact that the man's age seemed to have dulled his strength and agility slightly, Raven suspected that even the Ringleader of the Black Knives might not be his match.
I didn't expect to find such a powerhouse among these mercenaries, Raven thought. I should try to make contact later and see if I can recruit him into my knightly order. Even if he only recruited this one old man, the entire expedition would be worth it.
Grappling hooks latched onto the edge of the wall as more mercenaries climbed up. At the main gate, a thunderous boom echoed as a brilliant red light flared—Godwyn had shattered the gates with Dragonbolt.
Raven leaned over the edge to look. The mercenaries were clearing the chevaux-de-frise, dragging them away or smashing them to pieces. Archers and crossbowmen unleashed a rain of arrows, cutting down any cultists attempting to charge out and explode before they could even get close.
Just then, two massive boulders whistled through the air from the center of the village, hurtling toward the gate.
Raven fired six Glintstone Stars from the tip of his staff, knocking one of the boulders off its trajectory. Amidst a cloud of dust, the stone slammed into the broken gate, partially blocking the entrance.
One mercenary who had been charging at the front was nearly thrown as his horse reared in terror. He turned his horse, staring at the boulder with lingering fear; if Raven hadn't deflected its path, he and his horse would have been crushed into a pulp.
Raven looked back. Two Trolls had emerged from the depths of the village, roaring as they picked up fresh boulders to hurl over the walls. A pile of these stones sat before them, clearly prepared by the cultists as ammunition.
"Trolls..." Raven muttered. He leaped from the outer wall, landing lightly on the roof of a thatched hut. He bounded to the next roof, rapidly closing the distance between himself and the two giants.
The Trolls soon noticed Raven's swift approach. They raised their boulders, but whether it was because Raven was moving too fast to aim at or because they didn't want to crush their own cultists on the ground, they grunted and set the stones down. Instead, each picked up a massive iron stake and stood ready.
The stakes were six or seven meters long and as thick as water barrels, covered in dark red rust. A heavy iron chain was attached to one end. Raven recognized them instantly—these were the very shackles the Golden Dynasty used to bind Troll slaves, piercing through their chests to force them to haul heavy carriages.
An iron chain whipped through the air where Raven had been a second ago, tearing the roof of the thatched hut clean off. Amidst a cloud of dust and debris, Raven landed gracefully on the ground, standing directly before the Trolls.
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Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring(68 Chapter - Ongoing)
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