Upon opening the door, the man and woman gagged, however, they did not turn around or remove their eyes from Nyx as they quickly covered the lower halves of their faces.

Nyx didn't feel a shred of embarrassed, more like she was secretly happy someone else had to suffer, as she watched the woman enter the room and collect the chamber pot, replacing it with a new one.

The male remained by the door, seemingly ready to close it at a moments notice if Nyx made a move from her cot.

Without a word, the door closed and Nyx was on her one once again.

Nyx couldn't help but grin. Even though the air flow in the room was terrible, she could already tell that the smell had diminished significantly.

Her first concern had been food and water; the next was her environment. Now both had seemingly been resolved, to the best she could expect, it was all down to her.

Without any further delay, she quickly closed her eyes and continued to absorb and refine the essence from her cell.

And so, Nyx fell into a repetitive pattern, one that would drive most to insanity due to boredom.

She would cultivate until exhaustion, sleep for a few hours, wake up when to the sound of the door being unlocked and food delivered, endure the sensation of her insides turning to liquid fire as her body expelled the impurities and toxins, absorb and refine, then start cultivating all over again.

Luckily, Nyx was able to calm down and settle into this boring, mundane routine easily. The main reason was that she had existed in the void and so, having something to do no matter how monotonous, was considered an excellent way to pass the time.

The fat man never returned after he dropped the first meal off, it was only the man and woman who would deliver food and replace the chamber bot, but Nyx still heard him, and the suffering he caused, on a daily basis.

The strange duo never spoke a word to Nyx, but each time they arrived, their cautiousness seemed to grow, as if they knew that not only was she getting stronger, due to their involvement, they had already made her list.

With no access to a clock or the sun, Nyx started counting days from the time between meals. She had reached seventy-five per cent attunement after thirty-three meals, the speed of progress significantly diminishing as she progressed, but Nyx still felt she could improve further.

When she reached eighty-eight per cent, over ninety meals had passed, and her progress had almost ground to a halt, but it still wasn't good enough.

One of the reasons for the reduced speed was that it was that her body was naturally resisting the changes. If she reached a hundred per cent, her body would, in theory, become dark energy, destroying it in the process and killing her.

The other was that she had started training her body, using dark essence to feed her muscles and increase their stamina as she pushed her body to the limit.

Time flew by, and as Nyx threw herself entirely into improving her body and attunement, over two hundred and thirty meals had passed.

It was just after her two hundredth and thirty-second meal and her post-meal exercise that Nyx stood naked in front of the mirror having removed her robe so it wouldn't get soaked in sweat.

While someone who knew the bodies original owner would still be able to tell it was her, Nyx had undergone significant changes.

Her once brown hair had turned almost black, her pale skin was so white, it looked like someone had dipped her in paint yet, that wasn't the most startling change.

Her skin was still covered in scars but underneath them, slender, powerful muscles, built for bursts of speed and power lay. There wasn't an ounce of visible fat, not that she had any to start with, and her well-defined stomach had the first signs of gaining a six-pack.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Nyx frowned a little, looking at her body with a critical eye.

She hadn't really checked out her body since that first day, throwing herself wholeheartedly into cultivation, yet looking at her muscled, scar-ridden body, she couldn't help but feel a little disheartened.

As a man, she had never found excessive muscles on a woman attractive. If you added the scars, she looked even more masculine and unruly, similar to what Nyx would image a female barbarian, if you ignored Nyx's average height, would look like.

An urge, from where Nyx did not know, slowly bubbled up and, after a deep breath, she hesitantly jumped on the spot.

With a grimace at her actions, Nyx watched her small, perky breasts bounce a little. Her facial expression wasn't because of the training that had further reduced their size, but because Nyx was checking out her own body.

So far, Nyx had been treating his current form as the others. A container made of flesh whose only purpose was to complete her objectives yet, as she gazed into the mirror, Nyx actually started to feel like this was her real form.

"Probably because my best survival streak before this was two months," sighed Nyx as she shook her head, seemingly talking to her reflection in the mirror.

Shaking her head, not really understanding why she had given in to the temptation to see if they bounced, Nyx used the bottom of her robe to wipe the remaining sweat away before putting it on.

If she considered it tattered before, after enduring the normal wear and tear alongside her training, the robe could be regarded as scrap now.

It covered the important parts, which is all Nyx was concerned about, but it revealed a lot of skin and Nyx always felt uncomfortable when her gaze fell upon the multitude of scars.

Stretching her body, Nyx started moving towards the bed to start cultivating, feeling that she was just a tiny push away from reaching ninety per cent affinity, however, when she just passed the table, Nyx suddenly froze.

For a long time, she had been able to distinguish between the three pairs of footsteps that frequented the hallway outside, what Nyx could only assume to be an underground prison. She had also worked out that there should be around twenty other cells leading away from her own, five of them empty, two unknowns and the rest filled with women.

The fat man would usually deliver food, staying for his own twisted entertainment, at all the occupied cells but Nyx's.

However, today, she could only hear a single set, his. What made it worse was that he hadn't stopped at the twenty-fourth cell nearby but had continued onwards.

Nyx had done everything she could think off to push the trauma suffered to the recesses of her mind yet it seemed that no matter what she did, she just couldn't forget.

One by one, the locks on the door fell away, sounding as long as a battle drum as Nyx turned to stare at the door.

Strangely, Nyx was more anxious now than when she had last seen the man, time seemingly having made her anxiety worse.

All too soon, the door cracked open, and the man whose face she couldn't forget walked in.

The man had lost a lot of weight since she saw him last, yet that wasn't the most noticeable thing. His eyes had a haunted, almost crazed look as they locked onto Nyx, seemingly able to blame her without words.

"Stupid Bitch, how dare a mere mortal cause me to suffer a heart demon."

The man stepped forward. From the slur in his words, it was evident that he was drunk, but against all expectations, his body moved perfectly.

Nyx gaze flashed behind the man, wondering why he hadn't closed the door, her instincts telling her that she was in danger.

"Don't worry sweety; you will be going through that door soon." Seeing Nyx eye the door, the man revealed a sneer. "Unluckily for you, it seems your value is less than a couple of hundred, useless stones, so it will just be your body that makes the trip."

Nyx's eyes snapped back to the man as he started unbuckling his belt, letting his trousers drop to the floor before hastily kicking them away. "Don't worry, before I send you to hell; I will take you to heaven."

Nyx shivered violently, seeing the man's erect penis and couldn't help but take a step back. While she had made significant progress with her cultivation until she completed her core, all she was able to do was what most would consider mere parlour tricks.

Nyx took another step back, wishing she had just one or two more days worth of time, or that she wasn't so stubborn and constructed her core.

"But that's only if you make sure to give it your all, this will be your last rodeo after all," said the man as he walked around the table. When he was no more than five feet away from Nyx, he licked his lips in a sinister way.

His eyes flickered between Nyx's neck and hips "I've always wanted to choke the life out of a little princess as I fuck her arse. It looks like today will be my lucky day."

Even though Nyx was starting to panic inside, her fight or flight response seemingly not kicking in, to the man, all he saw was indifference as her cold, emotionless eyes started back.

In the dark blue void that was her eyes, not even a ripple of emotion or thought stirred, however, the flames in the torches surrounding the room started to violently flicker as Nyx subconsciously began to circulate her energy with a need she had never had before.

Knowing that death was near, and not only that, the prelude to it, while Nyx couldn't enter her trance-like state, she was fully prepared to go all out.

Either she would leave this room alive, or both of them would perish inside.