Surprisingly, when Nyx reached the top of the ladder, she found that no one was waiting. Instead, what she discovered looked like the small office, with a single desk and a few shelves that had been ransacked in a hurry.

Moonlight from the solitary window cast long, twisted shadows across the room, giving enough light to disable Nyx's ability, but not enough to see everything with her eyes clearly.

Bloody handprints, accompanied by pools of blood, covered the room, along with documents, gold coins and even a few beast cores scatter amongst other items.

After confirming the room was empty, Nyx pulled the rest of her body through the trapdoor, and for a brief moment, lay panting on her back nearby.

The temptation to close her eyes and sleep was overwhelming, but Nyx grit her teeth and dismissed the idea immediately. Her heartbeat was slow, similar to the steady beat of a drum, however, after catching her breath for a few moments, Nyx started to force herself to her feet.

However, just as she was about to rise from her knees, a few tubes of red liquid, that had seemingly rolled under the desk when the room had been ransacked, caught her eye.

As if grasping a lifeline, Nyx quickly crawled over to the vials, grabbing them one by one before uncorking and drinking as if she were a madwoman. Finishing the last one, Nyx sat down with her back leaning on the desk, so she could face the open doorway and closed her eyes.

The vials were full of the weakest healing potion known to this world, yet even if their effects were limited, if Nyx sat still and cultivated, she would be able to recover a bit of her vitality.

Seeing as the man had not ambushed her, nor had he sent anyone, Nyx felt she could spare some time to heal. It would increase her odds later. Nyx had died just as many times from rushing things than taking it slow and knew it was just a gamble she would have to make.

However, as Nyx was in a dangerous situation, she couldn't just meditate where she was. As such, she was forced to draw in, absorb, refine and circulate the pure dark energy around her body manually.

A process that was extraordinarily taxing and slow.

A gentle breeze rustled the trees outside as the light of a full moon was cast upon the floor, yet before Nyx could cultivate for even ten minutes, she noticed the sound of many people trying to sneak towards her position.

The seemed to be coming down wooden steps and spreading out in the room on the other side of the doorway.

Heavy breathing, a creaking floorboard, a light thud on a wall. Nyx heard them all as she slowly opened her eyes, exhaustion evident on her face.

"I guess there really is no rest for the wicked," Scanning the room, Nyx's eyes fell upon the beast cores scattered around before a wryly smile formed on her pale lips. "But the devil really does take care of his own."

While she wasn't at the level she could absorb their energy, or even use the cores as a medium to attack with, there was also another, obscure, use for them.

Not many people knew that for those who hadn't formed their core but could still manipulate their internal energy, they could use their essence to overload them.

The reason why it could only be done by those who hadn't become a cultivator but could still manipulate energy because, if a core related cultivator tried it, they would also overload their own at the same time and explode.

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Crawling around, too injured and tired to care about the noise she made, Nyx quickly gathered the thirteen beast cores before shakily standing up.

As her right arm was basically useless, she could only use it to grasp a bundle of her robe, creating a makeshift pouch for the cores, before selecting one with her other hand.

Holding up a white, slightly glowing core, Nyx felt an instinctual repulsiveness towards it and decided she would get rid of it first.

Clasping the core in her hand, Nyx directed her energy towards it, feeling the smooth, ball rapidly warm as her essence started to quickly diminished.

Just as it started shaking violently, a small crack appearing on its surface, Nyx swung the core underarm, letting it hit the floor and roll out the room as if she were bowling.

A few muffled thuds, along with gasps of surprise and fear, resonated from the room outside as Nyx released a mocking smile and turned around, closing her eyes.

The sound of thunder, followed by shattered glass exploded behind her as a blinding white light erupted. The force was so strong that it lifted Nyx off her feet and slammed her into the desk.

Shaking her head to clear the daze, not expecting the light beast core to be so powerful, Nyx was instantly reminded of the time when she arrived by the position she was laying on top of the desk and quickly pushed herself up, bile rising in her throat as the urge to kill the man before he escaped intensified.

A groan of pain floated through the shattered doorway, surprising Nyx. She had expected everyone in the room to be turned into mincemeat, the power of an exploding core wasn't something a cultivator could take head-on unless he had already ascended to the gem realm.

Almost releasing a tear due to the pain her body was releasing, Nyx slowly walked through the door, carefully checking all corners, as she selected the next core.

Rolling the red cores out the way, saving them for later, Nyx was left with a choice between green, blue and silver.

Wondering what element silver was, having never encountered it in her past, Nyx quickly grasped it and filled it with her energy, only stopping a fraction before it would overload.

Although energy would gradually escape, forcing her to keep topping it up, at least she would be able to react quickly if the situation demanded it.

After scanning the room a second time, Nyx realised that the groans of pain weren't coming from the place she just bombed, but from behind the shattered double doors on the opposite side.

A servent's stairway, the fake wall that had previously hidden it destroyed, was to her right, yet Nyx had no intention of going into such a tight and confined space.

Stepping over debris and a few, bloody limbs, the torsos remaining relatively intact, Nyx reached the other side of the room and shook her head at the dizziness that kept threatening to overwhelm her.

It was considered a good thing to push your body to its limits when cultivating, forcing out the innate potential and survival instincts of the body, but Nyx knew she was currently abusing that fact. She needed to end this fast and either find help or a quiet place to try and recover.

Outside the room was a large hall, seemingly a place to welcome guests. While it didn't have any decorations and gave off an abandoned, dilapidated feeling, anyone could tell that this was once a wealthy and prestigious household with a single glance.

There was no light besides that which came from the moon entering through the many windows, making the place feel somewhat creepy.

Walking through the doorway as if she owned the place, stepping over the shattered remains of the doors, Nyx entered the room and quickly found the source of the groaning.

A smeared trail of blood led across the marble floor to a young man, a large chunk of wood embedded into his gut as he tried to crawl away.

Locking eyes with Nyx, he froze, the groan of pain stopping dead in his throat as if him not moving or making a sound might cause Nyx to miss him.

Nyx frowned a little, tilting her head. The man strangely deloping a fear to her was weird, the thin man and woman, concerning, yet now, even if she had just blown up a room full of people, Nyx was starting to wonder just what about her current appearance seemed to instantly unsettle everyone.

Throwing the thought to the back of her mind, thinking she would investigate it if she survived, Nyx walked towards the man.

Her steps were slow and deliberate, trying to seem as stable and confident as possible without revealing any weakness.

Reaching the man, Nyx looked down and revealed a cold, emotionless smile as she played with the beast core in her hand. "Where's the fat man?"

The young man started to shake, the smell of urine soaking into the air yet he didn't say a word as he stared back into Nyx's eyes as if he had seen a demon.

The smile vanished from Nyx's face as the shadows around her darkened, turning into what appeared to be a dark mist as it swirled around her.

"I said." Nyx lifted her leg, placing her bare foot on the wood sticking out from the man's gut and slightly pressing down. "Where's the fat man?"