"What the hell are you doing you, idiot? Hurry up and get the washing in," shouted a middle-aged woman, her hands placed on her hips as she glared at her husband sitting nearby as he grumpily put on his boots.

"For the love of our ancestors, the city is under lockdown. Do you want me to get arrested or killed?" complained the man, however, from the look on his face he was just finding something to whine about and not really that concerned.

"I asked you an hour ago when it first started raining to get the washing in. It's not like I am asking you to go to Fellwood Forest and hunt beats, it's a bloody walled garden," snorted the woman as she rolled her eyes, clearly not amused by the man's antics. "My best sheets and dresses are out there. If they have been ruined, by the Goddess of Vengence, I will stipe a layer of flesh from your hide and force you to sleep on the floor for a week.

The woman, scowl on her face, then moved towards the doorway that led out of the utility room, full of odds and sods that had no place in the rest of the house, to the dining room before turning around. "Now stop procrastinating. I'm going to call the others for dinner and will have dished out all of the best bits if you don't hurry up."

"I'm going, I'm going," sighed Mike as he finished tying his laces before standing up and walking towards the back door.

Through the small window to the door's left, he could see that the sky outside, if you ignored the glowing arrows in the distance, had become pitch black as the rain pelted against it.

Grasping the handle and twisting, Mike started to pull the door open. "You can't even be civil when sending me out in this godforsaken weather. I'll be lucky if I don't catch my death."

"Then it looks like this isn't your lucky day," came a soft, feminine voice as the door opened fully, causing Mike to jump back shout out in shock.

Hearing the strange voice and seeing her husband jump back in surprise, the middle-aged woman frowned as she leaned her body so she could see past him.

Standing just in front of the door, just far enough back so they wouldn't be completely revealed by the room's light, a mysterious figure's silhouette was illuminated by the streetlights on the opposite side of the garden's stone wall.

While it was dark outside, the limited light was still enough for the woman to make out some details.

The small figure, seemingly just over five foot tall, wasn't wearing a black robe as she initially thought, but what appeared to be a black sheet with a hole torn in it for the person's head.

"What have you done to my bed sheets?" shouted Mike's wife, enraged that her expensive sheets had been destroyed and turned into beggar-like clothing. "Mike, stop standing around like a fool and grab that vandal. I'll call the city guard."

Shoulder length, black hair was plastered to the figures face, which seemed to have its eyes closed and a soft, pleasant smile on their lips. Yet, even though the person appeared drenched to the bone, the sodden hair couldn't hide the elegance and charm of her features.

However, against the woman's expectations, instead of rushing forward to apprehend the vandal, she watched her husband's back in confusion as his hands shakily rose in front of him.

"Mike," roared the woman, believing that her husband was trying to make hidden gestures at the uninvited guest without her knowing. "Don't tell me you know this girl? Is this why you have been working late recently? You filthy, cheating pig."

Instead of replying, much to the woman's horror, her husband started to slowly fall back before crashing into the floor.

Protruding from his chest, at the location just above where his heart should be, was the handle of a dagger.

The woman's face started to turn pale, what she had just witnessed only just beginning to register in her mind as her chest began to inflate so that she could scream.

Yet, before she could make a sound, a shadow seemed to flicker past. A warm sensation, as if she was being covered in hot liquid, flowed down her front as the woman felt that she could no longer hold her head up. After a moments struggle, she gave up and allowed it to lower to her chest as her body started to topple forward.

The shadow that had flickered past her appeared in the dining room, illuminated by candles on the long, impressive table, forcing Nyx to open her eyes, her spiritual sense limited by the lack of dark essence in the surrounding area.

Looking to the side and into a round, ornamental mirror hanging on the wall, Nyx couldn't help but sigh and curse the glowing, blue eyes staring back.

"Why the hell do they have to glow so brilliantly. I might as well stick a neon 'Aim here' light on my forehead," muttered Nyx, her demonic hand dropping the mangled flesh that had once been the woman's throat to the carpeted floor with disinterest, as she turned her attention to the dinner table.

There were a few covered dishes, the scent of food wafting from it almost unbearably tempting to the starving Nyx, but instead of eating, she moved up and down the table collecting the knives that had been set out for five people.

Nyx had been continuously circulating and absorbing dark essence, pushing herself and her skills to the limits as she defeated those stronger than herself, and felt that she was on the cusp of a breakthrough and forming her first core layer.

As such, Nyx knew that she ate anything now, it might trigger her body to expel the poisons and toxins in that had built up, which would not only take a lot of time but leave her in a weakened state.

While moving along the table, Nyx used her new, household weapons to cut the black sheet she had wrapped herself in whenever she felt her movements were hindered by the fabric.

However, she quickly realised that this was quickly undoing the purpose of using the sheet as temporary clothing and so, decided to stop.

As she reached the foot of the table, Nyx halted as she tilted her head to the side and turned her gaze towards the door opposite she had entered.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

With a movement that would be hard to see with the naked eye, Nyx's wrist flickered, and one of the knives that she had just picked up was sent hurtling towards the door.

"Moth-" Just as the knife was about to hit the door, it opened as a youth, looking no older than sixteen, had opened his mouth to call out.

The impact had forced his head to flick back violently, his one remaining eye not even revealing a hint of shock or surprise as his body crashed heavily into the floor behind him.

"Three," said Nyx in an impassionate voice as she quickly recounted the places set on the table, only for her words to be drowned out in what sounded like a child-like scream which was suddenly stifled, coming from somewhere upstairs.

Nyx's eyes scanned the room once more, not finding any other weapons that suited her, before arriving at the boy's body, which had conveniently stopped the door from completely closing.

Without pause or hesitation, Nyx bent at the waist and pulled the knife out of the teenager's eye.

However, after realising that the impact had warped the fragile metal, Nyx flung the knife to the side as she stepped over the corpse and looked up the elegant, wooden staircase behind.

At the top of the stairs, there was a long landing, separated by a thin-looking railing, with a dozen or so doors. Some of the rooms had lights emanating from their doorways while the rest, just like the hallway, was dark.

Nyx's breath slowed as she listened for signs of life, only to frown as she realised that apart from the usual sounds an empty house made, she couldn't hear anything else.

Since her fight with the mercenaries, Nyx had stopped roaming the streets and had started making her way to the city walls house by house, which turned out to be much safer and had resulted in her shaking her pursuers.

However, this method was much slower and relied entirely on stealth and remaining undetected.

As such, there could be no survivors, not that Nyx was in the mood to allow anyone to escape.

As far as she was concerned, the nation that had ordered her death was represented by the people and because of that, they were all equally guilty.

Slowly, Nyx started ascending the stairs, making sure to check every corner for signs of potential danger or ambush.

"One~, Two~, Nyx is coming for you~."

While Nyx couldn't leave survivors, she also couldn't afford to waste too much time so resorted to tricks and mind games to get her quarry to reveal themselves.

Unsurprisingly, the rhyme she had stolen from her previous life, the one she had used when chasing the fat man, seemed to work the best against children and those with weak minds.

Upstairs, at the end of the long, narrow corridor, in a dark room only barely illuminated by the street lights outside, an old man and a young girl stood panicked as Nyx's icy, eerie voice caused their souls to quake.

Tears ran down the young girl's face as she bit onto a cloth so she wouldn't make any noise as the old man's body shook in fear.

However, even though the old man, wisps of dishevelled white hair sticking out at random angles, looked terrified, there was an unyielding light in his eyes.

"Three~, four~, Nyx is at your door~."

Nyx's voice, powered by her dark essence, floated through the rooms of the house, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

As if finally making his mind up, the old man quickly moved to the nearby cabinet and silently removed a book from the top shelf. Opening it, he pulled out a small bottle of pills that had been hidden into a hole cut into the book's pages.

Taking one out, he couldn't help shed a few tears as he gave it to his granddaughter who, in her terrified state, instantly swallowed it. She hadn't even retained enough state of mind to ask what it was.

Seconds later, the girl's, who looked to be around eight years old, face paled as she lost the ability to control her limbs and collapsed.

She was caught by the old man, who had been waiting for this and gently placed her on the floor, moving her body so she lay on her side facing the door.

Nyx had already reached the top of the stairs yet, due to the light spilling from of the doorways of the rooms, her spiritual sense was blocked at each one, forcing her to manually walk into each one and eliminate the light before continuing her search.

"Five~ Six~."

Nyx's words paused in an eerie manner. She had never got this far without someone releasing a sob or sound that would give them away, yet she didn't feel the original rhyme would work.

After a couple of breaths of time, she decided to just use something and, if she ever needed to use this tactic again, she could think of something better.

"The world is full of lunatics~."

Meanwhile, the old man had spread the remaining pills on the floor in front of his granddaughter, as if they had spilt when she fell.

He had never thought he would have ended up using this kind of medicine on his own granddaughter but something told him that without doing something as drastic, both of them would die and his family line would end.

Moving his mouth close to the girl's ear, trying to speak as quietly as possible, the old man couldn't help but release the tears he had so valiantly tried to repress. "I'm sorry Laverna, Grandfather is not a good man and so will be going on ahead. Don't hate me too much for this."

"Seven, Eight, Your flesh is making Nyx salivate~."

Having said his piece, the old man stood up and wiped away his tears and squared his shoulders. Light brown energy, much weaker than the warrior Nyx had faced earlier, appeared on his fists as he took a deep breath.

Charging out of the room and taking a few steps down the hallway, the old man has greeted by intense darkness, with just enough residual light from the window behind him to see the wall's edges.

However, all of this was lost to the old man as his eyes met Nyx's.

Dark, snake-like shadows, pitch black compared to their surroundings, wrapped around Nyx's mist-like, rag-covered silhouette, giving her a ghastly, terrifying visage.

"Monster," whimpered the old man, taking a few steps back as his courage wavered. He had intended to fight to the death with whatever had broken into his home and killed his family but, after seeing such a terrifying sight, he could barely stop himself from dropping to the floor and curling into a ball

Nyx's body, as if it was gliding weightlessly, which due to her ability wasn't far from the truth, floated forward.

Like a soul that had been condemned to hell, the old man's agonised scream erupted from his mouth as Nyx's figure was suddenly in front of him, a shadow-like claw having grasped his face as the stench of blood rapidly filled the air.

Nyx had never touched another while this ability had been active yet, ever since she woke up, she had instinctually known that it would cause agonising pain to those she touched.

This was a side effect of how pure and untainted Nyx's dark affinity was.

When it was pushed out of her body, the essence would attempt to corrode any other type, especially anything that been somewhat refined by other cultivators, like their skin, flesh and organs.

With a dull thud, the old man's body fell back before the doorway, directly in the line of sight of his granddaughter's eyes which had not blinked since she had dropped to the floor.

What remained of the man's face was a horrific sight, bone revealed as puss-like flesh and muscle, turned black with the corrosion of Nyx's dark essence, seeped onto the floor.

"Nine~, Ten~, never breathe again~."

Nyx's ghost-like form glided into view, her blazing, otherworldly eyes looking at the pills on the floor before moving onto the young girl's corpse-like body.

A wave of spiritual energy washed over the girl, retreating after a few seconds before Nyx snorted once and disappeared back down the dark corridor.

After a few more seconds, the girl's heart beat once, just barely enough to keep her paralysed body alive and conscious due to the side effects of the pill, her grandfather's desperate gambit seemingly paying off.

After a little while, the girl's ears picked up the sound of her front door being opened and closed, yet no matter how much she wanted to cry or move, her body refused to respond.

All she could do was stare at her grandfather's horrific remains as the rhyme, one that Nyx had never intended to be known as none should have survived, repeated agonisingly in the young girl's mind.