Three long, echoing rings of a large bell rang out across the multiple districts of the Welshmar Republic's capital as the storm in the sky, having emptied after their torrential downpour, started to disperse.

The initial panic and chaos caused by Nyx had long since calmed down, no new flares having been released for at least four hours, and the patrolling soldiers and knights had organised themselves into groups that would offer no easy kills as they continued their search fruitlessly.

An hour or so after sunset, after a rapid killing spree that led them to the east and towards the shopping district, their target, the elusive yet savage primordial beast, had vanished without a trace.

To those that had not been kept up to date, most of the city's civilian population and civil servants, it seemed as the terrifying event had come to an end along with the unnatural storm, feeling confident that the overwhelming might of their military had resolved it.

Little did they suspect that, after leading her pursuers in a false direction, Nyx had returned to the middle-class residential district and started stealthily entering homes.

After eliminating the occupants to prevent discovery, and ensuring the coast was clear, she would move onto the next house, moving relentlessly towards the city's outer walls.

"I almost wish someone would pop a flare," grumbled a guard, having stopped at a junction of a street that separated the city's buildings from the outer wall. "All of this tension and unknowing is killing me."

His comrade, appearing to be a little older than him, couldn't help but give the man a look of disgust as he shook his head. "It's not like I don't get what you mean, this... waiting is making me feel as if a mountain is pressing down on us, but most of those flares earlier were the markers of death. The fact there hasn't been any new ones is good news. Honestly, I hope someone got a lucky blow in, and the blasted beast limped off to die in the shadows somewhere. Come morning, we will find its corpse, and we can put this whole nightmare behind us."

-"Well, I'm not dead, and I'm already behind you," thought Nyx as she repressed the urge to chuckle, a sadistic light flashing in her eyes.

The sound of footsteps caused Nyx's to turn her head slightly and watch another patrol, two knights and seven soldiers, walk past and ensure all of the sentries were alive and well.

She sat in the shadows of an open window, having helped the house's occupants to pass away peacefully in their sleep, keeping a silent vigil one the happenings outside.

Ignoring the chattering soldiers beneath the window, Nyx started to frown as her attention return to the brightly lit, well-manned wall.

It wasn't like she couldn't escape from this location, it was just that any attempt would undoubtedly lead to her discovery.

Without knowing the lay of the land on the other side of the thirty foot high, stone walls, as well as the area's terrain, nor the strength of her enemy, Nyx didn't want to commit to such a risky endeavour yet had discovered that she had little choice in the matter.

Releasing a soft, feminine sigh, Nyx retreated a little further back into the room before a searchlight, made up of many glow stones, flashed across the window before moving onto the next house. -"I really don't like playing another's games."

When she had been scouting the area earlier, moving along the street on the opposite side of the wall, she had felt a growing sense of danger, reaching the point that her hair had stood on end, and been forced to retreat.

The same happened when Nyx tried moving in the opposite direction and then, more worryingly when she attempted to retreat back into the city.

However, after being forced into an area no bigger than a few, well off houses, the pressure stopped, as if content to keep her somewhat contained.

"Want to take me alive?" hissed Nyx, her eyes narrowing dangerously. She knew she was sitting inside a trap, probably by those not under the command of the Republic or city, in which the end goal was to capture her, yet at the moment, she felt at a loss on what to do.

To stay until the sun rose was akin to begging for disaster but to be pushed in the direction her unseen foe wanted her to move was almost as bad.

It was clear by the sense of danger she felt that her opponents were not only much more powerful than her, at least in the mid stages of the Gem rank but ready to kill if they were forced.

Nyx's gaze returned to the wall, or more specifically two towers that stood at each end of a small, forty-foot section. Two guards regularly patrolled its summit, with another inside each tower.

At the right tower's base was a muddy wagon. Four men were unloading glow stones from it and through a reinforced, wooden door that was protected by two guards on each side.

Nyx's body, still dressed in its black, rag-like clothing, started to growing indistinct as it merged into the shadows. While she couldn't hide the sheet, becoming invisible wasn't her objective this time. She aimed to remove her presence and unsettle those that consider her their prey.

A few hundred meters away, an old man was perched atop the roof of a house, casually scanning the area but allowing his gaze to still on Nyx's current location for a few extra seconds each time it passed.

The nearby guards completely ignored the man's presence, as if it wasn't there and even when the searchlight illuminated him, it carried on as if nothing strange had been discovered.

However, as Nyx's presence vanished, the old man couldn't help but frown for a moment, before slowly lifting up a small, pocket mirror. The mirror was cracked into four distinct pieces yet, instead of his reflection, four other faces were displayed, their locations obviously different.

"I can't sense it again," said a young man, the shape of his face and eyes indicating he was a close relative of the old man.

"I know," responded the old man. "But it hasn't gone anywhere. From everything we have seen, it can't move while completely erasing its presence."

"Sect leader," Granny's head turned towards the mirror, her features looking much older and hagged that they had done earlier. It was clear that she was upset, yet she took deep breaths and steadied her voice. "Was this sacrifice essential? Couldn't we have put more pressure on it and forced it out of the city before so many lives were lost?"

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One of the figures reflected in the mirror, standing out because of the dark tree's behind him, took a deep breath before sighing. "While I understand that we can't do anything because of the pact and don't want the Republic to capture or kill it, we could have alerted the guards to the change in this monster's tactics. If we pointed them at the first few houses, they could have guessed its direction and pressured it to leave sooner."

A blonde woman, her curly hair waving in the breeze, nodded as if agreeing with Granny and the man. "Actually, we could still do that. Who knows how long we will need to wait for this cowardly creature, who preys on the weak and avoids the strong, to make a move."

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink. If that girl really is the newest embodiment of the infamous Nyx, if it gets wind of our plan before it reaches the point of no return, no matter how hard we would try to force the matter, it would behave the exact opposite of our wishes." replied the old man.

Even though he said this, it was clear that the death toll, which had reached three figures a little under an hour ago, was weighing heavily upon him. "And if we do that now, all we will achieve is creating more chaos for it to utilise. Remember, even though my skills in tracking are some of the best on this continent, I have already lost track of it five times tonight."

What the old man, the leader of his sect, didn't state even though everyone was well aware of it, was the only reason they had managed to track Nyx so well was that his grandson was a blood mage. A rare type of magician that was very sensitive to blood and death. If the killings had stopped, he wasn't confident they would have been able to maintain their current advantage.

The young man looked extremely pale as he spoke. "Still, to think that its instincts are so sharp that it could sense our kill zone and the traps we set up. Not even the mid-level beasts we have hunted before had that kind of instinctual insight. It's like this demon in human skin was born for the sole purpose of killing in the shadows."

"What a shame. If it couldn't sense the kill zones, we would be harvesting organs now instead of playing this waiting game," grumbled the blond woman. "Honestly, I don't see what the fuss is about. It's not like its super strong or smart. How many families are going to be aggrieved by it? How many will try and hunt it down and take vengeance? Even if it escapes tonight, it will need to live the rest of its life looking over its shoulder. And what's more, even before this, the Republic was never willing to let it go."

"You are thinking like a mortal cultivator and not that of a summoned being. They only care about the results. Yes, a few strong warriors will arise from this, but countless others will shy away."

The sect leader gazed into the sky, the clouds being faintly illuminated by the moon that had just started to peek through.

"They play a game of numbers and chance. One pursuer is easier to escape, to kill, than a hundred and their targets are much less dangerous when they are fleeing in terror or hiding in their homes," responded the sect leader as he shook his head.

"Also, they are extremely vicious and vindictive. So much so that those that hunted summoned in the past would only attempt it if they were confident of landing a one hit kill, masking their identities in the process."

"The reports say that this wasn't just some instinct or natural behaviour that the summoned possessed, or at least the ones that retained their sanity, but a purposeful act so that those that hunted them would kill them instantly if given a chance. This was to alleviate one of their only weaknesses. That they can still feel pain like every other man or beast."

"And we want to capture one of these monsters because~." The blond woman wasn't phased by the old man's words in the slightest. Instead, she responded in a bored, somewhat aggrieved tone.

"Because never in the history of summoned has one been left unbound, let alone having such a weak constitution and body," responded Granny, though it was clear, she was using logic to override her emotions. "The information that we can gain from it, especially regarding cultivation techniques, skill and abilities are irresistible. Add to the fact that it is the first cultivator-beast hybrid, has a royal sigil and its growth prospects are unlimited, and we would be idiots not to take this chance."

"And worse case," said the sect leader in a calm tone, "we can harvest the body of a primordial beast and create some new tools and elixirs, maybe even a cultivation pill or two. As long as we are not silly and capture or kill it before it can detonate its core, this is a transaction we can't lose."

"Anyway, enough of this. I want everyone to stay on high alert. I believe the reason it has masked its presence this time, when it's not at risk of being discovered, is that it is about to make its move."

"Why would it mask its presence for that?" asked the young man, frowning.

"Because it knows we are here and that we are waiting for it to move," responded Granny, a flash of killing intent emanating from her eyes before being quickly suppressed.

"That's my thought too," agreed the old man. "We have a few members with John spread out on the other side, but they won't be able to delay it for too long safely. The moment it makes a move, forget the killing fields and give chase."

The sect leader paused for a moment. "And remember, if you can't get a collar on it safely, go for the kill. The blast from a beast's core with such a high elemental affinity is definitely not something you want to experience."

After the old man's sentence finished, the group of four fell into silence, their muscles tense as they prepared to move at a moments notice.

Soon over an hour and a half had passed and the sky on the horizon was starting to lighten, causing the group to become anxious. They knew that their target had a high dark affinity and couldn't imagine that it would wait for the sun to rise and lose its advantage.

Doubts started to cross their minds, even the sect leader's, as they started to shift their bodies uneasily, wondering if Nyx had bypassed their encirclement and escaped.

However, after twenty more minutes, catching all but the old man off guard, without warning Nyx's aura exploded forth as a black shadow shot out of the window she had been sitting at earlier.

Passing through a gap in the patrols, though the sudden release of her aura had already alerted them to her presence, the shadow lept upon the walls and started to climb at a startling pace.

"MOVE!" Bellowed the old man, his figure flickering with a golden light as he raced towards Nyx, not caring if he was spotted by the guards and soldiers, most of which were still stunned by their target's sudden appearance.

Moments later, similar light erupted as the other members of his group regained their senses and lept into action.

The sect leader had barely reached the bottom of the wall when he heard two anguished screams from above. Looking up, he saw the two guards who should have been guarding the wall, their arms waving wildly, hurtling towards him.

Dodging the falling bodies without any concern for their wellbeing, the old man was about to jump up and climb the wall when Nyx's presence vanished for a moment, causing him to stop as believed she was preparing to attack him as he climbed

However, seconds later a shout to arms, along with the reappearance of Nyx's presence, followed by the sound of shattering wood resonated from the right tower.

Knowing that he had been tricked, the old man's face turned red with anger and, with the others that had now caught up, they quickly assailed the walls and reached the top.

As one, they rushed into the tower, its door now nothing more than scrap wood, only to find a guard struggling to get up, blood oozing down a jagged cut on his forehead. "Out the window."

As their eyes turned towards the gap in the stone that represented a window, they saw a fuzzy, black shadow that was rapidly becoming smaller and smaller, only visible in the dark sky due to the rising sun in the east.

"A flight ability," spat the blond woman, shock evident on her features.

"Don't let it get away," bellowed the old man, as an enormous, golden aura suddenly surrounded his body.

The others followed suit and, one by one, they released a blinding flash of light as their bodies soared out of the window and gave chase with incredible speed.

The flashes of light were so bright that the guard that had just got back to his feet was momentarily blinded. Staggering backwards in his dazed state, the guard nearly fell down the stairs that lead to the lower levels of the tower before finally coming to a stop and leaning on a nearby wall.