Hidden amongst the shadows and undergrowth of the Tibel Forest's northern border, overlooking a gentle, flowing river that followed the forest's curve, Nyx's eyes scanned the nearby town and open grasslands that lay on the opposite side.
Even though she was quite a distance away, the mid-morning hustle and bustle that flowed over the rough, somewhat dilapidated palisade walls reached Nyx's ears as the delicious smell of cooked meat wafted on the breeze, the small plumes of smoke caused by the cooking fires rising high into the clear, blue sky.
After releasing a small, quaint yawn as she patted her grumbling stomach, Nyx having become somewhat nocturnal during her occupation of the forest, her gaze moved away from the town and towards the large gathering that stood on the grassland outside.
A half circle of large, white carriages, with the emblem of a lion inside a fist punching towards the sky, was positioned a few hundred feet away from the town's main gate.
An enormous group of youths and their families had crowded around the front of the semi-circle, most standing in haphazard lines in front of four large desks that had created a small wall before the carriages.
In the middle of the encirclement, a single tent stood in which those who had seemingly passed whatever written and verbal tests given at the desks, would enter nervously, and then leave a few minutes later either in laughter or, more commonly, tears.
Those that entered the tent appeared to be between the ages of thirteen to twenty, yet there were a few that seemed much older or younger, yet these all left in various stages of grief and didn't linger for long amongst the jostling crowd.
After watching for over half an hour, noting that the crowd only seemed to be growing, something that suited her perfectly, Nyx stood up and started to stretch.
Twisting her body into odd shapes that caused small pops and cracks to emanate from her body, Nyx mismatched, leather armour, that covered her entire body from neck to toe, creaked satisfyingly in protest.
However, even as she limbered up, Nyx's eyes never left the makeshift testing grounds, analysing it and its occupants in detail.
For some reason, one she couldn't put the finger on, Nyx felt like she was missing something. That something was hidden from her senses but, even after watching patiently for a couple of hours, nothing stood out, and she was forced to push the uneasy feeling away.
Typically Nyx would have abandoned her mission and returned to the forest at this point, but she knew that such an opportunity might not appear again, at least not for a long time.
Apparently, the newly formed Demon Hunters, led by a mysterious, supposedly crazy, eighteen-year-old girl that cultivated only the light element, would be commencing a sweep of the border in a couple of days, potentially blocking off Nyx's access to the North for a considerable amount of time unless she took a gamble and migrated across the wide, open grasslands.
Subconsciously seeking to distract herself from the uneasy feeling, Nyx's gaze lingered on a small group of youths that were messing about near one of the carriages, laughing and causing general, non-malicious havoc, and couldn't help but release a small, profound sigh.
Since her escape from the Captial, Nyx had spent two years recovering from her injuries inside the Tibel Forest. After that, due to the enormous manhunt for her, that was still undergoing, Nyx would only emerge to search for clues to the location of her soul crystal or further her goal of sowing misinformation about her existence.
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Both of these types of excursion did not allow for Nyx to have any meaningful interactions, those that she encountered either dying gruesomely at her hands or being scared out of their minds.
While this feeling, of being isolated from the world, had never bothered her before, Nyx couldn't help but feel a pang of envy as she looked upon those who could interact without others in such a carefree manner.
Nyx's previous lives, excluding her first, were too short and brutal to form any significant bond and her time in the abyss was not as lonely as it sounded due to the spiritual fluctuations of nearby souls, unjudging on who they reached or the emotions they communicated.
Shaking her head and revealing a somewhat lonely and desolate smile, Nyx bent down and started searching the nearby, wolf-skin bag.
-"What's up with me today? I need to get my head in the game."
-"All I need to do is get close enough to find out if the Heaven Twilight sect does have a crippled cultivator, one who has come from the prime continent and is terrified of the dark as an elder, and... if its true that they have high-level and primordial beasts as students and teachers."
As Nyx thought the last part, her hand subconsciously moved to her chest, placing it over her heart, the painful pulses that emanated from beneath having become a part of her everyday life.
While her cultivation had improved tremendously, even though she had no access to cultivation resources, excluding the ones she stole from her victims, each time Nyx had formed a layer around her core she had felt a tremendous amount of resistance and pain and suffered a minor backlash.
This sensation had increased until, after forming her latest layer, she had vomited copious amounts of blood and passed out.
When she awoke, a couple of days later, Nyx instinctively knew that she had reached a cultivation bottleneck and without resolving this strange issue, she would no longer be able to progress.
After carefully checking her body and soul, Nyx had come to a startling discovery that the problem seemed to originate from the beastial, red energy that had surrounded the crystal that had replaced her heart. Which was strangely similar, if you excluded the size, to the cores she extracted from the low-level beasts encountered in the forest.
With no knowledge on the subject and the human kingdoms being extremely prejudiced to all types of beasts, killing or enslaving them on sight, Nyx was at a loss on what she should do.
Luckily, just as she was preparing to leave the Tibel Forest and head towards the beast kingdoms to the east, Nyx had overheard a group of travelling teenage cultivators talk about the Heaven Twilight sect.
From their conversation, Nyx had not only discovered a possible lead in the hunt for her soul crystal and that the sect was neutral to all happenings occurring outside their borders, but they also treated beasts, at least those at the high-rank and above, as equals.
What's more, the sect would be travelling the towns along its border with the aim of recruiting new disciples, a once every fifteen-year event.
While Nyx had no intention of joining a sect, or any group for that matter, the fact that it claimed to be neutral and protected any cultivators or beasts in its borders from outside forces, no matter their origin, gave her enough confidence to take, at least in her mind, small risks.
A slight tremble rippled across Nyx's body, her glowing, blue eyes gaining a predatory flash of intensity. Even though she appeared calm and resolute on the outside, she couldn't help but feel extremely anxious.
She had spent eight years, after the two it took her to recover, searching for her crystal and even with her impressive perseverance, she was starting to believe it to be an impossible task — one that she would have to move on from and hope that it wouldn't be used against her in the future.
There was also another part of her which had enjoyed the somewhat peaceful days in the forest, where she was free to do as she pleased without constraint. Where the bloody terror that was Nyx, or the nightmare that had started to haunt both child and adult alike, could just be herself.
Where she could sing, dance, hunt and sleep. Where she could be, even if the larger animals and beasts feared her to the point of creating a dead zone in her immediate surroundings.
Offering a silent prayer to whatever that might listen, Nyx pulled a worn, tattered cloak with a heavy mantle over her body, and started moving to the east, intending to cross the river that separated the Sect's territory and the and the Welshmar Republic, walk along the road as if she were one of the many travelling cultivators.