The rain wouldn't stop.
It poured in relentless sheets against the broken windows, whispering lullabies to the dead. Thunder cracked in the distance like a gunshot. Lightning spilled shadows over the ruined living room.
Six-year-old Nyxaria stood barefoot in the middle of the room, her small frame trembling. Her wide eyes were locked onto the lifeless bodies of her parents.
"...Mama?"
Her voice was barely a whisper, a fragile echo in the dead silence.
She stepped forward, knees wobbling, and dropped beside her mother. Her tiny fingers brushed against pale skin. Still warm. But no warmth.
Her eyes drifted to her father. He was slumped forward on the table, blood pooling beneath him like a dark mirror.
"Papa...?"
No reply.
Blood seeped into the wooden floor, dark and sticky. The gun lay beside him. Silence screamed.
No one came. No one saved them.
Her stomach twisted in knots. Her legs gave out. She dropped to her knees, hugging herself.
Tears streamed down her cheeks like waterfalls, but no sobs came. Not loud sobs, just quiet, endless streams of sorrow. The house had been silent long before the gun went off. Now it was silent forever.
No one came. No neighbors. No police. Just the storm and the flies.
Night fell, deep and heavy.
The storm outside howled like a wounded beast.
Then—footsteps.
A presence.
The door creaked open. Wind rushed in, scattering the scent of blood. A figure emerged through the door—a man, tall and lean, dressed in a long coat dark as a starless night. His eyes were glacial, his face carved from stone.
He didn't ask what happened.
He didn't ask if she was alright.
"You're still alive," he said, voice like gravel. "Good."
He crouched before her like a judge before a verdict. "Do you want to live?"
She didn't speak.
He turned to leave.
"Yes," she rasped, throat raw.
He looked back. "Then stand up."
She stood, legs shaking—but she stood.
And never looked back.
---
The compound was colder than death.
There were no lullabies, no bedtime stories. Only commands. Only steel.
Nyxaria, still six, stood among five other orphans in a dim courtyard under moonless sky. She was the smallest. The quietest. But not the weakest.
The man who saved her—or claimed her—was not a father. He was Master. He trained killers, not children.
"There are no second chances here," he told them, eyes like razors. "You fail, you starve. You cry, you bleed."
On the first day, they threw her into a cage with a wild dog.
It lunged. Fangs sank into her arm. She screamed—but didn't run.
She bit back.
The dog whimpered. She didn't.
On the third day, they made them run through a corridor of swinging blades.
A boy tripped beside her, screaming for help. She didn't stop. Didn't look back.
Blood sprayed across her face, warm and sharp.
On the tenth, they handed her a knife.
"Kill him," they said, pointing to a traitor.
Her hands trembled. She was too small to hold the blade properly.
The man laughed.
So she used both—and stabbed again. And again.
She vomited afterward.
They starved her for that.
But she didn't beg. Didn't plead. Didn't break.
She dragged herself to training the next day—bloody, bruised, crawling if she had to.
One night, she was made to crawl across a glass-littered floor after failing to disarm a trap. Blood streaked behind her in a trail of crimson.
"Why do you endure?" one of the older assassins sneered.
Nyxaria spat blood and muttered, "Because I won't die like a stray dog."
She wasn't the fastest.
Wasn't the strongest.
Wasn't the smartest.
But she never gave up.
She was slow. She bled more. She didn't speak unless spoken to. She never cried—not after her parents died. Not once.
When others broke down in the dark, whispered about home, she sat with her eyes open, silent, watching the shadows move.
She remembered the man who came to her wrapped in silence—the one who offered no comfort, only a choice: die alone, or become useful.
She chose survival.
And survival was pain.
Years of training that broke bones and rebuilt them harder. Nights without sleep. Days without food. Kill or be discarded. Fail, and someone else would take your place.
The instructors were merciless. Her 'comrades' were rivals who'd slit your throat for a single nod of approval.
But even then—she didn't break.
She didn't cry.
She never yielded.
That—Master once said—made her more dangerous than any of them.
Over time, she proved him right.
By ten, she was feared.
By fifteen, she was elite.
They gave her names: the Viper, the Ghost.
The one who never made a sound when she killed.
By the time she was an adult, she was already legend.
They called her the White Fox, a title earned through blood and grace. Beautiful. Deadly. Untouchable. They said she could kill without a weapon—her beauty was enough.
But those closest to the inner circle knew her real code name:
Black Fox.
Because she didn't shimmer in white like the stories said. She moved in shadow, hunted in silence.
And no one who saw her coming lived long enough to tell the truth.
______
Now, in another world.
In the present—
Nyxaria crouched silently in the undergrowth. Her eyes reflected faint starlight—silver and gold flecks shimmering against the void of her violet irises.
The forest air pulsed with tension.
Before her, the maddened snake thrashed, dark blue scales glinting under moonlight. Its body coiled in agony, fangs bared, eyes clouded with mindless fury.
It was fighting itself.
Its tail lashed against trees. Its mouth struck the earth. Saliva mixed with the foam of madness. It hissed—at the air.
At the demon inside.
She stayed crouched, unmoving.
It could've rampaged anywhere. Yet here it was, trying to stop itself. Thrashing not to attack—but to hold back.
Nyxaria whispered, "What do I do if I need to get past it?"
Ari's voice echoed softly in her mind, unreadable. "'You could wait for it to die on its own... or kill it."'
Silence.
Nyxaria's eyes narrowed. "Neither option appeals to me."
"'You're not doing this out of pity, right?"' Ari asked slyly.
Nyxaria scoffed. "It's in my way. If it keeps this up, I can't get the herb back in time. That's all."
The system's chuckle was quiet and knowing.
Nyxaria's mind drifted back—briefly—to a different beast.
The one in the cage when she was six.
She had been bleeding then too. Terrified.
But she didn't run.
She didn't yield.
She never had.
Now, watching the snake twist in torment, Nyxaria slowly rose from her crouch.
The wind tugged at the edges of her cloak, the scent of moss and blood thick in the air.
She looked into the snake's frenzied, misted eyes—saw not just a beast, but something caged, something fighting to stay whole.
Her fingers brushed the dagger at her side, but she didn't draw it.
Not yet.
The moonlight caught the edge of her gaze—sharp, unreadable, unwavering.
The forest was still. Even the wind held its breath.
She took one silent breath—calm, measured.
And then, without hesitation—
She stepped out from the shadows, slow and deliberate—like a blade drawn from its sheath.