Vale stood in the centre of a pitch-black basement, his chest rising and falling rapidly, gasping for air. A field of corpses stretched across the ground, blood still blooming from the lifeless bodies of monsters the student had just slain.
It had been two months since he first met Aamon—the Demon who resided in the cavern where the ice dragon had left him.
Those two months had been a blur of unrelenting training. Days and nights melded into one long stretch of sweat, pain, and progress. Before he realized it, sixty days had passed under the demon's brutal tutelage.
"Too slow," Aamon's voice echoed behind him.
Vale didn't turn. He already knew what came next.
"It was just an Awakened monster," the demon continued, his tone sharp. "You should've dealt with it faster."
Aamon gestured at the mangled corpse beneath Vale's boot. Blood pooled around the creature's limbs, steam rising in wisps where the warm blood met the icy floor.
