Training didn't relent.
Not cruelly.
Not endlessly.
Just… precisely enough to matter.
The undercity chamber felt alive again as reality obliged Inkaris' will, walls subtly reshaping, air pressing in softly like a reminder that they were not here to play pretend—they were here to learn to survive.
"Today," Inkaris said, hands folded behind his back, voice composed and steady, "we refine."
That tone never meant something gentle.
Seris stepped forward when he looked at her, shoulders squaring with that familiar posture of someone who had spent years being expected to function flawlessly. Ten scenarios unfolded before her. Not monsters. Not soldiers.
Problems.
A collapsing structure.
A spiraling mana leak.
A chaotic crowd.
A runaway spell shattering in reflection.
A fire creeping toward terrified sleepers.
The kind of world that didn't ask permission to fall apart.
Her magic answered because she did. Sharp gestures, clean calculations, breath tight but steady. Each solution came not like thunder but like math resolving cleanly. By the sixth, sweat slicked her neck. By the eighth, her heart hammered. By the tenth—
Her fingers twitched and the spell wanted to flare too bright.
"Stop," Inkaris commanded.
The habit, the old instinct, wanted to defy him—to push, to refuse failure, to bleed effort until something broke. But the new instinct she was forcing herself to grow finally caught.
She… stopped.
"I can't safely," she murmured. Not weak. Not defeated. Honest.
Inkaris nodded once. Approval without spectacle.
"Correct."
The word sank deeper than praise.
Liora smiled for her. Aiden looked like he might cheer if cheering didn't feel like ruining something sacred about that moment. His strange, unearthly eyes—those unsettlingly beautiful void-bright things—softened in pride. Seris exhaled and rolled her shoulders.
"Again," she said firmly.
Inkaris almost—almost—smiled.
"Again."
When she finished, handing exhaustion rather than submitting to it, Inkaris turned to Liora. She didn't flinch anymore. That was new.
Illusions of people filled the chamber, not enemy or threat, just lives humming with wants. The sound wasn't sound, yet it pressed like static behind her ribs.
A lonely wish for attention.
A hungry wish for food.
A petty wish for spite.
A hopeful wish for love.
A dark wish for punishment.
A fragile wish to simply be seen.
She could drown here.
She might have once.
Not now.
She searched, not for loudest… but for most true. A wish for relief from pain. She brushed it softly. Another wish, small and trembling, please, let someone smile at me today.
Her chest hurt.
She chose gently.
Just that one.
And the wish answered.
She didn't collapse. Didn't shake. Didn't bleed empathy until empty.
She remained standing.
"Good," Inkaris said, softer than usual. "Kindness with boundary is strength. Anything else is slowly dying."
She laughed breathlessly. "Doesn't feel noble."
"It isn't," he replied. "It's survivable."
Aiden didn't laugh. He watched. Thoughtful. Proud. A little scared for her and a little relieved that maybe she wouldn't shatter herself saving everyone. His expression still carried warmth, but warmth from something not strictly mortal. His skin did not flush with stress. His breathing smoothed faster than a human's would. His presence was… wrong in a beautiful way. Comforting until you remembered he was made, not born.
Then—
the room changed again.
He knew before Inkaris looked at him that this one was for him. He braced, expecting monsters or men or impossible choices.
A cage appeared instead.
Not steel.
Not magic.
Concept.
Small space.
Too small.
Every instinct screamed to do something—push reality, command, bend, break—
Nothing responded.
Not because he lacked power.
Because the world simply didn't care.
That struck differently for him. His body was a gift from Desire, capable of strength, beauty, resilience. He did not bruise like humans unless the universe demanded it. He did not fatigue the same way. But helplessness did not care how divine your bones were.
His breath faltered. A shimmer of otherworldly tension ran beneath his skin. The light in his eyes flickered with something painfully vulnerable and terribly real.
"I hate this," he whispered.
"You were meant to," Inkaris replied gently. "You cannot always break chains. You must learn to remain yourself when you cannot win."
That… was worse.
He could live with fighting.
He could live with bleeding.
He could live with hurt.
Helplessness terrified him.
He shook.
He breathed.
He stayed.
And crucially—
he did not become colder to endure it.
He did not choose apathy for safety.
He remained Aiden.
When the cage vanished, he was still there.
Shaking.
Otherworldly.
Present.
Inkaris inclined his head.
"Well done."
Aiden laughed weakly. "I will continue hating you for that."
"You are welcome," the demon replied sincerely.
The world didn't give them time to sit in victory. It shifted again—three problems at once this time. A collapsing ceiling. A destabilized mana ripple. A panicked thief clutching a blade like it was the last piece of himself he owned.
Nobody rushed this time.
Seris didn't lunge to handle all of it. Liora didn't drown in pleas. Aiden didn't fling power blindly.
They looked at each other.
And moved.
Seris stabilized the magic like she was tying a knot in chaos.
Liora didn't grant the thief vengeance or violence—she wrapped his fear and loosened it gently until the knife fell from his shaking fingers.
Aiden tilted reality just enough that debris missed what mattered, his body reacting not like flesh and bone but like a living conduit of cosmic permission.
And nobody broke themselves to do it.
Reality flickered.
The illusions dissolved.
Silence settled like an exhale.
For a heartbeat, nobody spoke.
Then Liora laughed softly.
Seris smirked like someone proud despite pretending not to be.
Aiden rubbed his face, smiling like relief hurt in a good way—still impossibly beautiful, still quietly terrifying, still deeply himself.
Inkaris studied them.
"Acceptable."
Three heads snapped toward him.
"…Acceptable?" Seris repeated.
Aiden blinked. "That's it?"
Liora nodded solemnly. "We suffer, grow, and achieve… and we get 'acceptable.'"
A pause.
"…Very acceptable," Inkaris corrected, gently.
That meant everything.
They took it.
They were exhausted.
They were raw.
They were steadier.
Not invincible.
Not legendary.
Not destined saviors.
Just harder to break.
And in the undercity's slow, stubborn heartbeat…
that meant survival.
That meant hope.
That was enough—for today.