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Wilhelm, sweat and blood trickling down his face, gawked at his opponent in disbelief.

"Keep moving!" Dag yelled.

Ver Dilen was already in motion. In a flash of gold, Wilhelm\'s crumpled form smashed through the stalagmites, splintered armor clattering about.

Cardinal Ver Dilen shook his head. "He has potential, but he\'s still naïve," he concluded. The monastery\'s candle flames flickered as he exhaled. He straightened papers in order before sliding them back to the man across the pew.

The man, Isaac, gently slid the papers into his toga, as white as the marble figure of the goddess at the back of the monastery, standing in a beam of sunlight with a smile. "I pray that means you will be better at training Wilhelm than I was. After all, they say the apple does not fall far from the tree," he said.

"Do you want me to stop hunting down General Zoojin as well?" Ver Dilen\'s laughter filled the monastery, halting abruptly as an awkward silence sat down with them.

Isaac\'s expression didn\'t change. "Even people like me can be punished for failure. You\'re no exception. Think of it as a trial which you must overcome, and may your faith prevail." He slowly went to stand.

Ver Dilen practically leapt off the pew, his heart skipping a beat. "Wait, how is training the hero supposed to be a punishment? Many would think of it as a reward! I\'ve done nothing to earn this honor. I can\'t train a mere child! I\'m not like you people."

Isaac nodded. "I agree. You\'re especially right about that last part, but that may not always be the case, should you succeed. You do want to kill Zoojin, right?"

Ver Dilen\'s heart skipped another beat. "You could have told me that," he growled.

"We did. Many times. You would not listen," Isaac said.

Ver Dilen took a breath to calm himself, then glanced at the symbol of the goddess at the back of the monastery. "Sounds like something I\'d do."

"The goddess sees great potential in you," Isaac said. He turned towards Ver Dilen for the first time. Two eyes, carved of white marble, seemed to stare straight through him. Compared to Ver Dilen\'s deformities, they were a small blemish in Isaac\'s otherwise handsome appearance. Ver Dilen knew for a fact that both women and men fell for the blonde, wavy hair, like a lion\'s mane around his fierce expression. With a refined physique to match, it was as if he were molded into the perfect, physical being…except for "his" eyes.

Ver Dilen clasped his hands together and bowed his head in respect. "Praise the goddess," he said.

"Praise the goddess," Isaac replied. He turned to leave, but stopped. "Is it true how you joined the monastery?"

Ver Dilen scrunched his brows. "I joined like any other?"

Isaac shook his head. "Thirty-five years, two months, and eight days ago, you walked out of a ravaged village to our doorstep."

Ver Dilen lifted his head. "And? You couldn\'t chuck a stone without hitting someone with the same background. Didn\'t Wilhelm come here the same way?"

Isaac\'s cold, stone eyes seemed to bore through him. "Correct. He also, like you, absorbs everything like a sponge. Challenge him. Beat him. Tear him apart. He will never break. Forge the boy into a weapon."

Ver Dilen clasped his hands together and bowed his head. "Praise the goddess." He waited a few moments then, hearing no reply, lifted his head to find a gray feather, shining radiantly as it fluttered to the monastery\'s floor. Alone, he sighed of relief, prayed, and left.

A bloodied hand shot out of the broken stalagmites. Wilhelm scrambled to his feet, life essence and healing magic snapping broken ribs back into place as he weakly clutched his dagger.

Dag fired another bolt, anticipating that Ver Dilen would continue to wail on Wilhelm. The bolt went wide as Ver Dilen suddenly rolled under Wilhelm\'s wild swing and continued past him, towards Merlin and Dag.

"Merlin!" Dag roared.

Merlin finally threw his mana out towards his magic circle, but it was a split second too late as Ver Dilen buried Dag\'s head in the stone wall. He then chucked a stone at the unguarded Merlin, tearing a hole through his thigh.

As Merlin fell to the ground screaming in pain, blood gushing from the hole in his leg, everything went white - the magic circle activated.

Ver Dilen opened his eyes in a lightless, airless, surface-less void. He let out a silent scream as corrosive liquids stripped him of his flesh and he felt limbs latched onto his back.

\'The goddess is with me.\' It was more of a habit to keep him calm rather than a conscious thought. He clasped his hands together and light blossomed. Holy sigils purified the void he\'d found himself within.

The surroundings cleared. He recognized himself to be in the base of the ruin  evidenced by the small spec of sunlight hundreds of feet above him, shining softly upon dozens of cave openings as the light descended upon his fizzling body.

He lurched and coughed up blackness. The spec of light multiplied into four, then sixteen, and so on. Veins bulged in his face. The foreign limbs constricted his windpipe, or they tried to.

The limbs, surging with blue life essence, hovered an inch from his bare neck as if caught on something. Metal scraping sounds were muffled within the waters. \'You almost had it, Sindre,\' he thought. He called upon his mana.

A pillar of stone rose from the bottom of the lake, lifting him above the water\'s surface. The limbs pounded and hit and kicked, but they never got within an inch of his flesh. He uprooted his enemy in front of him to discover it was Sindre.

"Well played," he said, coughing up the last of the poison. The spinning world slowly shifted back into place. The light fell on his smiling expression as his lips and the rest of his flesh grew back.