The sun had long vanished behind jagged cliffs when Ren stumbled into the valley floor, drenched, cut, and bone-deep exhausted. Daevar didn't look at him. He simply gestured toward a hollowed section of the mountainside.
"This is yours," he said. "Three days. No food beyond what you find. No water beyond what you can carry. No one. Just you, your mind, and the world's will to break you."
Ren's stomach clenched. The last three years had conditioned him for pain, speed, and strategy but isolation was another realm entirely. Even Nyxa's voice, usually a whisper at the edge of his consciousness, sharpened.
"Alone?" she mused. "Good. Let's see what lies beneath that armor of yours."
The cavern was cold, its walls slick with moisture. A small fire pit had been carved from rock, but no wood lay beside it. Supplies: none. The only heat came from the thin glow of Ren's inner mana, a faint pulse against the darkness.
