Two days later, the villa was mostly quiet.
Diona and Gwen's laughter drifted faintly from the garden, and the world outside the villa all around Pantheon moved at its own pace, but inside the villa, in the training room, time seemed to be standing still.
In the middle of the training room, Albedo was sitting cross-legged upon the polished obsidian floor, the lotus position steady, his platinum hair falling loosely across his shoulders and shimmering faintly.
His hands rested lightly on his knees, palms facing upward. His breathing was slow and steady, yet every exhale seemed to ripple with faint traces of fire and light.
He hadn't moved for hours at this point.
The air all around him was thick with mana, so dense it warped faintly in the light of the glowing runes etched into the walls. Crystalline formations embedded in the stone pulsed with a steady azure glow, designed to absorb excess force should Albedo's power grow volatile.
