After we walked further from his room, I stopped, and Elena halted instantly too.
"Elena, you can go back to your room now..." I began, rubbing the bridge of my nose. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion. "I just want to sleep."
Elena's eyes widened, a flash of genuine panic crossing her face. She looked like I had just suggested she walk into a fire. "R-Rio, I can't leave you! What if someone else also planned to hurt you?"
She was grasping at straws, saying anything and everything just to keep herself close to me.
"Didn't you see the assassin earlier?" she pressed, her voice rising in pitch.
"I did," I said calmly.
But that was exactly the point. If you stay this close to me, hovering like a guardian deity and intercepting every threat before it even reaches my peripheral vision, how am I supposed to get strong? The Supreme Physique and the Void Gaze aren't ornaments; they are weapons that need to be forged in the heat of conflict.
