What followed was straight-up hell, finally giving the terrible time inside the Divine Cult a worthy contender.
The new training regimen wasn't cruel. It lacked Divine Cult's soul-crushing and mind-breaking methods, but Liam found it far more arduous, with no drug-induced oblivion saving him from its most terrible aspects.
From dawn to dusk, Liam's routine didn't really change. He had the combat lessons, followed by the weapon training, ending with a not-so-solitary series of concoctions.
For whatever reason, Liam and Melissa had even developed the habit of exchanging a quite deep kiss before the former poured the entirety of his attention into alchemy.
The two never really did anything meaningful together beyond that. Still, the gesture remained an intimate declaration of their unique relationship, of the connection that they would explore more once their routines allowed it.
