The dust from the battle began to settle in the large stone chamber. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of Daniel's own breathing.
He stood in the center of the carnage, his chest heaving slightly as the adrenaline from the fight started to fade away. He looked around at the three massive bodies of the Lithovore Stalkers. They looked like piles of broken grey rocks now, lifeless and still.
Daniel did not smile. There was no joy in this victory, only a cold satisfaction. He remembered the feeling of standing on that podium, looking at the number '6' next to his name.
It still burned in his chest. He had let himself get distracted before. But the Astral Verge did not care about those things. It only cared about strength.
"Never again," Daniel whispered to the empty room. He walked over to the first corpse. He wasted no time. Every second he stood here doing nothing was a second his rivals were getting stronger. He needed to catch up.
