A mirthful smile spread across Azazel's face, a hidden sadistic pleasure fulfilled in hurting the one who brought him pain. It was quickly covered with the veneer of playfulness, but the demon didn't shy away from these dark indulgences. "No? Perhaps you were expecting another kind? Take your pick." Azazel's glittering emerald eyes gleamed as he cycled the elements on his fingers ^{[Chromatic Blast]}.

"I told you to dodge, Rinn, and you bear the pain of your inability, so there's no need to chastise you. Once more: better this time."

Deciding on Light arcana at random, Azazel let the beam fly at his pupil. With the selected magic type, it was much easier to see the flickers of darkness within the beam, at odds with the general brightness of the spell ^{[Evil Incarnate]}. Let's kick it up a notch. 

As soon as the demon cast his spell, he immediately readied another, teleporting behind the elf ^[Blink]. Azazel had initially intended to strike with the Heladie blade he carried, but thought better of it. For one thing, The wicked weapon would surely seriously wound or kill the boy if he hit, even with Azazel's meager blade skills in comparison to the wrath demon. Speaking of which, Arteron would not forgive him for using what he claimed was his weapon, and Azazel didn't care for the headache of explaining shared ownership. Instead he merely jabbed a finger towards Rinn's back, dropping low to avoid his hurtling spell, if the boy managed to dodge it.

It was as Azazel had said.. He had been instructed to dodge the attack. Not to take the brunt of the attack. If Rinn had intended on successfully accomplishing this feat, he was going to have to put more effort into his evasive maneuvers. That being said, once Azazel had thrown another blast from the elemental orb his way, Rinn would prepare himself to evade. Unfortunately he just wasn't all that great at evading. His first instinct was to attempt to deflect the beam away with a swing of his silvered fists. Before he could fall into such an obvious failing, however, Rinn would catch himself and return his focus to the present situation, instead of focusing on the hypothetical ones.

With his battle senses growing higher the longer this training session had drawn out, it wouldn't take all that long for Rinn to realize that Azazel had disappeared. He had felt that there was something behind him but honestly didn't have the wherewithal to believe that it was Azazel. Figuring that he could attempt to avoid both the blast whilst discovering what was behind him, Rinn would find himself leaning backwards. He would intentionally roll backwards over the thing that had been behind him. This had thankfully managed to place him behind what he would soon discover to be Azazel.. but left him in a state where his skeletal legs had been hit by the beam. All in all, he was failing at the task that was assigned to him. It was.. unfortunate to say in the least. Especially since he wanted nothing more than to succeed here.

"Again.. Let's go again." Once those words had slipped forth from his mouth, Rinn would throw himself into that defensive stance once more. With each time that he fell into it, the Moon Elf would grow. It was almost as though this was the one thing that he had truly needed. Not some verbal complaints about what he was effectively doing wrong but to have a practical lesson that involved him moving his body. While this couldn't be labeled as an actual sparring session, it was the closest thing that he could get to one, and as such his brain was working the way that it normally had. He could only adapt to scenarios on the fly by failing. It is through experience that he would grow.

Azazel lifted an incredulous eyebrow at the boy as he bore the brunt of another elemental attack on his skeletal legs. The demon wasn't sure to applaud the boy's awareness to sense him behind him in mid-combat, or bemoan his ineptitude in dodging the telegraphed spell once more. All he knew was that even if the mortal's limbs weren't taking permanent damage from the blasts, the boy was certainly feeling the sting of his spells, empowered as they were by Azazel's innate fiendish flame. Fortitude he could work with, but masochism was a self-defeating indulgence.

The demon's vessel stood to his full height and leveled the closest approximation of concern for a mortal he had managed in this incarnation. "You were hit with the spell. Again. I can't imagine that feels too good, kid. You need to grasp the seriousness of this. If I were to use a more lethal spell, I would have killed you by now. Blocking punches is quite different from pure energy, and I'm not keen on wasting my effort on a soon-to-be corpse. Last chance," the demon stated imperiously, generating an orb of inky water on his finger ^{[Chromatic Orb]}.

The demon wasn't merely content with flinging the same meager spell at the boy again, as such a thing proved relatively little. Any idiot could get things right with enough time and luck. No he needed to test the boy's mental fortitude and instincts. Azazel let the beam fly, aiming at Rinn's left shoulder. At the same time, he connected with the boy's mind, disguising his voice as Rinn's own as he gave a malicious command ^{[Astral Soul, Mind Parasite]}. "Dodge left!"

Rather than bemoan the man for claiming that the this next chance would be his last, Rinn would nod imperiously to his instructor.. This was the last chance that was going to be presented to him and if he was hoping to gain anything from this, he couldn't allow for himself to fail in it. In the moment that Azazel had summoned forth an inky orb of water, the Moon Elf's focus would nearly double. Much like before, he would keep his gaze upon every muscle that he could see within the man before him. As opposed to his earlier attempt in this though, Rinn would work to try and analyze the mans form, taking everything in in hopes of understanding what he would do next. Just where was this orb going to go..?

The stinging of pain had been running through his limbs at this moment but that hadn't concerned him. Knowing that they wouldn't break, Rinn would push past the pain and maintain his sense of focus. Such an intense focus had left him in a transcendent space of mind. While he had nearly leapt to the left in the moment that the orb had just out towards him, becoming a beam in the process, due to the voice that had been far too much like his own, his instincts had told him to act otherwise. It had seemed as though this beam was aiming for his left shoulder. Rather than tank this blow, even though he very well could have since that much had been a part of his Durabone as well, Rinn would weave his upper body to the right. It wasn't a perfect attempt at moving out of the way but it was enough to assist him in avoiding the blow in this particular instance.

Once the orb had blown past him, Rinn would attempt to close the distance between the pair of them, one of his silvered skeletal fists being thrust in the direction of the palm that had sent out the inky orb ^{[Master Unarmed, Durabone, Bare Hands, Silvered Weapon]}. He hadn't known if this blow would land but he had to at least try and counterattack in some manner or another. Hopefully this wouldn't result in him getting in trouble, since Azazel had only requested that they work on evasion at the moment. Of course, as he was working through all of this, his mind would wonder why his thoughts had told him to dodge to the left.. It were as though his mind and his instincts were at odds. A truly awful sensation.

Azazel's mild approval at the elf finally dodging as was his task was subverted suddenly as the boy launched himself at the demon's vessel in a strike. Remembering the sting of an off-handed, casual swing, Azazel resigned himself to enacting drastic measures. Not again, you little upstart. Ordinarily, I'd like your moxie, but self-preservation comes first.



Dropping low in a defensive stance, Azazel channeled his demonic energies into the vessel's form ^{[Fiend, Abyssal Infusion]}. With his heightened speed seeming to cause the advancing pugilist to slow to a crawl, the demon surged forward, reaching out to grasp the oncoming fist at the elbow. Using both his prodigious strength ^{[Bull's Strength]}, and the elf's own momentum, Azazel launched the boy, a good thirty feet, straight into a snow bluff. It was for the best, all things considered. Rinn might've died, hurled into a boulder at such speeds. His bones may have been unbreakable, but his face almost certainly was not.



Azazel prowled up to his student in a prideful swagger. "Good instincts, dodging the spell. Going for an attack: not so much. There's a reason I'm taking you at a certain pace, rock-skull. Let's not try to rise above our instructors, eh?" The demon shot a hand down to the elf, offering him help up.

Before Rinn could really even react, his fist already midway between Azazel and himself, the Moon Elf would find that his wrist had been grabbed and he had been hurled in the other direction. This would ultimately result in Rinn's unceremoniously landing upon a snow bluff of sorts. The cold would usually permeate his skin at this point but surprisingly, or unsurprisingly depending on whom you asked, that hadn't been an issue at all for the Moon Elf. If anything, the aura of heat that he was giving off was enough to cause some of this snow to start to melt.

With his head towards the ground and his feet facing the sky, Rinn couldn't help but laugh to himself as Azazel had further approached him. Once the man had extended a hand out to him, Rinn would reach out and firmly grasp Azazel's wrist, his silvered coating likely burning away at the mans wrist as he had done so. Not really noticing this though, Rinn would make use of Azazel's hand to twist his body around and eventually rise from the ground.

"Alright, alright. You've got me there.. Honestly, I don't even know what got into me just then. My blood was boiling and I guess that my battle instincts just kind of took over there. It was strange too.. Despite the urgings of my body to jump to the right, my mind had suggested that I lean into the blow. It'll be harder to overcome my instincts to deflect these magical attacks, I suppose. Something for me to work on at the very least." A soft sigh would escape the Moon Elf's lips at this point, his mind finally settling back down. "So what's next on the docket? More evasion training? Or should we try and turn towards something else?"

Azazel gritted his teeth below his lips as the wretched coating on the elf's hands tingled uncomfortably on his arm, but he only showed the same confident smile he usually wore. The demon quirked a brow at the boy's explanation, with a slight frown. It was a little too close to Arteron's symptoms of bloodlust, albeit at a much smaller, mortal scale, for the manipulation demon's liking. Are all acolytes of war so tastelessly inclined? At least he won't be inclined to challenge my leadership on my rise. Matters of import should be left to those with the talent for it, not raging simpletons that think with their fists.

Azazel smiled as the wrath demon within stirred slightly in his slumber in response to the insult. He affixed the elf with a curious look as the boy asked what they would do next. I need to inculcate some independence into this one. What's the point of having unconnected hands if they need constant supervision?

The demon pondered the correct course of action, bringing a thoughtful finger to the vessel's chin. "Well, you understand the basics of evasion. You require strenuous practice to fully grasp it of course. So, how about a little practical application? I give you this quest initiate: go out and slay something suitably dangerous, a Barghest or a Geonid. Maybe a Girallon, if you're feeling particularly testy. I'll be at the tavern when you want to report your progress." 

Azazel waved his hand flippantly as he turned on his heel and began walking away. Of course, with the breach he had made in Rinn's mental defenses, he could witness the trial live at his leisure, even casting spells in a pinch ^{[Astral Soul, Mind Parasite]}, but it was good for the boy to think he was being trusted on his own.

Having become exceptionally prone to this course of action, one of Rinn's eyebrows would quirk up in curiosity as Azazel had told him to go out on his own and enact some form of battle. His listed targets were amongst a Barghest, a Geonid, and a Girallon. The fact that this was his next method of training, outside of really only having received evasion training and form training, had been a bit of a surprise to the Moon Elf. Wasn't there more to focus on here before turning towards an actual fight? Not that it really mattered to him of course. At the end of the day, any fight was a good fight. And through this fight, Rinn had hoped to further understand that strange feeling that had washed over him. He more or less chalked the feeling up to battle instincts but it felt as though there was something more beneath it all.. As though something was attempting to reach out to him.

Figuring that he could kill two birds with one stone, Rinn would simply nod to the man before him before turning towards the edge of the docks. He was about to head off in search of a target, likely to be a Girallon if he was being honest, when he had stopped himself. "I take it that you're not coming with me then? This feels like the kind of thing that you might want to be there for. To scope out the growth that I display or whatever." Knowing that there was no real way for him to convince Azazel to follow after him, if he hadn't desired to do so, Rinn would simply shrug as he started to walk off. The way that he saw it, Azazel would follow him if he truly wished to do so. And if he hadn't? Well there was nothing that he could do about that.

[EXIT]