Cades stabbed himself in the back.
He had been trying to do a fancy trick with his new staff that he had seen in a show back when he was just a few years old, how many he didn't exactly know, but instead of intimidating potential enemies he ended up with the wrong end of the staff in front of him and the sharp side of the other end in the middle of his back.
That moment, which had been more embarrassing and degrading then it had been painful, was also the moment that he truly began realizing the gravity of his inability of using techniques in his battles, he couldn't even use wide-are magic or something of the likes after all.
So he had been practicing for the last month, uncaring of anything happening in the outside world, unknowing that there were still many out there that were constantly hunting him.
For the last month he had been on the mountains, hunting the numerous trolls that were spread all around the frozen giants, watching over the serene, calm and beautiful, luscious, green forest for longer than most could ever imagine.
Trolls were an interesting species.
They were all around nine feet tall with the tallest that Cades had seen actually reaching around eleven, and all of them had leathery skin that seemed to crack as if they had been in the sun for far too long, although they mostly lived in caverns, similarly to Cades.
Their eyes were milky and greyish, they were almost half blind, out of the very same reason, they just weren't used to the light of the day.
Their muscles were quite protruding as well, being as big as those of bodybuilders in relation to their own, much taller, bodies.
They were mostly naked, and almost always male.
Luckily they almost all wore something that resembled a leathery old loincloth, at first Cades had been impressed by that little bit of what seemed to be culture in these primitive creatures, but later on he had realized that the leathery cloth that they had bound around their intime regions and in some cases, when the troll was on the stronger side, also in other places, were the skin of other trolls.
Aside from that their faces were truly horrendous, at least in Cades opinion.
They had four oversized, pale yellowish tusks protruding from their mouths that was already filled with oversized, sharp teeth of the same colour.
Cades, who had the misfortune of experiencing it firsthand could sing a song about the horrendous smell waving from these creatures and especially their gaping maws.
And another thing that he had experienced first hand was their incredible healing factor, as great as his own, this was especially impressive when one remembers that they are "merely" of the ninth sequence.
These creatures lived in small "communities" and hunted all over the ancient, snowy peaks, mostly devouring other, weaker monsters or getting devoured themselves.
In many ways, Cades thought, they were similar to people.
Right now, however, Cades was standing in the middle of a small clearing, an even field between two ancient giants that had seemingly "grown" up together.
He was surrounded by mangled corpses, of that very same species, dozens of these trolls, most of which were older than Cades himself by multiple decades, uncaring of this Cades sat down on the mangled, bleeding chest of a especially big troll and began thinking about what he had to do now.
The corpse of the once powerful, ten feet tall troll was now without a face, with it clearly being visible that it had been send off into the skies, or maybe a nearby mountain by a powerful impact.
But what would he need to do now ?
Cades was already sure of one thing that he would have to do now, kill the demon of the sea, the mysterious snake.
Though Cades hadn't seen the rumoured demon yet he had been thinking about what its abilities could be, for example, he was certain that it wielded a kind of natural mechanism to hide itself.
Otherwise the snake would've never been able to live in a sea, at least not with the depicted size.
But he had no idea what that would be.
Regardless of that he had been practicing quite a lot with the staff and even his magic improved by quite a lot, especially his study of wide-are magical spells.
These kinds of spells might require a little bit more time to prepare but they were very powerful in... well.... wide areas, useful for slaying hundreds of enemies at once.
Other than that he also had an enlightenment in how he had been handling the sword an now the staff.
His fighting style focused on momentum and mainly just raw power, as such whenever his "aura" appeared it just caused his sword to become more powerful, cut things easier and cause greater explosions, or, in case of the forsaken demon, send out powerful shockwaves.
But aura was mendable, it conveyed intent, not just the intent to destroy, but the intent to cut, to immobilize, to poison.
In many ways aura was similar to magic, so much so that the way in which Cades had been manifesting his magic, flames, had also influenced his aura, at least that was his theory.
Even just in his technique he was much better than when he started.
With a contorted grimace on his face he thought back on the shame and pain of stabbing himself in the back like an absolute beginner, which he had been.
Now he was really able to use the different sides and even the momentum of each and every single attack that he send towards his countless enemies, at least that's what he thought now.
With a sigh he used one of his hands to push himself up from the relatively comfortable "chair", grabbed his staff which he had laid down right next to himself and pushed himself high up into the air with a mighty movement of his majestic, onyx black wings.