7-85. Topside
Sadie met the descending blade of an axe with her sword, sending sparks flying in every direction. The force of the blow drove her to her knees, but she mitigated that by twisting and throwing the axe head to the side. It thudded into the ground, cutting deeply enough to lodge itself in the paving tiles. Sadie used that momentary distraction to her advantage, launching herself forward and swinging her sword in a horizontal arc. The off-balance skeleton couldn’t react quickly enough, and her glowing blade hit the thing’s shin in a shower of ethera.
More importantly, her impeccable aim meant that she managed to hit the spot she’d already targeted a half dozen times. A single blow couldn’t cut through the durable creature’s bones, but the seventh finally did the trick. The cut wasn’t clean, and the result was more of a break than a severing, but the end result – that the leg became detached – was all that really mattered.
The fifteen-foot-tall skeleton teetered on one foot, then fell with a crash, crushing a handful of zombies beneath its immense weight.
It wasn’t enough, though. She knew it even before she looked around and took stock of their situation. Hundreds of zombies flooded out of the bone-arch gates with every passing second, and they showed no signs of stopping. The only good news was that Avara, the so-called Queen of Desolation, hadn’t personally joined the battle. Instead, she’d planted herself on her grotesque throne, trusting that her minions would do her dirty work.
More troubling was that Dat had disappeared, slipping into stealth. Elijah had tried to destroy the arches, but when he’d failed, he’d flown off, chased by incorporeal wraiths. Sadie had no idea when he would return. That left only her and her brother, and despite his relatively decent level, Nico was not suited for such a battle. Because of his incredibly low Regeneration attribute, he had no staying power. Even if Sadie managed to whittle the enemy down, she knew it wouldn’t be a quick process. There was no way Nico could keep her – or himself – alive that long.
Sadie needed to buy some time.
So, she raised her sword and activated a Miracle. Her weapon erupted into a light so bright that if she wasn’t protected from it, it would have blinded her. It didn’t stop there, though. Instead, the light became a miniature sun, radiating with so much ethera that the atmosphere in a thirty-yard diameter felt as thick as water.
And then, it exploded.
Not with a force Sadie could feel. For her, it only felt mildly warm. To the undead monsters all around her, it was a different story altogether. The closest were entirely atomized by the blast, but with every yard it traveled, it weakened until those at the very edge were only knocked backward.
It was the spell she’d gotten at level one-twenty:
| Light of Judgement
| A Miracle that channels the combined power of Ethera and Faith to unleash a surge of divine energy. The effect is lethal to undead foes, while allies within range benefit from a slight increase in Regeneration. Potency of explosion based on core cultivation. Increase in Regeneration dependent on caster’s Ethera attribute.
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