Eight guards remained.
Their formation had collapsed.
Their minds had shattered.
These men had trained to face monsters and battle evil sorcerers, but they had never trained to confront the pure art of death.
She moved among them like a bloody ruler conducting her own symphony.
Blood never stained her mask; the black porcelain rejected contamination, and the golden tears continued to gleam with cold cruelty.
They retreated backward. The white marble floor was no longer white. It had become a sticky red swamp.
One of the guards tried to step back, but he slipped on his comrade's scattered intestines and fell onto his back.
Before he could rise, she pounced on him with the grace of a wild cat.
She drove her pointed heel into the center of his helmet. The concentrated Ethera in her heel pierced the enchanted steel, then pierced the skull itself, settling deep inside the cerebellum.
