Snippet #2820739

Using her sword as support, Yue pushed herself unsteadily up to her knees after been thrown roughly several meters from Aegis' exploding barrier. She pressed a hand against her ear as if to ward off the ringing, her shoulders lurching as she vomited up her breakfast of coffee and pills. For a long moment it appeared as though she'd fallen unconscious, but she lurched to her feet with zombie-like vigor, turning her head to gaze upon Aegis with an empty expression. She exhaled slowly to the bottom of her lungs, her breath forming into an unnatural mist that pooled at her feet. She muttered something that was lost to the the din of Aegis' stomping and then took a deep breath.

A deep pulse reverberated throughout the chasm, like thunder but with no sound. The ground at her feet splintered and cracked, and the mist that had formed around her began to swirl violently around her as she dug her feet into the earth. She swung the claymore horizontally across the battlefield and the creature's raining threads were blown away by a vicious shockwave with a thunderous CLAP! Yue carried the sword's momentum into a high guard and it sang an intense crystalline note as some invisible force pulsed through it. The ground tremored as her presence suddenly pressed oppressively against the combatants, like being under the full intensity of the desert sun during the hottest part of the day.

In her vaguely conscious dream-state she appeared transfixed for a split moment. For her, time had crawled to a near standstill, and the resonant tone of her sword drowned out all other sound. The crimson aura which normally flickered close to her skin while using her powers burned white hot, and she squinted against the glare reflexively. It roared around her and vibrated in her bones, billowing up into a massive pillar as though she were standing on a vent of energy. Somewhere inside the fog, a voice was screaming distantly, cautioning restraint... telling her she shouldn't be using this power on "people."

What she saw before her, however, was someone who had grown spikes and thorns that were glowing with "demonic" energy.

"Amonkira, Lord of Hunters... grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift. And should the worst come to pass... Grant me forgiveness," she prayed... Paladins existed to purge demonic forces from the world. Whatever the cost.

Yue stepped forward, letting the sword drop to gain momentum before she swept it forward and up into a crescent, landing back in the high guard. The sword bit into the earth and carved through it effortlessly, unleashing a narrow shockwave that ripped through the terrain at Alex. She pushed off, riding in the vacuum wake behind the blast. A quick step at the last second diverted her trajectory out of the wake and into the path she anticipated he would dodge to. Her boots slid across the earth, struggling to achieve traction for a fraction of a second, though her body was already cocked to deliver a diagonal slash as soon as she had solid footing.