It just needed to happen quickly. Another contraction at the wrong time might be the end of her. As much as she felt that concern, a voice in the back of her mind said that she was missing something here. She needed to know.

  “Why come after me?”

  “Your lying goddess isn’t the only one watching over you. Redemption, ha! More like slavery. She picks and chooses. They all do. But the great Bal Zar has been watching you.”

  Another contraction hit her, but Emiri knew she couldn’t show weakness. She braced herself and through clenched teeth asked, “Is that supposed to mean something to me? I’m just a priestess. If you really want a fight, you should have waited for my husband to come back. He would have taught you your place.”

  Her hands trembled despite her best efforts. She could only hope that they took it for fear or anger rather than her own body working against her.

  “Something bigger will come for him. But we are all that is needed for you,” the tall one said.

  “You still didn’t say why?”

  The short one snorted, “Our master has foreseen that you are a linchpin. You and your unborn child. Something is unique about your child. Somehow he is of Eloria but not.”

  The tall one slapped his comrade with a mighty backhand that sent the shorter fiend stumbling. “Shut up. The master’s plans are not for discussing with mortals.”

  Even as he was speaking, Emiri was in motion. She let loose with all the ferocity Daichi had tried to drill into her. She’d adopted it before, but it had only been a suit she wore. This time it echoed from her soul. Threaten her, that was one thing. But threaten her child, oh no, they just woke the momma bear.

  Her mind raced as she shouted the command word for her wand and was putting it away while the lancing spear of blackness still shot through the separating space. Her attack struck the squat fiend just as he was tottering over from the blow his comrade had delivered. He hit the stone floor with a loud clanging.

  She could feel that they were both stronger than her. That should have terrified her, but they were fools. Even if they were both Tier 5, she had a chance against them. Other than healing, her entire build was created for slaying fiends and undead.

  Her Preferred Enemy- Fiend passive skill would increase all damage she delivered to a fiend. Because it was a divine ability, it would even affect the wand as long as it was her hand that held it.

  That caused the shadow lance to deal nearly 1500 damage. The piercing portion of the spell ripped a hole clean through one side and out the other. Meanwhile, the secondary necrotic effect withered even the flesh of an immortal. She couldn’t know, but Emiri hoped that single attack had taken a large chunk of the creature’s life.

  But she wasn’t done. She had more fiend-killing tricks up her sleeve and wasn’t holding back at all. Divine Bond did more than increase her base damage. It also increased her chance to score a critical strike, and if a hit was a critical it would cause an additional 120% more damage.

  She activated a slew of skills all at once, burning mana and faith points in equal measure. The wand had already been dropped as she moved to the pouch where she held the masterwork shurikens enchanted for her by Mira. They were a priceless gift—and not just because of their usefulness. To Emiri, they represented a step forward in the healing of her relationship with her firstborn. A subtle thread of her mana imbued with the power of her goddess began to leak into the individual shuriken.

  Her next activation was Judgment. It was an AoE skill that caused divinely empowered debuffs to all undead and fiends within 80 feet of her. The debuff was random to each target. She wouldn’t know what had hit them till she completed her attack. Everything was moving so fast, even as it seemed to be in slow motion to her.

  She heard them both scream and felt the power of Judgment settle onto them. Then, as she lashed out with one dagger, she activated another string of abilities. Gather Shadows triggered, and immediately it was like the shadows in the room flowed around her as a protective cover.

  Emiri didn’t think for an instant that a fiend would fail to see her in the shadows. The effect wasn’t chosen for its stealth applications but for the fact that any attack she made while wreathed in shadows was automatically a sneak attack and thus an extra 675% damage. The extra 130% to her defense couldn’t hurt either.

  On Earth, she had been as far from being a gamer like her husband as was possible. Emiri didn’t pretend to understand why the rules of Eloria acted like they did. It was enough for her that they did. She had given in and accepted this new reality. Now she embraced it fully and would make the rules work for her.

  She lashed out with her short sword, but before it struck, she activated Smite Evil. Emiri was cycling through abilities at the speed of thought and burning up all her resources to try and end this as quickly as possible.

  Smite Evil granted her 90 damage resistance against fiends that would stack with her other defenses. It also added 250% to the accuracy of her attack and another 100% damage. It was a bit insane how the bonuses stacked up. Of course, these monsters were also obscene affronts to the natural order. That much was true to both a moon elf and a follower of Shanelle.

  The taller fiend was too slow to react. That might be in part because of the ice crystals forming all over his skin and armor. She didn’t need to check her notifications to know that he had been struck with the Chilled debuff. His chained blade tried to swing at her, but he was off balance from having hit his comrade. Emiri slid under his arm and then thrust with her blade.

  Hitting critical locations did matter in Eloria, but ultimately, it was about exhausting her target’s health. The thrust punched through its armor with so much force that its innards exploded out the back side. The visual effect would have been amazing especially given her size, but she couldn’t stop there.

  Emiri flowed from one attack position to the next while hooking its leg out from underneath it as it fell backward. She continued clamoring up it and drew her blade across its neck with as much force as possible. The truth was this had little to do with the physics of her blade and more to do with the fact that Smite Evil turned all the damage into holy damage against which the enemy had no defense.

  She bypassed its armor, natural toughness, and any magical protections it had as she severed so deeply into the neck that the head only hung on by the spinal cord. The body didn’t even twitch when it hit the ground, so she quickly whirled to face squat fiend.

  As she had feared, even though the necrotic nature of the power made the damage harder to heal, the fiend’s wound was already starting to close. It would still be some time before it was completely restored, and she had no intention of giving it that chance.

  Instead, she threw out a handful of shuriken in rapid-fire style. The enchantment allowed her already significant Agility to work even better as each shuriken struck. Each impact was accompanied by a small explosion. Its body bounced around on the ground like it was having the most powerful seizure ever. The holy power she had infused into the shuriken reacted violently with the creature’s foul nature.

  As she threw them she activated Bleeding Strike for each attack. The weapons were already inclined to create bleeding wounds, but now those wounds gushed black ichor. The fiend’s life force—such as it was—drained out faster than whatever regenerative abilities it possessed could repair the damage. What was more, since she was still burning Faith points to keep Smite Evil active, the damage was all holy and would be extra damaging.

  One of the explosions of force even blew its left arm off, leaving the shield on the ground. Huge chunks of armor and flesh were missing, leaving it looking like something the cat spat out.

  Then, to her shock, it stumbled to its feet. Its eyes were glazed over, and it swung the thick mace wildly, almost without purpose. Oh, she realized what had happened. Judgment had caused the Confused debuff.

  Normally, that would have been great if it was surrounded by others of its kind. It would have effectively become her soldier as it tore into its own allies. But with only her standing, that wasn’t going to work.

  She could deal with that, though. She was still cloaked in shadows and timed its clumsy swings so that she could come in under one and deliver the finishing blow. It appeared to be hanging on by a thread.

  She flowed forward with a grace that would make Daichi proud of her, especially given the basketball she had in her stomach throwing off her balance. Then it happened. The wave of a contraction hit her. She stumbled in agony. Her body betrayed her intentions.

  A sweeping blow from the mace struck her leg. If it weren’t for the stacking damage resistance of Divine Bond and Smite Evil, her leg probably would have been ripped off by the wildly powerful blow. As it was, she felt her femur crack, the bone driven through her flesh, and she could only be grateful that it hadn’t severed an artery.

  The sheer force of the blow threw her fifteen feet across the room. She twisted mid-air to make sure that her abdomen didn’t strike the wall. Instead, she hit it with her back and the back of her head. Her body slumped against the ground, and darkness threatened to cover her eyes, but she wouldn’t give in.

  For some reason, the guards still hadn’t come in. She was on her own, and she was the momma bear. No one was going to harm her baby.

  Chapter Four

  “Don’t be deceived by my looks. Mess with my children and I’ll go ‘50 shades of crazy’ on you.” —Source Unknown

  Baldora, Capital of Miromar- Emiri Nelson

  Emiri couldn’t move. It was all she could do to hold onto consciousness. As soon as she gained control of that, she took a deep breath, but a secondary contraction began and stopped any plans she had of getting up. She kept feeding mana and Faith points into her skills. She needed them all.

  That low back ache she’d had for the past few months with pregnancy was now a fire burning out of control. It was only dwarfed by the agony she felt with her shattered femur. She breathed in deeply again and focused to cast a spell.

  Healing would have been nice, but the dead had no use for healing, so she needed something to buy herself time. Acid Spear just wasn’t strong enough, and she didn’t dare risk using her Wand of Fireballs in here. It might just be what ended up killing her like someone launching a full battery of rockets inside a small space.

  The contraction began to subside, which only left her with the fire in her back and the agony in her leg, but Emiri focused. Eloria was conflict. That had been drilled into her too many times. She was no longer a suburban housewife working part-time as a nurse. She was a priestess and a warrior who was responsible for many people, and above all that, she was responsible for her children in this crazy world.

  The words for the spell tumbled off her lips. She tried to muscle through the focus to force the spell to take shape. The fiend hadn’t come for her yet as it stumbled around the room. Just a couple more seconds was all she needed for the spell.

  Then it finished, and a light descended from the heavens straight through the palace to form a circle on the ground. Out of that stepped a celestial duplicate of herself. It wasn’t a spell she used often, but dang was it cool.

  The celestial didn’t even need to be told what to do. It leapt forward at the raving fiend. Emiri now realized the creature was thrashing about more weakly by the moment. The blood loss must be sapping its strength.

  The angelic figure danced around the wild swings before hacking down with her own longsword. Once, twice and then the arm was gone. Two more swings and the head followed.

  Emiri quick cast a Heal spell on herself. That was immediately followed by the use of her class ability, Healing Hands. It was easier to simply channel the mana rather than focus on another spell, especially as she had to push the bone inside her flesh. She just hoped that would be enough for it to heal. Broken bones and healing could be tricky things.

  If you healed the flesh while the bone was still out of alignment there was the chance that a greater injury would be caused. Even under the best of circumstances, a healer risked permanently crippling the one they tried to heal, and this was far from the best of circumstances.

  Then another contraction hit her, and she lay there shaking. They were definitely coming with less time between them. When it passed, she asked the celestial to help her to her feet. She needed to find out what was happening outside. She continued to burn her faith points because as soon as she dropped Divine Bond, the negative after-effects would come into play, and she would lose 70% of all her physical stats.

  As she hobbled to the door with the celestial assisting her, she glanced at the notification she had just received. She barely had a second to register shock that she only received notice for the death of a single fiend. That instant was enough to allow her to activate Dodge. This, in turn, saved her from the death she likely would have faced

  What the nifty description of the Dodge skill didn’t tell you was how painful it could be to use. The skill was magic, and it operated in a way that defied her logical assessment, but it didn’t push away the enemy attack. That would have been more like deflect. She would have laughed if she’d had the time or energy to spare as she threw herself painfully to the side.

  No, what Dodge did was move the user. It moved them faster, more agilely than they might have been able to act on their own. That sort of supernaturally quick motion came with wrenching action on the body and, in turn, a pain in her side. The baby didn’t seem to care for it either.

  The bolt of hellfire that would have incinerated her slammed into the wall as her body twisted out of the way. Unfortunately, the taller fiend wasn’t done. She had been stupid not to finish it, but it wasn’t like she had anything else on her mind right now.

  A pair of spear tips on chains flew out from its hands. One impaled the celestial through the chest, causing the summoned being to cough up golden blood. The creature had been moving to help Emiri and paid the price.

  Emiri was more fortunate but didn’t escape unscathed. The blade caught the side of her belly that had been far wider than she liked to think about for months now.

  It tore a huge gash in her but didn’t stick inside her flesh. The pain made her wobble, and the baby was far too still for her comfort. She knew that was natural when she went into labor, but it still terrified her.

  Her mind was still sharp, her reflexes almost as much. She caught the chain in her hand, trying to act as though it had pierced and stuck in her side. The fiend apparently couldn’t stand the temptation. It taunted her as the celestial duplicate struggled against the chain. The dark metal must have been poisoning her angelic summon as a black spiderweb of veins spread out from where she was impaled.

  “You thought that it would be that easy. My master was no fool. He knew of your dedication to the liar. I came prepared.”

  Emiri groaned as though in pain. It wasn’t a far cry as she felt like the next contraction was on the verge of starting.

  When she didn’t say anything, the fiend continued, “You probably expected your guards to come in, but a simple ward of silence was all that I needed in order to block them out. The trap was already laid by a faithful servant and triggered by my spell. I’m not some mere brute like the one you killed. You’ll find that both my magic and my regeneration are beyond your paltry powers.

  “No matter what, the child you carry cannot be allowed to become a threat.”

  It stared at her for a moment. Then it must have come to the conclusion that it was time to end her. It yanked both chains back while crying out, “Get over here.”

  Emiri held on and allowed the fiend to pull her in. As she did, she pulled forth her mage-slaying dagger from her spatial pouch. She could only hope that the shadows around her would conceal enough of her actions. They flew through the air, yanked by the fiend’s unearthly strength. When they were almost upon it, the celestial duplicate made one last attack. Its longer sword must have been perceived as a greater risk by the fiend because he fired off a withering spell of dark essence magic.

  Black and purple flames appeared around the celestial, eliciting screams. The fiend’s eyes were on its tormented prey for just an instant too long. That or it was arrogant in its protections—protections that her mage-slaying dagger completely bypassed. She could only use it once an hour, but it was the ultimate finishing weapon for mages or virtually any being with high Intelligence. The fiend’s error again proved what she had told Mira many times that a high Intelligence score didn’t necessarily make you smarter.

  Her dagger struck it square in the chest, the magical blade sinking in and cracks of light immediately appearing in its form. The process happened in the blink of an eye but seemed to linger for just long enough for her to question what was actually happening.

  As its body was blasted to dust, Emiri collapsed to her knees. She released the spell that summoned the celestial so it could return to its home plane before dying or suffering further. She said a silent prayer of thanks to Shanelle that she had survived and then collapsed in absolute exhaustion as she released Divine Bond and the other skills.

  Another contraction shook her, but she was almost too weak to even feel it. Notifications started to pop up, and she didn’t have the presence of mind to stop them from appearing.

  TALOS RECORD: You have delivered the single most damaging melee strike in the modern era for the entire continent of Talos.

  Mage Slaying Dagger vs Tier 5 Chain Fiend.

  Base Dmg: 700 x (Agile Strike- 56% + Sneak Attack- 675%) = 5,817 x (Short Blade Specialization- 200% + Short Blades- 45% + Divine Bond- 400% + Preferred Enemy- 120% + Smite Evil- 100%) = 56,134 x (Critical Strike- 100% + Divine Bond Critical Strike- 200%, +Preferred Enemy Critical Strike- 130%) = 297,510 dmg.

  Due to the nature of the target, the divine damage bypassed all resistances and protections to deliver full damage.