Both of Nyx's hands were raised, holding a spatial barrier against three monsters that were trying to claw through it.
Nyx didn't see it.
Luna did.
She threw herself back into the crescent's path and brought her Stormblade up to parry. The blade caught the edge of the attack and held for a fraction of a second, lightning and white mana screaming against each other, before the crescent sheared through.
It took her arm at the shoulder.
The sound it made was wet and final. Luna's left arm separated from her body in a spray of blood that caught the fading light, and the limb spun through the air toward the drop below.
Luna hit the ground. She rolled once, twice, and came up on one knee with blood sheeting down her side and her face white. Her left shoulder ended in a ragged wound that pulsed with each heartbeat, the flesh cauterized at the edges where Selena's mana had seared through it.
Her Stormblade lay on the ground beside her, knocked from her grip by the impact.
