Elias tightened his grip on his sword. "The breach is widening. If we don't reach the core by dawn, there won't be a Zalgadia left to defend."
With a final, decisive strike, the guardian shattered into shimmering fragments. The path to the altar was open. Elias stood before the pulsating heart of the realm, a crystalline shard that hummed with the power of a thousand suns. He reached out, his hand trembling.
"Look at that," his companion, Kaelen, whispered, pointing toward the obsidian spires of the Sunken Cathedral.