Akshaya Mahima
I remember that the floor rumbled with her approach. Polished granite. I should not have felt a thing.
It does not say enough to describe her size. Numbers do nothing to describe the sheer scale of her presence. Akshaya was an edifice. She blurred the line between the human Undaunted and the more wicked aspects of Distra's native Gorgegasher beasts—limb extensions, additional horns, dermal plating, talons, tusks, muscle updates, and a thick, reptilian tail.
Monstrous, massive, beautiful. Even my faith in the Somnolent was shaken by the weight of her steps. She looked the part of a warrior Queen, especially with the crown of horns growing from her head. I knew enough of Undaunted culture to know that each set of tattoos weaving over her body represented a different Mastered Heart, and that she had mastered them all—there is not an emotion she felt against her own consent.
In her eyes burned a sharper intelligence than any I have encountered since. It is not enough to be physically powerful—her will and wit have few matches, either.
She leaned down next to me, resting a portion of her weight on a Gravity Blade larger than myself. Given the viscera oozing down its rune-scrawled length, I knew I was the last of my Order remaining. 100 of us had come, support cavalry for Angel Yosan.
"You will leave," she said. "You will return to your false god and you will tell him that the Undaunted will always stand independent."
Elijah Andre-Orlando
My favorite aspect of Ethnis is definitely the legendaries sprinkled around the events of Ethnis. This is easily a excerpt on the back of a book that would hook me into reading the tale of how she became what she is.