Ten streaks of screaming crimson fire tore through the mountain night.
They flew like barbed comets, their supersonic shockwaves ripping ancient pine branches from the granite cliffs.
Each blood-lance was sixty feet of compressed, weeping crimson gravity, trailing plumes of black smoke that smelled of melted copper and incinerated marrow.
Bypassing the front gate, the ten False Domain blood-lances arced in a high, deadly trajectory.
They pointed straight toward Cold-Spring Grotto.
Down at the shattered gatehouse bridge, Sera Thorne didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second.
“Intercept them!” Sera roared, her boots kicking off the flagstones.
Golden lightning erupted from the tip of her Storm-Pike, propelling her body into the sky like a launched ballista bolt.
