Red light hit the stone stage like an iron hammer.
Sera Thorne dropped into a low stance, driving the butt of Storm-Pike into a seam in the flagstones.
“Defensive circle!” Sera yelled, her spear shaft vibrating as a curtain of silver lightning flared overhead. “Sterling, anchor the rear!”
Elder Sterling planted his frost-etched broadsword into the stone. A thick wall of pale glacier ice surged upward, locking against Sera’s lightning to form a shimmering dome over the southern dais.
BOOM.
The first salvo of crimson execution beams slammed into the barrier.
The ground shuddered. The heavy ice wall groaned, webbed with hairline fractures that hissed with superheated steam.
Across the caldera, the thirty-six obsidian pillars blazed like burning torches. Each demonic face carved into the stone vomited streams of concentrated killing light.
