Chapter 704: Before the Dust Settles
They came up through the stone in four places at once.
The creatures had low, heavy bodies the size of large dogs, overlapping gray back plates, and shovel-shaped heads above powerful digging limbs. The first came up beneath the amber team's abandoned cut, surfacing through loose stone with a grinding scrape, and swung its head toward the nearest carrier.
The Palace personnel moved at Leon's warning, lifting tools and retreating toward solid ground. A handler beside the red crust was rising from one knee when the rock beneath his planted foot gave way. He fell sideways as a burrower surfaced beside him.
Seraphine reached it before it could turn on him.
Lightning carried her across thirty paces. Light followed cleanly through her blade as she changed direction, without the hesitation she had worked to eliminate during her Core preparations. Her sword passed between the creature's first two plates before it had fully cleared the ground.
