The Shadow Guardians obeyed. Walls of solid darkness erupted from the ground, forming a prison around the Broodmother.
She slammed into the first wall of darkness. With a violent shriek, she tore through it.
But as one wall fell, two more sprang up in its place, and every moment she spent battering against the shadows was another moment the Ember Rift-Sprites had to focus their fire.
"Burn her to ash!"
The result was cataclysmic. Freed from the need to aim a moving target, the remaining thousands of Rift-Sprites unleashed a unified infernal rain. The heat was so intense that the very air inside the shadow prison ignited.
The Broodmother's shrieks became choked.
Her carapace, already critically weakened, glowed white-hot. Molten, stinking chunks of chitin sloughed away, and the stench of incinerated monster flesh became overwhelming.
