The Sages hovering high above the battlefield could not help but widen their eyes in collective astonishment. They had prepared themselves to witness ferocity, but nothing in their centuries-long storehouse of knowledge had hinted at creatures capable of this level of speed, coordination, and raw destructive power.
The creatures—elongated, triple-jointed horrors clad in interlocking plates of obsidian-black bio armor—were not merely stationary threats hanging in the air like menacing statues. Each one possessed a propulsion system so preternaturally swift that they could streak across the sky from one horizon to the other in the span of a single heartbeat, leaving only a sonic boom and a brief vacuum-white contrail in their wake.
"Damn it all!" Commander Varian roared, the veins on his neck standing out like knotted rope. He had just watched three Sage-Mages be cleaved in half by a creature's scimitar-shaped forelimb. There was no time to be paralyzed by grief or rage.
