The south face of the barrier gave out at the seam.Not the center, the seam, the specific point where two of the contributing Knights had been standing slightly too far apart during the last reorganization, the gap that had been compensated for by the combined output of both their flames being angled inward and the compensation working until it did not work.The crack that had been running through that section of the barrier for the last several minutes found the seam.Found it and used it.The sound was not a shatter, it was deeper than a shatter, the specific structural failure sound of something that had been holding a large amount of force in a compressed arrangement and had stopped holding it. The force released with the sound, the barrier dissolving from the seam outward at the speed of the collapse rather than the speed of a decision.The beast came through before the sound finished.The gray-flame body of it hit the dissolved barrier's position at the speed it had been buildi

Twelve archers, twelve arrows each in the next thirty seconds, the specific rapid-fire output of people who had been trained to maintain rate of fire at sustained output, the quivers being drawn from, the bows coming back to full draw, the releases happening in the quick rolling sequence of a full volley rather than the unified release of a coordinated shot.The beast took all of it.The remaining joint seams, the left shoulder, both hips, the neck junction, found by the archers one by one as each volley found its mark or found its way to the next closest seam, the construction failing at each point of multiple simultaneous impact, the structural integrity of the whole thing losing its cohesion joint by joint.It went down.Not the dramatic backward fall of something that has been struck from the front. The specific folding-down of a structure that has lost the joints that maintained the structure, the gray-flame body going from upright to the floor in the specific sagging collapse of

And the silence after a sound of that volume was not the regular silence of absence. It was the silence of ears that had been running at the full load of that sound for fourteen seconds and were now running at the load of nothing, the disorienting silence of something that had been at an extreme and had arrived at the opposite extreme, the ringing that was not a sound but was the nervous system's response to the transition.Roderick lowered his hands.He looked at the largest beast.It had stopped roaring.Its head had come back down from the skyward angle of the roar.Its eyes were on the archers and on Sera.On the position where the ash of the fourth beast was still settling.Then,without the specific preparation that the other beasts' attacks had carried, the building-up that gave you the half second to process what was coming, the fireball.It came from both hands.Not the single-handed throw of something building from one source, both hands, the gray flame from both sources comb

The right beast had its back partially to Kira's squad when they committed.Partially,not fully, the specific angle of something that had been at the perimeter and had started to orient toward the archers' fire and had not completed the orientation. The right side of it exposed to the approach vector that Kira had been reading since the split.She did not call the approach.Her squad had been with her long enough.The six of them spread without instruction,the specific practiced spread of a unit that had trained the spread until the spread was not a choice but a default, the coverage finding its configuration without the configuration being discussed.Knight Pell went wide left.Knight Sora went wide right.The other four held center, coming in at the beast's right side at a staggered depth,not all six at the same distance from the target simultaneously, the stagger that meant if the front ones were knocked backward they would not knock the middle ones backward, the middle ones occupy

The arrows were annoying it.Not defeating it.The Emperor beast looked at the archers.The specific turn of a face that has been absorbing something and has decided it is done absorbing and is going to address the source.Davan saw the turn."’Full volley.’" He called. "’Everything…’"The fireball was already forming.Both hands again, the double-source construction, the combined output, the specific scale of a fireball that the Emperor beast was building at full expression.Larger than the first one.Not the same size as the first one, larger, the scale of something that had decided the first one was a response and this one was a statement.It left both hands.The trajectory was directly at the archer line.Directly at Davan.The speed of something at that scale, faster than a fireball should be at that size, the construction having been built with the specific property of a technique thrown in anger rather than in calculation."’TAKE COVER!’"Sera's voice, the full volume, the fu