The lance came down on the aberration with cataclysmic force. The impact unleashed a blast of golden light, reducing the creature to its corrupted atoms. The shockwave swept across the battlefield, incinerating most surviving chimeras and scattering the toxic haze like a purifying gust. The fractured ground heaved into petrified waves, hurling glowing debris into the air.
The Manticore roared—not in pain, but in fury. Her venomous avatar disintegrated, the poisoned clouds dissolving into tatters.
"You understand nothing!" she snarled, her scales blackened with rage. "This corruption… it is your legacy as much as mine!"
Her wings unfurled, drawing in the last remnants of miasma to reform her body into a grotesque hybrid of feline and scorpion.
The emissary tilted his head, his angelic face impassive.
"You are right," he admitted, his voice tolling like a death knell. "That is why I must erase it all."
