Just as Cynthia commanded, the force landed.
The creatures reacted immediately, the nearest ones turning toward the sudden arrival of bodies at their edge, a sound building across the entire mass that was wrong in the same way their faces were wrong, too many individual sounds at exactly the same frequency producing something that wasn't quite a roar and wasn't quite a scream.
Jane moved to her position in the line and raised both hands.
The light that gathered around her was different from ordinary illumination in the way it had been since the dragon empress's transfer, denser and more purposeful, responding to her intention before she had fully articulated it.
She looked at the mass of creatures in front of her and made a specific choice about methodology.
A direct brain-function attack required individual targeting for maximum precision, but individual targeting against a mass of this size was inefficient unless she expanded the scale of the ability.
