Jelo raised his guard.
The Daba advanced—and something slammed into its jaw from the right with enough force to snap its head sideways.
Atlas.
His fist was coated in dense compacted stone, drawn up from the ground beneath him in the fraction of a second before impact—a gauntlet of earth that extended past his knuckles and connected with the combined weight of his body and everything he'd pulled. The Daba staggered two full steps.
Then Ken came from the left.
His shadow had extended across the ground in a wide flat sheet—and in the half-second the Daba was off-balance, that shadow rose. A wall of solid darkness surged up directly in the creature's path, cutting off its recovery angle and forcing it to stop or collide with the barrier.
It stopped.
