Megan raised her right hand toward the sky. Radiant energy pooled in her palm and expanded into a miniature sun, illuminating the ruined basin with blinding intensity.
"I will show you how to properly exterminate pests," Megan announced.
She swept her arm forward. A continuous torrent of incandescent light erupted from her hand to sweep across the battlefield. The intense heat instantly fused the loose sand into a molten sea of orange glass.
'We will burn alive out here,' Gulag calculated, watching the sweeping beam vaporize a nearby boulder.
She dropped to her knees and plunged her hands deep into the shifting dunes below the glass layer. Her amber core flared brightly. The earth violently split open beneath the surviving Vanguard infantry, swallowing the soldiers into a rapidly forming network of subterranean trenches.
A ceiling of rock sealed shut just as the searing light washed over their position.
