I had no time to think.
One moment, I was blinking dust out of my eyes and trying to make sense of the hell-storm stampede barreling straight toward me.
The next, I was moving just as the first spider-monkey lunged at me with a loud shriek.
The sound it let out was so unsettling — like a shard of broken glass being dragged across an old blackboard — it burrowed into my skull and made me regret having ears.
I immediately raised an arm, and the earth rose with it.
A colossal hand of stone erupted from the ground and caught the charging creature mid-sprint.
Then, with a single thought, I made the hand close into a fist.
The beast shrieked again in panic and agony as it was being squashed — before its body cracked and caved in. Its limbs contorted unnaturally. Its exoskeleton split like fruit under pressure.
When the hand uncurled, it dropped the crushed carcass to the jungle floor with a dull, lifeless thud.
But even before the corpse hit the dirt—
Another shriek rang out.
