Hesen pressed his palms together and rubbed them. When he opened them, one hand held a saber forged from flame, and the other a long whip formed from gathered lightning. A nearly transparent sheen flowed over his body, quickly forming a metallic blue-black layer across his scales.
It was a truly extraordinary sight. Under normal circumstances, if the Grand Elder put on a display like this, ordinary Sandfolk would already be kneeling in worship. Even those ill-intentioned chieftains would have to swallow their envy and jealousy, then bow and offer their flattery. But now, the Sandfolk had completely lost the will to fight. They couldn't even tell whether the flames and lightning before them came from enemy fire or the Grand Elder's hands. They only knew to let their instinct to flee drive them onward.
This time, Grand Elder Hesen made no attempt to stop the fleeing soldiers. He simply stepped forward and lashed his lightning whip at the powered-armored soldiers approaching him.
In the age of space travel, of course standard ground-combat power armor came equipped with electrical protection. But lightning gathered from psionic energy wasn't naturally occurring lightning. It was a rare force capable of systematically disrupting most man-made defenses.
Grand Elder Hesen had every confidence in his power. When he first opened his third astral disc, he had once used all his strength to drag down a heavy airship with lightning. It hadn't been a transport used by Earth's security forces, but a proper low-altitude heavy fire-support gunship weighing over a hundred tons, with an arsenal capable of leveling an entire city of a million people. Piercing a powered infantry suit should have been child's play.
The lightning whip swept low through the air, carving a searing, twisting trail. But a curtain of light suddenly unfolded in