They scattered.
Too late.
The ball of nothingness shot downward.
It struck the ground among them and burst like ink slapped against stone.
Black spread outward in a violent splatter, consuming the clearing floor, the roots beneath it, the stones, the soil, and the legs of the werewolves too slow to escape. This was not like cutting flesh. Darkness could not simply separate living things from their own bodies and make the result permanent. Flesh with life and blood resisted that kind of severing in ways constructs did not. Even if parts vanished for a moment, once the effect ended, the living matter could return to what it was.
But the ground was different.
The land had no blood.
Darkness ate it eagerly.
The earth disappeared.
