The ground beneath Zhark detonated upward with a furious roar.
CRACK!
Rings of jagged earth burst around him in a perfect circular formation, like ancient seals rising from the world's crust.
Thick, spiraling columns of compacted sand shot upward, spinning violently and encasing him in a rising whirlwind of grit and pressure.
The sparks around Zhark's body vanished. Lightning shorted out. Static fizzled and died.
"What—!?" he managed to say.
Then the final pillar shot up.
BOOM!
A massive earthen coffin slammed shut around him like the jaws of a god, sealing him in a towering sarcophagus of crushing gravity and sand-infused stone.
Runes etched across its surface glowed faintly, pulsing with a deep brown light—Earth Qi suppressing movement, conduction, everything.
Zhark was trapped.
The world went still.
A rumble echoed from within as lightning began slamming against the walls of the coffin.
BOOM! ZAP! CRACK!
