A wave of power washed over the acolytes, like the pressure all around them had increased tenfold. Kaeni felt her life force flicker and dim, suddenly diluted; she was the candle and this was the fire. Even the mountain's glowing gems and glittering crystals seemed to darken at the sudden presence's absolute dominance. Time warped ever so slightly, and every second seemed to drag for far too long.
Kaeni trembled. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to stop her hands from shaking.
It finally appeared from around the mountainside with a heavy swoosh of its wings. A titanic head of feathers and antlers, a body like a battleship, claws large and sharp enough to rend a building in two, and the wings spreading out so wide and far... they blotted out the stars, the moon, the sky, the mountain.
The wyvern slammed into the mountainside with its talons, cracking into stone and shattering the veins. Each beat of its wings crashed over them with the power of a hurricane, shoving them back into the wall of stone. And then it roared with a hideous shriek, and the entire world went silent save for the perpetual shrillness.