For several seconds, the Bright Necromancer's serpentine spell wends its way through the whirling stones unhindered. Then black fire flares around the stones and they draw together to form an encircling wall of solid rock.
As the Necromancer's ray skitters across the wall, seeking an opening, a column of blackness spurts upward from beyond the stones. As it rises, it takes on a roughly leonine silhouette, but no lion ever looked like this; black wings sprout from its dark shoulders, and its limbs burst into dozens of shadowy tendrils from which foul liquid drips. It soars high above the battlefield, then descends into a steep dive. Corrosive black droplets rain down from the shadow-creature's limbs to burn and melt the Bright Necromancer where he stands.
The manticore glides above the paradise as it assails the spring; blocks the blood of the venom!