Ethaniel was stuck with only two options. Even then, it felt as if he wasn't given a choice.
There was no clear way out, and with his current condition, a clean escape was no longer an option, leaving him with only one choice.
To brute-force his way through.
He released his mana in a sudden burst at the last possible moment.
The violent force pushed outward from his body, repelling everything that entered its range and forcing a brief opening that kept him from being crushed in place.
He intended to use that moment to escape, but as his body lifted slightly higher, his perception caught onto something that didn't align with what he had just seen.
In that instant, he registered that the roots descending from above had never been real.
They were illusions, and although his first thought was that there was another mage nearby, he dismissed that idea almost immediately.
