Controlled Explosion
Sam disappeared, the branch leader and the elders felt the changes in the energy.
They all thought, escaping is Sam's last resort, since the path was free from any traps, they didn't think that there would be any here and now that they saw something is wrong, they wanted to escape.
But it was already too late.
The surrounding space was suddenly restricted making them unable to move. They all froze. They could even move their limbs or even jaws to speak. Even breathing became order, some of them who were about to leap over were stuck in mid-air.
They struggled with their energy and wrestled against the spatial lock. But that is not the end, the spatial energy slowly started to become turbulent and covered a hundred-meter radius with the hill as the center.
At first, the spatial lock was strengthened and then they felt the surrounding space distorting slowly and they could feel the spatial tears appearing.