Page 245 of Red Ruin

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Its soul leaps, and an icy wrecking ball punches through my chest.

I wheeze and stagger.

Foreign energy paws through my soul, like bony, rotting hands feeling me up from the inside.

I gag as the presence roots around, trying to find the right seam for ripping out my soul.

“Get out,” I growl and grip my heart.

the lich whispers.

I fight back, but I’m tired and too slow. Before I can tighten my mental defenses, the lich latches onto a handful of silks.

Blechhhhhh.

Its mental touch is spongy with rot.

Once the lich has that grip, it finds another and another, slithering to surround threads of my soul faster than I can peel him off.

The last standing section of the array whines with strain.

Godsdamnit!

I dive for the flickering circle.

Too late.

Our energies are already mixing.

Mid-air, the punishment magic zaps.

My soul ignites.

I scream so hard my sight goes black.

I can’t breathe.

Can’t hear.

Wish I couldn’t feel.

Gulping shards of ice and lightning, trying not to choke on my tongue, I roll across the ground.

When I ooze into the safety zone, the pain switches flavors.

Razors instead of fire.

the lich king mutters from inside my head.

My energy shifts against my will; the lich is setting up shop. It wants to rip me out of my own house.

“You can fuck right off.” I fight the lich’s mental grip, tearing away its nauseating fibers. Manipulating the energy uses the same mental muscles as guiding, but doing it to myself burns through much more energy than working with a Sentinel.

The lich king launches new tendrils just fast as I can weed them out.

Stalemate.

I grit my teeth.

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