Page 249 of Red Ruin

As Vhex pumps, Remy draws, filtering out the poison and leaving me with all the pure, hot energy I desire.

I sense the lich’s soul recoil.

It bunches inside me, preparing to jump.

“You can’t come and go whenever you want,” I say and reach for Remy’s shadows.

They move as naturally as my own fingers.

Electric, overflowing with energy.

I pin the lich’s soul in place. The rush dulls my pain.

Thread by thread, I sear the lich king out of my body.

With every hellfire-melted piece of soul, I regain a piece of myself and a little more control.

The lich king writhes, battling my attack.

An explosion of cold lead tears through my soul, leaving shrapnel holes and a nauseated, wrung out feeling thatalmostmakes me want to fold.

I won’t.I can’t.

Still feral, with heads full of blood, sex, and mayhem, Vhex and Remy pump both sides of my throat. Joined together, the three of us each get exactly what we need.

The stronger their power, the more they have to feed to me.

I ride the seesaw of power and pain.

Thread by thread, piece by piece, I isolate and burn away the lich’s soul, slowly reducing it to an angry, yellow marble.

the lich hisses, but its voice is weak.

“Bullshit,” I mutter. “Nothing lasts forever.”

The Sentinels of old couldn’t kill the lich king.

But no Guide has ever tried.

We didn’t exist when he was bound.

A wave of primal fear ripples through the lich when it realizes it can’t escape my grip.

With hellfire, shadow, and my own special brand of control, I burn away the lich king’s soul.

He screams in an ancient language.

The curses leave my ears dripping blood.

I keep pushing until its consciousness fades.

Finally,finallyit disappears with thezzzzzztof a quenched match.

I taste sulfur and clay. A ball of ash explodes out from behind my sternum.

The ashes don’t drift.

The putrid, grey motesclunkto the ground, imprisoned within the last surviving circle of the array.

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