Page 157 of Lord of the Lone Wolf
The familiar sound was cruelty given voice as the void rejoiced in his doom. It suffocated the last echoes of the Living Realm.
His father waited in the ruin of all things.
Then the necromancy in his body stirred in recognition as the Beyond Realm welcomed it home.
The death magic awakened the dormant weapon Nasume had embedded in his son’s flesh. The festering wound in his ruined eye socket blazed to life, recognizing its birthplace. His ribs burned as the rot that had spread through his chest cavity roused itself with predatory satisfaction. The sword wound in his shoulder throbbed as the necromancy that Kio had spread stretched like a beast about to pounce on prey. Four hungry mouths were ready to feast on the only thing keeping him connected to love.
No!Maseo fought with pure will, trying to shield the purple fire threading through his astral form. He had to protect Auslin’s essence. But his soul had no substance as he fell deeper into the darkness, and the necromancy grew stronger, fed by the realm’s atmosphere.
The corruption in his eye socket latched onto the luminous strands first. Maseo’s desperate attempts to save the purple fire only made the death magic pursue it more aggressively. As each thread of connection snapped with wet, tearing sounds that reverberated through his soul, the necromancy sucked Auslin’s essence into the hollow cavity like a starving parasite.
Stop. Please stop!He tried to resist, but the necromancy flowed beyond his control, transforming love into fuel for decay. Each severed strand dissolved Auslin’s essence, while his sliced ribsbecame a cage of consumption. It devoured the reservoir of purple fire pooling in his chest, ripping out precious memories from Maseo’s mind.
His shoulder wound completed the violation, intercepting the last desperate streams of magic. The necromancy gorged itself, and with every strand, it erased not only his connection to Auslin but his capacity to love at all.
When the last wisp of purple fire extinguished, it left a devastating emptiness. Where Auslin’s warmth had lived, only cold void remained. The necromancy had consumed their bond, along with the ability to feel connected to another being. He was alone, with nothing but the darkness and the echo of his father.
The corruption pulsed in unison across all four wounds, synchronized in their feast of destruction. What had been his lifeline to everything good in existence became fuel for his father’s embedded weapon, leaving Maseo severed from hope, love, and any reason to fight. He’d been damned before the battle had begun.
Nasume’s laughter grew stronger as the necromancy completed its work, the trap perfect in its cruelty. His son now faced the Beyond Realm not only alone but stripped of the ability to remember what love felt like.
Because even in death, Nasume would ensure his son had nothing.
The war for Maseo’s soul had begun.
And his father had already claimed the first victory.
