He swept forward in the next second, grabbing me around the waist, then soared us up the side of the volcano, making sure to scrape me against it along the way, cutting me to fucking pieces, shredding my clothes in the process.
My amber magic sparked, trying to pry his hands off me, where I’d then use my shadows to levitate down the volcano to the ground. But with him borrowing that necromantic power, I couldn’t simply hurt him right off the bat, I had to first break through that magic protecting him.
And there wasn’t enough time, because we reached the top and then he flew into the volcano’s inner chamber and roughly released me, where I skidded across the black charred floor, stopping just inches from the crater full of lava.
I was on my stomach, able to see that it had returned to its natural state since Evira had frozen it. Full-on lava now.
Ruxnoth’s shadow fell over me a moment before he wrenched me onto my back. He put his wings away and loomed over me. “Believe me, you absolutely will undo this. How much suffering you endure before you do so is up to you.”
“You tried to break me,” I spluttered. “Failed… so good… fucking luck.”
“Foolish youngling! You rejected everything I offered you! You would have no longer been an abomination, but a god!”
“You’renot… a god. You’re a power hungry… madman who—”
His hand shot out and wrapped around my throat, and he jerked me to him.
I sneered. He was long past being able to scare me. “And I’m not… an abomination.” I smiled. “Not… anymore.”
“You think they’ll accept you? Accept what you are?”
“Yes… they will.”
His eyes blazed. He released me.
But then he slammed his fist into my face.
The force of it had the back of my head cracking against the hard floor, taking the disorientation to a whole other level.
Pain exploded all over then, as he didn’t stop, his fists flying, smashing and pummeling me into the fucking floor.
He was roaring completely irately as he brutalized me, fists driving into my flesh, breaking bones, and trying to fucking rearrange my organs in the process. There was blood everywhere, a lot of it spluttering from my mouth.
Sure, he was compromised because of what I’d done, but he was still a True Celestial, and had that insane level of strength and all the rest. With the corrupted necromantic power shielding him, it was also enabling him to do more than he should have been capable of in this state.
He was moving so fast, delivering such a brutal onslaught, that there was no way for me to focus, to get even a coupleof seconds to call my power. He was overwhelming my senses, definitely my pain receptors. And my body was too focused on trying to heal to do much of anything else.
When he did finally pull back, I was a writhing mass of blood and broken bones, wheezing and choking up mouthfuls of blood all over myself.
“Had enough, miraculous boy?” he rumbled, standing over me haughtily.
“Burn… in… hell.”
“Interesting that you should mention burning.”
In the next second, he grabbed me by the throat and yanked me up against him, my feet hovering off the ground.
“Now, with what you are, you likely won’t feel the heat, however, you’ll certainly feel the agony.”
What was he—
With a burst of speed, he was holding me over the lava crater.
“I wasn’t certain you could be harmed by lava with being of death state, so I made sure to imbue this with my true power. It cost me a little, but the payoff will be spectacular.”
Instinctively, I threw out my hand and tried to break his hold.
But he just batted it away, snapping my wrist again that had barely healed. I cried out, but that was the least of it when he lowered me into the crater, my feet sinking into the lava.
