Chapter 18 · Bound to the Executioner: Leveling Up With My Enemy - Chapter 18: Pain as Ammo

"Get your hands off me before I rip them off!" Vespera screamed, though it came out as a strangled wheeze.

Soren didn't let go. He had her pinned against the damp stone wall of the corridor, his forearm pressed hard against her collarbone. He wasn't choking her—not yet—but he was close enough that she could feel the frantic heat radiating off his skin. His eyes were blown wide, pupils swallowing the iris, a telltale sign that the soul-bond was redlining.

"Shut up and listen," Soren hissed, his voice a jagged rasp. "The feedback is peaking. If we don't sync now, the backlash is going to tear us both apart from the inside out."

"Oh, great plan!" Vesp spat, trying to twist out of his grip. "Let's just lean into the agony. That always works in the manuals!"

Suddenly, the ground shuddered. A metallic screech tore through the air, followed by the thunderous crash of a wall collapsing twenty feet away. Out of the dust emerged a nightmare of iron and jagged obsidian—an Archon-class sentinel, ten feet of mindless killing machine with a rotating blade for a head.