The Butcher misunderstood something important.
Just because I was deciding how much effort he was worth didn't mean he had earned the right to survive long enough for me to finish deciding.
If he died sooner than my intentions, then that was his own fault. Not mine.
The second his grin slipped, the vines moved.
There wasn't a single vine. There wasn't ten or twenty or fifty.
There were hundred of them. And they all had one purpose.
They erupted from the shattered highway so quickly the air itself screamed around them as black thorns tore through gray flesh repeatedly. The Butcher roared violently while ripping apart every vine it could reach, but that had never been the point.
I wasn't trying to restrain him anymore.
I was digging for treasure.
