What is the easiest way to create a visual effect for line traces?

I have a beam particle system functioning now but I will be damned if I can get the beam to vanish after 0.1 seconds.

Can anyone here explain how to get the beam to go away?

edit: Literally nothing I do right now makes the beam actually go away… This should be super easy what the heck is going on?

edit: I had to set it to looping in order to make it so that it kills on deactivate. That is the most unintuitive thing probably ever.