BXBX NOVEL Chapter 58: Despair
At this time, he remembered the Black Mage\'s words, "Antimages need to torture human souls to harvest their despair to become a qualified antimage, and they can use these tortured souls to cast spells..."
"But what exactly is despair?" Adam pondered. He remembered how he felt when he was about to die, but it wasn\'t enough. It was fear mixed with despair, and it was only for a brief moment. Besides, his system didn\'t allow him to feel these emotions, so it wasn\'t as intense for Adam to understand.
Adam peered at the grey waves polluting the white space, and walked towards them.
He found that the waves were a mix of human souls -- no mind, no fixed shape, constantly distorting and transforming.
The one thing constant about them was the negative energy they exude, attempting to devour anything near them.
Adam\'s presence caused the waves to pounce towards him, tearing apart his psychic barrier. As he looked at the hands clawing at his barrier, it was no wonder that curse magic was left behind. An emotionless and apathetic mage is completely immune to magic like this.
Adam could see the despair of the waves, but he didn\'t know what it felt like.
"Do I observe... or should I experience it first hand?"
Adam gently stretched out his hand, trying to touch the wave. The waves bit at him, completely irrational.
Adam felt his soul flinch, but Adam didn\'t care. He brought his psychic barrier down, and let the grey waves pounce on him.
Adam\'s soul was clawed at by the grey waves, and he could see and feel fragmented memories of the tortured humans -- the deepest, darkest, most desperate fragments of their lives.
Homes being destroyed before their eyes.
Children slaughtered, completely powerless.
A beloved person committing suicide.
A lifetime of effort gone to waste and made fun of.
Adam felt everything.
The most severe torture and suffering that a human could endure.
Despair washed over Adam over and over again, and his pure, white soul hovering over the space was corrupted by something grey.
Adam could\'ve wiped it out with a single thought, but he chose to let it grow in his own soul.
The grey had no form and pounced towards Adam.
Adam\'s soul was split in half, held together weakly by his mind. One half was Adam, and the other half was grey.
Adam woke up in a different location this time.
He found himself in a ruined city with tattered clothes, surrounded by broken walls. Ashy smoke rose into the sky, and corpses littered the city. He could see many people crying over the corpses, slumped over them. The faces of the people here were numb from emotion, devoid of them.
Adam strolled through the street.
Someone hiding behind a wall rushed out towards Adam -- his hunger fuelled him, and his skin was dry and cracked.
Adam let the man pounce on him, but he was so weak that whatever he was doing had no effect on Adam.
"What are you doing?" Adam asked softly.
The man limped towards Adam, repeating, "Hungry... hungry... I want to eat..." he then bit on Adam\'s foot, shattering his weak teeth. Blood flowed from his mouth, and he hurriedly gulped his own blood, quenching his thirst.
Adam continued looking, and took a few steps back.
There were other people hiding nearby -- when they saw the man drink his own blood, they pounced on him, tearing at him and eating the still-alive man.
Adam felt a pang of hunger pierce his stomach.
He didn\'t care and continued to stroll through the city.
He saw hungry parents trade their children to others, and eating other defenceless children; he saw people collecting strange, smelly stumps from the ground and stuffing them into their mouths; he saw a muscular man pick up bones from the ground to start a fire, and grabbed at the elderly and children to cook them alive.
He continued to stroll around the city, seeing soldiers in armour shooing people away from a mansion; he saw beautiful women being dragged away; he saw the mansion at the centre of the city, brightly lit, singing and dancing.
Adam became weaker and hungrier, so he came to a bunker and sat down silently.
Night fell, and the shrill screams of monsters invaded the city.
The soldiers appeared and forced the people out of their shelters, letting the beasts tear them apart.
A mage appeared, lifted by his eight servants. All the townspeople looked at the mage with hope, praying for the mage to rescue them.
The mage lifted his staff, and the blood-red gem shone brightly, causing the people to explode instantly.
Adam hid in the dark, witnessing the scene before him.
The mage fought the beasts using the absorbed energy from the dead townspeople.
The next day, the soldiers took the remaining survivors back to town.
Adam was weaker.
...
The trial didn\'t stop because of the death of a few apprentices, so the two mages brought Adam back to their house and continued their life of leisure.
While chatting, they peered at Adam\'s unconscious body, and the fire mage spoke, "Kino, I don\'t think he\'ll make it."
Adam\'s body emitted grey energy, and mages knew it was because his soul was being devoured and assimilated. The fire mage walked over to Adam with hesitation, wanting to end his suffering.
Mage Kino didn\'t stop him -- if Adam couldn\'t pay him any compensation, he was useless to him.
When the fire mage was about to burn Adam\'s body into a crisp, he could see Adam\'s psychic energy fighting the grey energy, kicking it back little by little.
Mage Kino immediately got up and shielded Adam from the flames and said, "Wait, Ryan, he\'s resisting."
Mage Ryan frowned, "Remember, it\'s an antimage\'s magic. Do you really think this apprentice can resist his magic?"
Mage Kino shook his head, and gently used telekinesis to lift Adam away from Mage Ryan, "You haven\'t seen his research, I assume?"
Of course, Mage Ryan did not. Most research made by apprentices weren\'t really useful, so he didn\'t look into it.
"What do you mean?" Mage Ryan inquired.
"His research on psychic powers and telekinesis is incredibly useful," Mage Kino explained, taking out a piece of metal and wrapped it with psychic energy. The metal decomposed into smaller volumes, before being broken down completely. "Look -- his research has been important in my research."
Mage Ryan looked on with great interest. Before this, this could be easily achieved with the tools and apparatus in their labs, but Mage Kino did it using only his mental power.
"This mental energy is sourced from the soul -- most apprentices have weak mental energy, but maybe this guy can -- I mean, he invented a whole new rune structure for meditation. It\'ll be good if he survives and continues to develop his research."
Mage Ryan shrugged, "Then, good luck to him."