"You come and go as you please, how cheap," the second mage spat. He transformed himself into a red light and chased Peter.
Peter was spat out thousands of kilometres away.
His body was torn in half, but so was his soul.
He was prepared for this to happen, but he didn't expect it to be so painful.
However, he could feel that he was still on the Mage Continent, and he was sure he was currently being hunted by other mages.
Peter propped his bloodied body up and moaned in pain. Any normal human would've been dead by now.
Peter took out a corpse from his portable space and cut off its lower-half body. He welded it on his lower-half and with a single incantation, his wound was fixed.
He crawled up, and he could see a red glow on the horizon.
"Damn it!" Peter cursed, running off for the shoreline.
The mage pursuing him didn't bother to hide the magic swirling around him -- thousands of kilometres were fleeting to the eyes of a mage, and in his fiery, red eyes, he could see the grey and ugly soul of the antimage.
"What are you running for? A prey like yourself should accept your fate," the mage whispered, but Peter could clearly hear it sound in his head.
Despair filled Peter, and he felt that it was probably similar to Adam's situation. However, Adam was rescued, but nobody would come and rescue him.
A pillar of magma blocked Peter's path, and he knew it was impossible to escape.
"Can't escape anymore, can you?" the mage spoke.
"You sinners who defile magic, one day, you will pay for your sins!" Peter cursed, firing the same beam towards the mage.
The mage amusingly let the beam hit him.
A burst of light immediately dispelled the beam, and the mage was unscathed.
"Same old magic that hasn't changed for tens of thousands of years. Look at how useless your magic is -- you claim to be able to control the soul, but you don't even know what the soul is. You're lucky the World Guardian is merciful," the mage said, binding Peter with fiery chains, preparing to roast him into ashes. "Annecroft would've annihilated you with no trace."
Peter bowed his head in defeat, allowing the flames to take him.
He was no match for a mage of his level.
The mage continued to spray fire towards the pile of ash, planning to burn him to non-existence, "Antimages like you are traitors to us -- soon, the ether will abandon you, and you can turn to nobody else."
The flames continued to roar, but it did not completely destroy Peter. The flame was meant to act as a seal, completely isolating Peter's body and soul from the outside world.
"There is simply no cure for stupidity," the mage ended, flying back to the trial ground.
The other mage stood over Adam's comatose body, but he frowned upon thinking of his rewards and compensation. Since his companion went to subdue the antimage, his own rewards will be greatly reduced. Besides, the antimage massacred some notable apprentices in the trial ground, so he will definitely be questioned by the Tower as soon as the trial was over. "Boy, I pray that the ether keeps you safe and sound. I'll look for you later for your compensation."
The fire mage soon returned and laughed upon hearing the mage's words, "It's just an apprentice, but you're asking for compensation? Not to mention, he was hit by a soul-tearing beam. He might stay comatose forever."
"No, look at this," the other mage flicked Adam's forehead, and the passive psychic barrier trembled. Both of the mages saw traces of the trembling devil in his mind.
The fire mage patted Adam's forehead and shook him, "Hey, are you alive? Oh! I know now -- you're the apprentice who sent the best research in recent decades! Ah... what was his name again?"
The other mage nodded, "Yup, that's him."
The fire mage grabbed Adam's shoulder firmly, "Then, I wish you good luck. However, not many mages study the power of the soul. It'll be hard to solve your problem."
"There's always hope."
...
The last thing that Adam saw when he was conscious was a dull grey.
After being hit by the beam, Adam's systems shut down, and his remaining power worked on supporting his body passively as if he was a computer sleeping. Strangely enough, he could feel his own soul.
What is the soul, anyways?
Nobody knows, but in the world of mages, the soul is separate from the mind.
Adam's mind may be incapacitated, but his soul was still wide awake.
Adam awoke in a pure white space and saw his soul hovering over the space.
Adam knows this space. He devoured ten billion human souls here, after all.
Grey, negative energy invaded the space, and invaded Adam's soul.
Adam was slightly relieved as he hovered over the space. This was far less than ten billion souls, and Adam wasn't as weak as before. He should be able to solve the problem.
Or so he thought. He found out that he was powerless without magic.
This soul-tearing magic was like an advanced virus, constantly mutating.
This means it would be difficult to eradicate the virus.
Adam can't eliminate it via mere mental stimulations as before. He must first understand the principles of the virus, then look for its weak points before he could eliminate it.
The subjectivity of the despair of tortured human souls was difficult for Adam to understand -- they were full of destructive tendencies, and their incredibly negative emotions destroyed Adam as well. Adam discovered that if he destroyed the virus, it wouldn't weaken it. It will adapt and become stronger.
Adam was at a dead end, but at least he was sure that his soul would not be annihilated. Human emotions do not apply to an artificial intelligence like him.
However, he still needed to get out of this white space. This was a great time for him to begin an experiment on studying the soul.
The test subject? Himself.
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