When A Mage Revolts

Cain's face fell immediately.

"No?"

"You don't intend to send me back at all, all you want to do is for me to live forever in the illusion and turn into a walking corpse." However, Benjamin slowly calmed down. Fixing his eyes on Cain, he said, "Judging by your attitude, if it isn't done this way, you're afraid... that you won't be able to have control over this body."

Hearing that, Cain let out a cold snort.

"So what if you've guessed it? That's right, I've taken care of this body for so long, it's already time to reap my reward." He looked down at Benjamin in a condescending manner. "Do you think... that you have the right to bargain with me in the situation you're in now?"

Saying thus, he suddenly waved his hand. The runes that belonged to Benjamin began to shake unexpectedly, emitting invisible ripples. All the water elements in the space of consciousness obeyed his directions, surging into his hands as a steady flow. Finally, they were condensed into ice needles that were incomparably sharp and thin.

Cain raised his hands; the ice needles were slowly lifted into the air and pointed at Benjamin, who was in the cage.

Benjamin's heart made a thumping sound.

...Damn it. It was bad enough that his magical abilities had been stolen. Now he was going to turn around and use these things against him.

He kept trying to unleash his spiritual energy and connect with the runes. If he could only regain just a little of his spellcasting abilities, the situation would be much better. However, he did not know what mischief Cain had been up to; Benjamin could not even sense his own spiritual energy. At the moment, he was like a commoner who had never learnt magic. There was nothing he could use or do.

There was no way at all.

"Have you given up all hope? If you don't wish to experience fearless torture, you'd best go back obediently and never come out." Cain controlled the ice needles as he issued the final ultimatum. "Otherwise, I think you understand very well how frightening these tiny things can be."

Benjamin furrowed his eyebrows tightly. He had to figure out a solution while being pressed for time!

However... However...

With a cold expression, Cain controlled the ice needles that had been suspended in midair. Little by little, they drew closer to Benjamin; the tips of the needles glowed with a faint blue light in the darkness. He was putting pressure on Benjamin. Very soon, cold sweat had appeared on Benjamin's forehead, converging at his chin before dripping down.

Finally, when the ice needles were only half a meter away from him, he suddenly opened his mouth and yelled, "...Wait a second!"

"Do you understand now?" Cain asked in an expressionless manner.

"...I don't understand why you've chosen to appear at this time." Benjamin took a deep breath as he did his best to maintain the calmness of his voice. "The final battle is coming up immediately. After tomorrow, the Church would be completely destroyed by us. You could have waited until tomorrow before showing yourself, so why must you choose to do so today?"

As he spoke, he was thinking as much as he could; his brain spun as quickly like a CPU that was at ninety degrees Celsius, thinking about whether there was a way out that he had not yet discovered.

...He had no choice. At such a time as this, he could only drag the time on for as long as he could.

Hearing that, Cain let out another cold snort. Although he seemed to have seen through Benjamin's thought, he still stopped the ice needles near him.

"If you want to know, then I'll let you die with the understanding." He put his hands behind his back; the expression on his face suddenly became extremely stern and serious. "This is not something that you and I can control. God has issued His command, we're merely fulfilling the will of God."

Benjamin immediately felt weird.

"What command?"

"The only great door that leads to the path of redemption is tomorrow, after seven thousand years. We shall reenact the battle of the brothers once more." Cain enunciated every word carefully. "Only through this can we release this great land from the curse it carries, and the souls of us both will be able to break free from suffering and rise into heaven."

Having heard that, Benjamin could not speak for a few moments.

...Was he serious?

The amount of information in those words was just too great; Benjamin was somewhat unable to digest them all. It was very difficult for him to imagine that Cain, as the first mage, still believed in God despite having gone through so much. The more crucial point was the sentence "...the souls of us both..." amongst his words... Had Abel's spirit not perished as well?

Because of that, he asked the question out loud.

Cain seemed to be extremely satisfied with the stunned look on Benjamin's face. He nodded, saying, "That's right. Benjamin and Grant are the chosen brothers. From when they were three years old, Abel and I had concealed ourselves in the bodies of the two people respectively, until today."

"Then Grant..."

"By now, Abel should have started to move as well."

Hearing that, Benjamin could not help but take a deep breath and ask hesitatingly, "You guys... want to borrow our bodies and continue the war of that year?"

Cain shook his head, however, and said, "Quite the opposite. We want to commit suicide by cutting our throats under the sky of Karl village, on the peak of the mountain where God had once blessed us with power, and let the fresh blood of the blood brothers spill all over the great land and wash away the sins we've committed."

Benjamin had a look of disbelief.

...Was this motherfucker insane?

Moreover, if they wanted to atone for their sins, they should use their own lives as atonement! What did they mean by taking other people's lives?

"Could it be that you're for real..."

Benjamin was just about to say something. However, at this time, Cain's desire to speak his mind seemed to have been more or less satisfied. He suddenly waved his hand, cutting Benjamin off from speaking the words he had been ready to say.

"Enough." Cain regained control of the ice needles once more and aimed them at Benjamin. "You already know the command of God, so it's time to make a decision. To sacrifice yourself and be God's vessel, or to be forced into nodding your head after experiencing various tortures, carrying hatred as you slowly die in the illusion... I believe that you'll make a smart decision."

Benjamin hurriedly took a few steps back.

It could not be...

"Wait, wait a second! I still have other questions to ask! You... About that, why on earth did you two brothers fall out seven thousand years ago?"

"No one will come to save you, no matter how long you delay the time." However, Cain had a look of disappointment on his face, and shook his head. "What a pity, you haven't recognized the glory of sacrifice. If that's the case... I can only resort to desperate measures."

Saying thus, the ice needles suddenly sped up, shooting towards Benjamin like shooting stars.

He was finished...

Benjamin's feelings instantly sank into a deep abyss.

The ice needles came towards him from the front. He was completely out of options; all he could do was grit his teeth tightly and close his eyes. There was nowhere he could hide. The only thing he could do was to try and resist Cain's cruel torture and see if he could persevere in the midst of it.

If... If he could hold on for just a while longer, there might be an opportunity for things to turn around.

However, something unexpected happened. Within the next second, he did not feel any pain; instead, he heard a muffled grunt coming from where Cain was.

Benjamin opened his eyes, stunned.

All he could see was the dozen or so ice needles stopping a few centimeters away from his body, almost piercing into his skin. All of a sudden, they began to dissipate. Meanwhile, outside the cage, a few beams of blue streamers had suddenly burst out next to Cain, encircling him like ropes.

It seemed that these streamers had disturbed his control over the ice needles, letting Benjamin dodge a bullet.

Upon careful inspection, those streamers were actually flows of densely packed data streams, comprising of numerous tiny 0s and 1s. They were charging at Cain incessantly, causing him to be in a rather difficult situation. His entire body had even become somewhat illusory, under the assault of the data.

At the time, Benjamin was in a daze.

With a 'deng' sound, another Windows dialog box appeared in front of him. Written on it were the words, "An abnormal file has been detected. Please wait while it is being deleted."

This, this was...

Benjamin came back to his senses, with his spirits refreshed.

It was his System!

He knew that the System was not just made up of two insentient machines. It had not disappeared, and neither had it been completely swallowed up by Cain. It definitely still existed in a corner somewhere in the space of consciousness, and although it could not be seen, but... Perhaps it was being stored in Cain's body, ready to retaliate at any time!

"Damn things... Two run-down machines from a lower class plane wish to stop the will of God?"

Nevertheless, before Benjamin could rejoice for more than a few seconds, Cain let out a derisive laugh. At that moment, an unfamiliar and simple golden rune slowly appeared on his forehead. It was unusually dazzling, flashing as brightly as stars in the sky.

In the next second, the rune split open violently!

Instantly, an exceptionally powerful ripple erupted from Cain's body. The data streams were immediately shattered, and dissipated into the darkness. Following that, the dialog box in front of Benjamin also disappeared, and a new one emerged. "The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another program."

Looking at the dialog box, he was immediately stunned once more.

It could not be...

"Why? Could you have pinned your hopes on those two machines?" Cain recovered from the disturbances of the data streams. He was watching Benjamin coldly. "Give up on that idea! With its low level structure, it's impossible in this lifetime for it to ever have a chance against me."

However, Benjamin stood where he was. He did not move, he did not speak.

His eyes were not even on Cain.

It was not because of disappointment; in fact, there was not a trace of disappointment to be seen on his current expression at all. His eyes had lit up once more instead. His expression had changed because after the second dialog box had disappeared, a third dialog box had suddenly emerged.

"File access denied. Activate the 360 force delete function*?"