Adam drew every trace of the electrical elemental aura leaking from his body back inside and built the magnetic field a few centimeters out from his skin, so that he now looked like an ordinary man with no energy in him at all. Then he flew low, heading for where the devil was.
The devil dissolved the body it had conjured, becoming a being of will indistinguishable from the negative energy flowing through this world. When Adam came near, it pointed downward and said, "That's the nearest settlement. I think I have to take back what I said earlier—if my homeland looked like this, I'd rather leave it behind."
The "city" beneath his feet was the most dilapidated place Adam had seen in the Mage World. Houses of packed yellow earth and a low, squat wall, pedestrians in rags, filthy streets—the combination dredged up a picture from deep in Adam's memory.
"The Despair illusion?"