Cades was running towards the mage that was still in what seemed to be a state of disbelief at the fact that Cades had grown to this stage so fast, his silver sword in hand ready to infuse it with the overload that he had been using the entire time and burn those regions which he assumed to be the regions of the sickness on the girl as well, something that could normally be interpreted as something that would have him be put in prison, perhaps even by himself, but in this case, perhaps it was a act of kindness towards all of those intellects, all of those minds that were probably trapped within the walls, within every fibre of the wooden puppets.
He had his sword ready to slice through the lower half and subsequently burn int with the lightning, perhaps even trying to both cast overload through his own mind and activating it through the active, he had been wondering about what that would cause, probably creating two different kinds of lightning that would melt together as far as he could tell from the intention that he could now feel from the actives in his body, and even the very faint... 'idea' that he could feel emanating from the insides of his own body, though he could not, in any way, tell what the second one entailed.
But despite this race that his thought partook in, the endless stream of interchanging thoughts, ending up in places that he would never ever be able to even imagine when he began, he still recognized the faint intent that was now being hidden by the mage that had once, in all likelihood, been of the same rank as he himself was now, or even higher, and as such she already knew that she was going to lose, despite activating as many of her apparitions as she could and causing Cades to have to stop his mindful dash and have to evade while slowly creeping forward.
The difference between ranks was big, perhaps not within ranks, but overall there was the simple fact that he could understand and feel everything, at least that which thought and was weak enough to be felt, and she couldn't, that was something, a ravine that was insurmountable except if one had been preparing for a long time, but every single one of the apparitions that was now activating had been prepared before, everything that was now happening had been preparation, the mage had been preparing for longer than Cades had been alive, and now he would feel how it had been for the demons to fight him, at least partially, such as with the demon of the skies, a lord that had lost against a demi-lord, quite an embarrassing incident caused by the trap that Cades had previously laid out, the trap that had severely hurt the innards of the demonic bird.
But right now Cades was evading the transparent slashes that came from some of the apparitions, slashes that had been so difficult to evade before but now seemed as more of a nuisance than anything else, slashes that were actually laughably weak, slashes that would've only cost him a bit of blood and very light gashes in his body, ones that would be healed by the regeneration blessing that was somehow still active, prolonged by his constant usage of mana that propelled it through his arteries.
With each and every single one of the crescent half moon like projectiles being created and shooting at a singular person, Cades, he moved ever so slightly, reading the path, perhaps even feeling that they wouldn't hit him, feeling something according to panic emanating from the mage who was currently struggling to reign her intent, her emotions in that were now radiating off of her like the light of a dying amber was visible in the darkest of nights, obvious and barely able to be missed.
It was simple really, when it came from above he moved forward or back, from the sides and he ducked, jumped or sprinted forward to the mage that was now running away, her intent poisoned by fear and for some reason incapable of summoning the flying circle with which she had hunted Cades and Manug as her prey.
But now the opposite situation was at play, and soon after, with Cades not being hit by any real attack, barely grazed by the heat and cold and only struggling with wide area attacks for a short while, all while the mage didn't even think of attacking Manug, perhaps a remnant of what one could call her conscience that still somehow survived in the wooden husk, Cades had arrived in front of the accursed mage and his sword was already descending while he was trying to take in how she was creating the apparitions, a kind of artificing that artificed the very air of this realm and something Cades would try many a times in the future.
Nevertheless there was no way out for the mage, perhaps if she could teleport herself, or if the curtain of thin air through which her blank bod had once appeared, but it didn't seem like she could do that, no, she was simply going to be cut into half, only escaping the first attack by tripping over her own feet, a show that she was definitely less versatile than some other beings, such as Cades himself.
The second attack got her, the blade, now filled with intent, smoothly cutting through the small body and ending the life, after all, the transmission of the sickness came from the nether regions as far as he could tell, and the legs wouldn't work without the upper regions, a small mis-design in these puppets that he intended to use all the way.
After the mage was separated into two parts he stabbed her legs and shot lightning through the entire thing, something that he now didn't need to be nearly as precise with, seeing that it was now much more powerful that he was able to double-cast it and enlarge the area that it affected.
Finally, it was over, now all that remained was the orange stuff at the stump of the great tree, the stuff which he assumed to be the core of the sickness, the base through which he should be able to destroy this entire island.