The mage send something towards Cades.
It was a weird something, a form of a wave that concentrated itself onto one point later on, an energy Cades had never encountered before, and definitely not something he wanted to encounter, so he set up barriers.
The barriers looked like a brick wall, something that had started to become quite easy for him, almost as easy as a dome, his favourite, but also one that required him to be a bit more brute in his attempts of fighting and limited him when he was fighting others, perhaps even inside, limiting his knockback, his reach, his everything, and also being prone to getting destroyed more easily from the inside, courtesy of the form, similar to an egg.
Being hit by the wave didn't feel like anything, but after a moment of relief he suddenly felt weak, feeling his grip slip, and finally, the woman managed to slip out, perhaps having been waiting for this chance all the time, struggling to get away as she could only walk slowly, her neck bleeding, her sword having drunk some of her blood, her face probably full of shock and fear right now, now thinking about even killing him in revenge, at least not right now when her arms were shivering, constantly being cut by the small dust, just like Cades, but even more so, having become exhausted after resisting the intense Pressure Cades had put onto her.
A moment later it was already gone, and the woman attacked, desperate to get away, desperate to get out of this and not die, at least from what he inferred from her bodily language, something difficult to read as everything was covered, especially the few spots where she had that horribly impractical armor that only seemed to slightly limit her range of motion, perhaps some kind of restraint to train for battle when he thought about it again.
But it was weak, and he had no presence of mind to care about her, simply shooting a magical missile that threw her back a bit, still disoriented, still exhausted, still weakened when he was bound to come back, soon to have taken care of the mage that had managed to free her from his grasp, soon to kill the mage that had put that weakening curse or whatever it had been on him, and a sly smile appearing on his lips as he tasted the blood already, as he looked forward to finally ending this battle, one of the longest he had been fighting in lately, already having crossed the mark of a minute, someth8ing that sounded short but was actually quite long when it came to battles of this type, especially since he was somehow winning, something he had not been expecting.
It was not difficult, he had just been obsessed with the swordfighter for now, but really, he should've gone after the mage first, taking care of the support would've weakened the girl a lot, and even now, he was sure the mage was weakened by the still raging storm of dust that had probably blinded him permanently by now, his only hope left being the beings in the sky that were watching him right now, and he was quite certain they could indeed heal that, no problem for them.
The mage stumbled backwards, right onto his magic shield that quickly dissipated as it felt it's master, resulting in him being without protection, weakened, alone, against a man that was, by now, both a mage and a swordsman, though the magic part had been missing as of late.
After a second he, the mage, shot a wall of lightning, thick, but within his current sense, Colourless, at him, hoping to get rid of the opponent, Cades, but Cades just caught them with his sword, absorbing the magic through there, holding the heat, the electricity inside not really shocking him due to the magical nature, a grave difference within his own active and the other mages from what he knew, already having known this for some time.
Panicking, the mage resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the book, magic missiles, and shot them at Cades, dozens at once, each one powerful enough to kill a normal person ten times over with great ease, as was every single one of the attacks during this entire fight, perhaps even a hundred times over in some cases, but they were nothing but a nuisance to Cades who absentmindedly blocked them with a dome around his body, standing still for no moment, simply walking ahead, the dome following and quickly dissipating once more as the mage switched tactics again, looking at the slowly approaching monster that was now only two feet away, no, that was now right in front of him, his mind screaming in fear, that, Cades was quite certain of.
He, the mage, tried to call forth one last barrier, but Cades really didn't care, smothering the barrier in the surrounding mana he controlled to an insane degree by now and finally grabbing onto the man's surprisingly thick and sturdy hands, something unusual in magicians as they oftentimes study and don't do anything else.
Already, his right hand had the blade, and as he loaded it with the overload, ensuring the magicians death, he brought it towards his opponent, expecting them to finally be defeated and fall, consequently ending this accursed fight, turning into a one-on-one with an already weakened swordswoman, though he was looking forward to perhaps experimenting with taking her sword after she got defeated, his body not really needing rest right now, and his hands being greedy for that weapon that looked so similar to his own, aside from the two sides that seemed to have different abilities.
Ironically enough he had made a small mistake, stepping too close to the magician and debilitating his sword-strike, but still, he managed to do it, stabbing through the back of the magician in a kind of awkward hug, one that would normally only be seen in movies, not in real fights, but still, he didn't really care.
The magician fell over, dead, his staff rolling away, probably going to fall off of the pillar, Cades not even looking as he simply didn't care anymore, just sensing, watching intently as the exhausted woman stood, ready to fight, be it, barely.
He smiled.
"This is the end of this fight, for sure.." he muttered to himself, not really realizing why he said that.