Unique magic

The situation with Yendar had worsened. The mage seemed to be losing his sanity more and more with each experiment he performed, not only his arm had changed but his whole body had black thorns piercing his clothes.

The mage was becoming less and less human and more and more of a monster. But even so, the mage continued his strange and perverse experiments.

Atlas had already handed the pendant to Claire and explained the plan, they only had a few minutes during which Claire would be awake, so they had little room for error.

Then, on the third day they had spent in the cave, everything changed when Yendar again failed one of his experiments on himself.

"This shouldn't happen!"

His voice had grown deeper and deeper, almost guttural, causing Atlas to feel chills down his spine just listening to the mage shout.

Then, watching Yendar's fit of rage as he threw all the things on the ground, Atlas suddenly closed his eyes as the mage turned to face them.

In the days before, he had hardly paid any attention to the two of them, as if they were mere decorations in the cave. But that was about to change.

"Maybe... maybe if it doesn't work with the cores of the abyss monsters" The mage began to gasp as if he was getting excited by his own thoughts. "Then maybe with human cores"

Atlas gulped as he listened to Yendar. He hadn't expected the mage to suddenly change his focus on his research, let alone that focus being on them.

'Shit, Shit, Shit!' Atlas cursed hearing the mage's footsteps approaching them.

His mind began to process all sorts of ideas that could be used to avoid being killed by the mad mage but in his nervous state any idea was simply useless.

He needed Claire to distract Yendar for a few seconds, as he was simply weak.

When Yendar reached Atlas, he grabbed the thorn-filled roots, lifted Atlas up and then frowned.

"Right... I have to undo the magic"

Yendar let go of the roots dropping Atlas and then turned back to grab his staff. He didn't really need the staff to undo his magic, but Atlas was thankful that Yendar wasn't completely right in the head.

Suddenly, Atlas felt the thorns that were buried under his skin begin to disappear and he let his body fall to the ground pretending to be asleep.

Now that the magic was gone, neither he nor Claire were under the influence of the sleeping poison. 

Yendar approached them again, this time with his staff. Atlas was closest to him, so naturally he was his first target. Then when he stood before him and bent down to grab it, a light green magic circle appeared in front of Atlas' body.

Yendar was slow to react, and it was enough for Atlas to activate his magic by creating a concentrated gust of wind. Since he could control the strength, speed, and size of the wind blast, he made it small but powerful, compacting its force into a small space and then letting it explode on its own.

Both Atlas and Claire's bodies were shot to opposite sides of the cave while Yendar simply covered his face, but his monstrous body did not react to Atlas' magic in the slightest.

Yendar craned his neck and stared at Atlas who looked back at him with a serious expression as he stood up with some effort.

After almost three days of being completely immobilized by the roots that held him down, his muscles had stiffened, and his limbs felt slightly numb. But that didn't stop him from using magic.

"What happened?" said Yendar in mild surprise.

It wouldn't have been hard for the mage to quickly figure out what was going on, but his mind was slowly being corrupted as well as his body. So he had to think extra hard to know that Atlas had been awake for quite a while.

It was impossible for Atlas or Claire to react so quickly as soon as the roots had disappeared. The traces of the poison should still have kept them both asleep, but Atlas was wide awake. Only an outside stimulus would make them wake up so quickly.

Yendar grunted and looked at Atlas with annoyance.

"Stay still boy, you were useful to me as a hostage but now I have more use for your mana core"

Yendar raised his staff and Atlas quickly leapt to the right, avoiding the roots that just grew around him from the floor and walls of the cave.

He knew that with Yendar's mind affected, his magic would be slowed as well, just enough for him to momentarily escape.

The roots caught the air and Yendar frowned, then looked at Atlas who was slowly moving in a circular motion.

"Is a child really causing me trouble?"

Atlas didn't know if Yendar was complaining with him, or himself. But he couldn't care less, instead, he raised his hands and created a green magic circle.

Yendar smiled.

"Your magic is useless against me"

Atlas kept his face stoic and simply charged more and more mana into the magic circle, to the point where he had never used so much mana before. Constantly training every time Yendar left the cave, his mana and magical power had increased slightly and although it wasn't a significant change, it was enough.

Showing off his resilient body, Yendar did nothing to stop Atlas from finishing the spell and just waited with a smile.

Then, when Atlas finally felt all his mana being absorbed by the magic circle, he let his magic explode, creating a great gust of wind that would have sent him flying if it wasn't for his back against the wall.

Yendar smiled as he saw the great gust of wind approaching him, but suddenly it swerved and avoided him, causing Yendar to look with confusion and then contempt at Atlas.

"I won't feel bad about taking your core anymore, it's a waste for someone like you... a waste of a mage"

But then, Yendar frowned as he saw Atlas kept an almost victorious smile on his face, then suddenly felt a slight pain in his body below his sternum, from his back to his chest. Then Yendar looked down only to see a silver blade piercing him.

Yendar spat blood as Atlas fell to his knees gasping for air having expended all his mana in a single spell.

"H-how?!" cried Yendar in fury slowly turning his head only to find Claire holding a glowing necklace in her left hand as she held out her right hand.

When he had kidnapped them, Yendar made sure that neither of them had weapons, more so Claire who was a combat mage. So the silver sword that pierced him should not exist.

Besides he didn't have any weapons inside his cave, it was as if the sword had appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, Yendar's eyes widened in surprise.

"Unique magic? You have unique magic?"