"You're not using a wand. Do you use a ring or pendant to cast?" Ricley asked, taking all of his magic items, including the light sealing ring.
"The only ring... that I... put my finger on... was your mother's!!" Athos screamed, spitting blood in Ricley's face.
"You son of a bitch!" Riley screamed red with rage. He raised his fist, but someone stopped him.
"Don't you dare attack him again. Don't you know how valuable his body is?" The mage slayer was holding his arm, glaring at him. Ricley couldn't see his face behind the white mask, but his murderous gaze was enough to terrify him.
"Sorry, sir!" Ricley, didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he apologized anyway. All the mages were shocked by the mage slayer actions, but no one dared to interfere.
"Mr. Ricley? Who are they, your companions?" one of the surviving guards asked, looking around at the mages. The guards had stopped in confusion and just watched the interaction, but one of them finally mustered up the courage to ask.
The mage slayer looked at the wounded guards and the sheer number of dead and realized it would be a headache to deal with. He felt the urge to simply kill everyone here to silence them, but he held back.
"We are members of the order of magic. This man is a mage wanted for using dark arts. We came here to capture him and bring him to justice." The mage slayer lied. He had no idea who Athos was, but noticed that he drew world energy without using any magic items. That could only mean one thing.
'He possesses a body of mana. I must take him alive at all costs. It was your thought. The mana body trait was highly coveted in the order. One absolute rule that all members above a certain level knew was that: If someone with a mana body was discovered, the order should be reported immediately and captured at all costs.
"Our mission has just changed. Remove the earth thorns and make sure he gets the cure. We'll take him alive." The mage slayer whispered to Khali.
"Wait! This man destroyed our city! He should be executed immediately!" The guard yelled angrily and his companions agreed with him.
"I'm sorry, but I have orders to take you into custody. Stay away, I won't repeat myself." The mage slayer slightly released his aura, causing the guards to drop to their knees to the ground in one fell swoop.
Even though the aura wasn't directed at him, Ricley still broke a cold sweat feeling the difference in power between them. He hastily undid the stone thorns and softened the ground so that Athos would not be injured.
"Cough cough!" Athos coughed up blood as he held the wounds. Ricley approached him and clicked his tongue at the wounds. He removed all of his armor and helmet, revealing his face, causing people to be amazed at how young he looked.
"Hi, heal this guy quickly!" Ricley yelled at the light-using mage.
The mage slayer watched silently as the mage knelt beside Athos and healed him, making sure no one approached. After approximately 15 minutes, the mage lifted his face and wiped away the sweat, before turning around and smiling.
"I finished healing him. The wounds were extensive, so he must be weak, but I managed." The mage smiled brightly looking at the mage slayer, as if expecting to be praised.
"Good job. Now arrest him before he- no!" The mage slayer screamed, but it was too late.
"EH?" The mage exclaimed confused. His field of vision began to spin several times before coming to a stop, slamming hard against the stone floor. He saw his own decapitated body still on his knees and the man he had just healed behind him.
The darkness of the night seemed to converge on his body, while his surroundings were obscured by darkness. His vision began to fail and the last thing he saw was the man-shaped mass of darkness roar, gripping his headless body.
*******
The darkness in Athos' body was kept sealed for a long time. His body had a high affinity for darkness as well as fire, but the sealing ring of light prevented him from awakening. An elemental affinity wasn't just a matter of compatibility, it was something much bigger.
When the life force matured enough and began to attract world energy to form the mana core, it would absorb energy until it was completely filled, but certain elements would be absorbed in greater amounts than others, causing an imbalance in the core.
The life force would act as a filter, allowing only equal amounts of all elements to be absorbed into the body, but excess elemental energy would still remain in the body and be slowly absorbed, creating an affinity. The more energy was absorbed, the greater the elemental affinity.
Athos went beyond that. His life force absorbed energy and expelled it through his body several times before stabilizing, further increasing the elemental energy. It was because of this that elemental magic could be used. The elemental energy in his body allowed Athos to attract a specific element of the world's energy and mix it with his own mana to manipulate it. Meanwhile, skills like controlling fire that he used before learning magic was inefficient as it purely relied on the core itself.
As the body developed, it would continue to absorb energy unevenly, and the excess would flow into the body, increasing the amount of elemental energy, power, and control over the respective element's spells. In the case of Athos, fire and wind.
The same should apply to darkness, but because of Khali, the darkness grew trapped and only manifested in the form of shadows flickering when Athos was inattentive, or his room turned darker than usual while he was sleeping.
Out of his shackles, the darkness energized the weakened Athos as if he had been given an adrenaline pump, allowing Athos to rip the mage's head off with his bare hands.
"ROARRRRRR!" Athos roared like a maddened beast, his entire body smeared with darkness. Even so, the mages around him felt not fear, but anger. The late elemental awakening was an event they only heard stories about, but they could see with mana vision that the core of Athos was empty. The mage who was killed had been taken by surprise, but that would not happen again.
'I was surprised for a second, but the situation remains the same. Just cast ranged magic and-' The mage slayer's thoughts were interrupted by Athos's next actions.
Normally something like this would be impossible, but Athos did it anyway. The mana within the mage's body had his mana signature, but upon his death, the life force undid along with the energy signature, causing the mana inside the corpse to revert to world energy.
Darkness had the ability to absorb energy and along with the mana body trait, allowed Athos to steal world energy from corpses. It was a little-known skill that mages with a mana body and an affinity for darkness possessed.
Athos did not do this consciously, he knew that darkness could drain the body, but mana was new to him. He was just trying to absorb the world energy around him while draining the corpse, but the darkness created a path with the body and devoured the now unowned energy.
To add insult to injury, the mage was in the second layer of life while Athos was still in the first, so the energy diluted as it was absorbed, filling his core completely.
Athos stood up, but before he could do anything, an aura blade was hurled at him, slashing his throat with precision. The darkness around his body cushioned the damage, preventing his head from being severed, but the cut was still horrible.
He fell backward, holding his throat with both hands as he tried to stop the bleeding, but to no avail.