“Lord Bryson? What are you doing here?” Primrose yelled out armed.

  “Realizing that you were trying to kill yourself.” Bryson snapped as he, Coni and Florence ran over to her.

  “You shouldn’t be here, that monster is dangerous.” Primrose warned.

  “I know that, I saw him about to maul you.” Bryson said as he turned to Coni, “Go get help.” He ordered.

  “Alright, be careful.” Coni said as she fluttered away as fast as she could.

  “Marsh.” Bryson said.

  “I will fnk and support you with covering fire from the trees.” Florence said.

  “Good.” Bryson said as he noticed the demon recover, “Primrose, I’ll act on your lead against this thing.”

  “You shouldn’t even be here right now, he wants me.” Primrose said looking frustrated.

  “You are my main source of arcane knowledge. I can’t be having you go off to fight nobodies to the death.” Bryson said, “Now will you continue to argue or should we work together on this?”

  Primrose gave a frustrated but appreciative sigh as she nodded and focused on the demon who seem to be stretching out the creases in his neck. He gazed upon the new comers with moderate interest.

  “You know brat, I wasn’t supposed to fight you, but if you have a death wish, who am I to stop you?” The demon said fshing a sharp toothy grin at Bryson.

  “Why you demons so annoying?” Bryson asked as Primrose immediately sent several gnarled roots from the smouldering trees around them and wrapped around the demon’s legs.

  Florence from the distance fired a small but extremely accurate shot directly at the head of the demon who put up a barrier to easily absorb the bst. He gave a cocky smile as he began to light his binds on fire.

  His smile faltered as he realized that his fmes had extinguished. Looking over he noticed Bryson’s eyes glow pure white momentarily. Gritting his teeth in frustration he instead opted to use his cws to violently smash through the roots.

  Once free he shot a fire bolt straight at Bryson, but Primrose deflected with a wave of her staff and Florence rebutted with another shot at the demon. Frustrated the demon coated himself in a protective fme barrier and flew upwards.

  He didn’t get high up before realizing that his fme shielding dissipated and noticed Bryson’s glow white again. He didn’t have long to process as a rge bst from Florence hit him so hard he went crashing back into the ground. Now unprotected he felt the burning pain of getting hit by Florence’s explosive mana again.

  “Are you counterspelling me?” The demon said getting back to his feat.

  “Get better at casting complex spells.” Bryson said he and Primrose began working on the same spell.

  As the ground beneath the demon began to swirl, the demon tried to move forward and interrupt the two. But another bst from Florence caused him to freeze on the spot.

  “Pests! The lot of you!” The demon screamed as the ground itself opened up and he began to sink as if he was in quicksand. His leathery wings began to beat violently as he tried to drag himself back out of the ground.

  “Grrgh!” He gurgled as Florence fired a bullet size bst of mana and scored a direct hit onto the forehead of the demon stunning him. With that brief moment the two spellcasters were able to fully bury the demon alive.

  “Is that thing did?” Bryson asked not sensing the mana from the demon dissipate.

  “No, it will take longer than that and something stronger.” Primrose said as she began to draw a magic circle.

  Bryson only needed to read the beginnings of the spell being casted to realize just what she was doing, “You can warn me first.” He said looking armed as he began to scurry backwards.

  “Come now Bryson you need be able to be aware of your surroundings in battle.” Primrose briefly joked as she nearly finished her spell, “Just make sure to keep-”

  Primrose was interrupted as burrowing through the surface of the ground came shooting up a barbed spear that smashed through her protective enchantments and pierced straight through her body.

  As Primrose colpsed backwards, eyes wide in shock and blood began to leak from her mouth Bryson quickly rushed over to her. He put up a shimmering barrier around them as he checked on her. Not a second too te as a second spear shot up and struck the barrier, cracking it but not breaking it.

  “I’m done pying games!” The demon roared out as he burst up from the ground. Now muddy, burnt, and bleeding the demon only seemed more incensed in continuing the fight.

  Florence seeing enough of it from a distance began to move in. Firing as she did so she struck three consecutive shots into the body of the demon. She clenched her jaw when she noticed that the demon seemed to treat the shots more like minor inconveniences than anything else.

  Once at a closer range she took a diagonal stride Florence put herself to get a clear view of the demon and raised her handheld canon. With a sharp inhale she fired her weapon. She would not miss this close-up.

  An equally beautiful and horrifying massive bst of pure destructive mana shot out from the firearm directly. As the blue beam came rapidly towards the demon he tried to move out of the way, only to find a mysterious force holding him in pce.

  Looking back over to Bryson he saw that the brat’s eyes were glowing white once more and had cast a binding spell on the demon. As the demon felt the effects of the spell begin to fade it was too te for him to move and fear gripped him as the demon in a vain attempt to protect himself put up a flimsy barrier.

  The beam of mana shot through the forest, and any object coming in contact with the thing disintegrated to dust. Once the beam was gone it left nothing in its wake and travlled past the horizon, evaporating everything in its path, everything save for the demon. The barrier had worked, worked enough at least.

  Florence dropped to her knees panting as she had everything she had in that attack. Frustrated at herself that it still wasn’t enough she gred at the demon. The demon for his part suffered horrible damage from the bst.

  Physically he only looked slightly singed but it felt like his body was currently being burnt to a crisp. Even now every small movement, including breathing only exasperated his pain. Still, as strong as Florence was, she was still young, still a child and this demon was not going to fall to some child.

  Raising a hand he shot out a quick, accurate, and lethal bolt of fme towards Florence who felt as though her limbs had turned to lead and refused to obey her commands to move. Instead Bryson extended out his hand and Florence felt an invisible force pull her towards him.

  Narrowly avoiding the fme, as she was dragged across she watched as it hit an upturned stone and caused the thing to superheat and explode. She then felt Bryson’s arms wrap around her as he checked her once over.

  “You’re an idiot.” Bryson mbasted seeing how diminished her mana supply was with his very own eyes.

  “I’m sorry Bryson, I failed.” She apologized as her eyes were filled with exhaustion and regret.

  “I’ll admonish you after we get out of this.” Bryson said as he stared at the demon who was trying to catch his breath. Bryson’s eyes glowed a dangerously bright white.

  “Bryson, run.” Florence begged, she always had a bad feeling regarding his powers and the st time she saw them glow like that, he nearly died destroying a demon.

  “You don’t think I can fight this thing?” Bryson said trying to look confident.

  “I don’t want you hurt.” Florence said.

  “You’re not of me.” Bryson said as he readied to fight the now-injured demon. Considering everything, Bryson might have enough to fight this thing. It would be better if he knew just how hurt the demon was, but visually the demon was doing a good job at hiding it and Bryson still wasn’t good at telling how much mana a thing had exactly.

  “Come now Coldwater, show me how brutal the Coldwaters can be!” The demon challenged.