It had been a couple of days since the first potion brewing lesson and Bryson and Florence at this point had moved on to converting them into pill form. The pill form was smaller, lighter and easier to transport, of course the trade-off was that they were harder to make. Still Florence seemed to be enjoying herself with the alchemy while Bryson was a bit more ambivalent.

  Bryson as he was adding the correct ratios for the night vision potion stopped and looked around. Florence noticing his troubled look also stopped as she realized that something wasn’t right.

  “Hey, what’s wrong you two?” Coni asked floating over noticing that they had stopped working.

  “Primrose, she’s missing.” Bryson said.

  “Isn’t that normal?”

  “No, it’s different… where would she be?” Bryson wondered.

  ***

  The demon landed in the middle of the forest with enough force that the trees around him shook. He left a small smoldering crater where he had landed and calmly began walking forward. He smiled cockily, hoping that his rather loud entrance had attracted the attention of that anthousai.

  What a fool to let herself be alone this far deep in dense woods. There would be no help for her, there would be nobody to come and save her when the demon gets her. She unwittingly signed her own death wish by wandering this far into the wilderness.

  As the demon chuckled to himself he felt one of his feet suddenly planted in place. Looking down with a frown he realized that it was tangled in some grass. He tugged at it again, this time with more force, nothing.

  The demon was now staring at his foot in confusion, as he realized that his was not natural. He was a being who could raise a city to the ground, a clump of grass should not stop him at all. Perhaps due to the peculiar nature of it all it took a moment for him to realize the reason why he couldn’t move his foot.

  This was a trap. The demon’s eyes widened as he came to the realization and he reacted too late. The trees around him extended outwards, their branches becoming elongated and jagged and struck from all around him in an instant. Piercing his body the demon cried out in pain as he was impaled into place.

  It didn’t stop him for long however after essentially flexing a bit the branches snapped off their respective trees before burning everything that was embedded into him. With a few pained breaths, he felt the stabbing pain of the wooden makeshift spears disappear.

  “Who was stupid enough to try that?” The demon cried out as he finally pulled free his feet and floated up into the air.

  Instead of someone answering him the ground erupted upwards and a pillar of dirt reached up and grabbed him. Finding himself bounded by the earth again he struggled to free himself, at this point Primrose chose to reveal herself to the demon. She needed to be in closer range for her stronger attacks to land.

  “You.” The demon hissed.

  Primrose gave no verbal reply, instead simply raising up her staff and the demon felt something above him. Looking upwards he glanced up and realized that a small storm cloud had formed above his head. Quickly the demon began to struggle against his binds and as the pillar began to crack and shake, Primrose unleashed the lightning cloud.

  The powerful bolt of lightning struck down on the head of the demon and sent the lightning throughout his entire body. He roared out in pain, and then he was hit by a second one. Before he could get hit by a third, he broke free and surged towards Primrose.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Only to smash straight into a wall of earth that appeared between the two of them. The earth shook as he collided with it. Then a red glowing circle began to form at the center of the wall. Primrose quickly Flash Stepped to the side.

  Not a moment too soon either as a straight cylinder of flame blasted through the wall and hit a line of trees which immediately caught fire. Primrose alarmed quickly turned around and cast a spell quickly extinguishing the trees.

  “Found your weak spot.” The demon sang.

  Primrose gritted her teeth in frustration as she realized that she had given up her barrage of attacks. Now the demon had time to recompose, and now he had something to use against her.

  “It makes sense that a delicate flower like you would hate to see your habitat destroyed.” He cackled as he charged up another attack.

  Primrose quickly pointed her staff at the demon and fired a green beam of energy. The beam seemed to pass an invisible barrier halfway before it burned away without making contact with the demon.

  “My turn.” The demon said as from behind him half a dozen magic circles formed behind him, his eyes glowed red and from the magic circles shot out bullets of flames at Primrose.

  Primrose tapped her staff onto the ground and a bubble of dirt surrounded her completely as repeated blasts from the fireballs pelted it. The demon however frowned in frustration as this time around his flames were unable to penetrate through her defence. More annoyingly it seemed that she enchanted the forest around them to be resistant to fire. Still all she was doing was defending right now, she was doomed as long as he kept this up.

  ***

  Florence stared at Bryson who had exited out the garden and simply stood outside staring off into the horizon. His brow was furrowed and seemed to be trying to see something. Florence looked over to where he was looking and saw nothing. But she knew Bryson and his knack for noticing anything that was magical.

  “Is something wrong Lord Bryson?” Florence asked.

  “Something over there doesn’t look right.” Bryson said gaze not leaving the area.

  “How so?”

  “It looks normal, but something’s not right.”

  “I don’t think I quite follow.”

  “It’s like a picture frame that just isn’t exactly level.” Bryson explained, “Almost like something's there but it looks like there isn’t.”

  Florence blinked as she thought of something, “Is someone trying to hide something magical?” She asked.

  “I don’t know… I want to find out.” Bryson said.

  “You know you two haven’t finished making the potions right?” Coni said flying over, though she looked as curious as Bryson was.

  “We’ll come back.” Bryson assured her, “Pinop you can follow if you want.”

  “Well, I suppose I may as well watch over you to make sure nothing bad happens.” Coni said immediately capitulating to his offer.

  “Alright, let’s go figure out what’s happening over there.” Bryson said.

  “That’s quite the distance to walk.” Coni said.

  “You can fly correct Miss Pinop?” Florence said.

  “Yes, fast too.” Coni said as she flew in a small circle.

  “Then it will be no problem.” Florence said as she grabbed Bryson and picked him up.

  “What the? Marsh, put me down I can- woahhh!” Bryson yelled out as she began to cross the great distance in leaps and bounds.

  “Holy- wait up!” Coni said racing right behind them.

  ***

  “Come on! I thought you wanted to kill me! You won’t be able to do that by hiding in there now can you?” The demon taunted as he continued to fire upon the sphere of enchanted dirt. At the same time he kept his magic circles in place as he flew right over the barrier.

  Making sure he made no blatant noise as to warn Primrose beforehand, he then dropped straight down onto the barrier, smashing it with his weight. Looking to crush Primrose underneath him he was sorely disappointed to find her gone from the spot.

  From the ground behind him Primrose rose, she chanted something and tapped the ground and another bolt of lightning shot down. This time it was larger before and the air was filled with a smell of ozone and a cloud of dust.

  Primrose peered through the dust cloud and saw a blob approach her, eyes wide she realized it was the demon’s flaming outstretched hand reaching out to grab her. Primrose brought up her staff to try and protect herself before she could get hit. But the strike never made it.

  A massive blast smashed into the demon and sent him flying through the forest. Primrose shocked turned to see the source of the shot and saw Florence Marsh standing tall, firearm raised. Bryson was kneeling next to her shaking his head and trying to catch his breath.

  “We are never doing that again.” Bryson said shaking his head.

  “At least we found her.” Coni said poking out from behind Bryson.

  “Right, Primrose, what were you hiding from me?” Bryson said composing himself.