A fear to great too run from

"Damn it!" The rogue cried upon getting up. He had strongly hit his back on a tree, bruising his back terribly.

The healer realizing this went to up and placed her hands over his eyes and a purple glow emanated from her.

"Ahhhh…" the rogue let out a sigh of relief as the warm healing light reached the depths of his body.

Within seconds, he was fully healed.

"Thank you." He said.

Others didn't suffer significant damages, possibly many psychological unseen damages but no physical damage worth wasting mana over.

"What was that? Was that the crown creature you spoke about?" Elessar questioned pulling up Ran from the sticky soil.

"Yes it was, it must be a demon of some kind, one that's not bloodthirsty I think. I'm glad I knew of it in these circumstances otherwise I probably would have been demon's food."

"It looked like it was searching for something." The thick and deep voice of the Rock Tank funari interjected.

"Yes it looked to be so. It's a lot stronger than the demons we've come across so far. We've to be really cautious about coming across it again."

Elessar gritted her teeth and bit her lower lip looking below.

'We are leagues away from properly protecting ourselves. Are we just ants at this point?'

"My portals appeared at spots I remembered marking when I went across the forest so spots that I undid the rifts." Ran explained.

"And the creature has the ability to disperse my spatial magic, meaning it has spatial abilities as well. It couldn't be, it's possible…"

"What is it boy?" The rogue asked, feeling quite annoyed about being put at an edge.

"It could be that it's there to investigate the disappearance of the rifts and possibly to reopen them. If that happens, more demons would pour out onto this area creating even more havoc. We can't have that."

"But what about Elessar's mother?" The healer spoke.

"And didn't you imply that it's a lot stronger than us and all you said was just a guess, a long stretch. Who knows, maybe it was just looking for a place to nap. I don't think it wise to throw ourselves into danger before knowing the things we'll gain, what win is worth risking our lives." The Rock Tank butted in giving his sound logic which came mostly out of fear not reasoning over facing the beast.

He was close to Elessar's mother and he felt he had to return the kind gesture she had shown him for years, he didn't sign up to fight a super powerful demon with spatial powers. Elessar understood his position and his fear, it was reckless, and they didn't prepare for this.

"Mother can wait, she got on her own two feet herself, I'm sure she knows her way around like she has always known." She responded in all seriousness.

"Open a portal to where we saw the creature, let's kill it."

The fire mage felt squirmish about the decision, his body flinched once she said that. He had hoped they focused on their search and hopefully not run into any crazily powerful creatures.

It wasn't also him uncomfortable with this decision, the Healer and the Rock Tank remained silent looking down being disagreeable with the decision, this wasn't what they had signed up for.

The rogue on the other hand was fine with her decision and looked affirmatively at Ran and Elessar and their creature companions besides them. They were a strong bunch and the rogue felt quite confident about taking down such an enemy.

"We will trail it and secretly watch over it hoping it doesn't spot us. If we see a winning chance, we'll take it regardless of its intention. It's undoubtedly a demon and it chose to attack us once we spotted it, it's not friendly at the very least." Elessar declared.

Seeing that the three didn't back down, the other lady of the party, the healer, scooted forward.

She whispered "You might need a healer once you begin the fighting, by the goddess I hope you all don't but I'm not going to leave my friends to face a monster that might create great harm to my village and do nothing about it. I won't stand by it."

"Thank you Jaus. We need all the help we can get." She replied but hinted at the messages at the other two...

The persuasions worked, they would feel worse had they died and their worries occurred. They would rather die honourably than in shame.

They both nodded at the others expressing agreement.

"Since we are all in agreement, let's get on with it."

Ran held out his left arm and a sudden vibrating sound happened and a space in front of them rippled till it tore open into a purple portal about the size of two people.

Ran swung his hand to the side of the portal indicating that someone should jump in, and Elessar did. Soon as she did, the rogue followed and then the healer and the animal companions then the fire mage, Rock Tank and finally the spatial mage who closed the portal once he disappeared into it.

The group appeared at a different part of the forest, this one had a lot more tall bushes and insects that annoyed them all.

"I have never felt so terrible about possibly being right. That's a portal up there." He declared and pointed at a portal just meters away behind them.

The red portal oozed mist out of it like it was designed to and possibly some demons had flown out of it.

"I had closed the portal that hung just there and that creature must have opened it. This is the worst case scenario, if it comes to naught, I'll see it to make sure you survive Elessar and you'll get all you've seen to the Chief. Maybe that will convince him for us to leave or to at least try to form alliances with other native creatures of the forest." He said with fear registered all over his face.

"None of you is leaving here, not without asking for my approval." A voice like that of a bratty baby shook in their minds.

The team turned in their opposite direction away from the portal spotting the floating red circle with wings, but it wasn't just it this time around, there were others with it, including…

"Mother."

[Berserker (Transformed)- lvl 17]

…