189 United we stand (2/2)

Upon reaching the middle half, they ended up coming face to face with the entity of the forest who was still using the appearance of Detra's lost daughter to speak to them with the power of fear magic.

”So... I take it that you guys have made your decision?” she asked while sitting on top of a rock with her arms crossed and glaring at all of them.

Marcus stepped forward and spoke in return, ”before anything... We just want you to know... That we get where you are coming from...”

”Do you, now...?”

”Yeah... We do... We all are experts on acting upon our instincts and ending up doing dumb harsh decisions...” Marcus continued, ”and we know that everything you did, you did it because you were just trying to defend yourself when you were feeling threatened and scared...”

The forest did not say a word, since she could read their minds and already knew where this conversation was going.

”But here is the thing... You still did something really disgusting to one of our members... And we can't just overlook that...”

”Really...?” The forest replied while noticing Detra glaring daggers at her for still disrespecting the memory of her daughter like that, ”here I was under the impression you guys were on bad terms with each other...”

”We are...” Lilith admitted, ”but I think we all agree that you are not much better... You can read our true intentions, but instead of trying to talk and reach some kind of agreement, you just continued to throw more dangers on top of us without any intention of letting us communicate...”

The forest then stood up from her boulder and walked forth to make a declaration, ”I do not make deals with humans... Not now... Not ever...”

”Well... You're about to make one now...” Marcus announced, ”because you just managed to piss off every single one of us present here... so you either let us go through and reach the ring of time so we can keep going with our plan and train there to prepare to fight against Mia... Or...”

”Or what...?”

Marcus then glared at her while changing his arm into a blade and pointing at the girl, ”or we get to your core... and make sure you can never harm anyone again... your call!”

The forest began to giggle at that announcement, ”Oh my... this is just so... typical... You guys always think you have the higher ground on everything... You all decide to barge into my house and playing with my area like you own the place... and the minute I try to object to that, I become the bad guy...”

Ellie stepped forward this time, ”this has nothing to do with you trying to defend yourself... this is about you insulting the memory of a girl who just wanted to play with a friend and got punished for that... and... about the one who misses her...”

Detra remained silent. She had nothing to say. She knew where this was going to go and just wanted to start already.

”Yeah... You guys can all just go ahead and jump off a cliff... None of you are welcome in here and unless you wanna get hurt, I suggest you to leave... NOW!” the forest declared.

”Not gonna happen... We are moving forward... whether you like it or not!” Marcus stated.

The blond girl just released a devilish smile, ”Is that so?”

”Is that so!” Marcus, Lilith, Ellie, and Detra responded simultaneously. Detra then instantly started to bury her face on her palms of pure embarrassment.

The group then began to feel the ground shaking beneath their feet. They turned around and saw that the terrain of the ring of memories was coming towards then, almost as if it was being moved artificially.

They kept observing as the ring of fears and the ring of memories continued to merge with each other, while the culprit responsible for that started to approach them with slow steps and walking in front of two other figures emerging from the red fog.

The memory of Evlin, using her earth magic, managed to enter the ring of fear, and alongside the memories of Mia and Marceus, were all staring at Ellie's group with full intent to kill.

Marceus assumed his weapon form and became a pair of blades for Mia to wield.

Marcus and Ellie just exchanged a look and began to set up their battle positions.

Marcus grabbed Lilith's hand and activated his fusion power, making Lilith turn her hair completely white and giving her her vision back by sharing his eyes with her.

Ellie assumed her weapon form as well and began to take the shape of a crossbow for Detra, who also used this chance to start unleashing her power of ice in the air, making the temperature drop.

The forest started to give her final warning, ”this is your last chance... step down or-”

Before she could finish, Detra froze her inside of an icicle and immediately shattered her with a silver arrow produced by Ellie.

”Do. Not. Speak. With my daughter's face...” Detra announced.

The memory of Evlin then spoke next after having the consciousness of the forest transferred into her.

”Death it is then...”