"Hey Luna, are you sure that you know where my brother is?"

"I don't know where he is exactly, but this should be the right direction."

The only problem is that when I asked the trees they told me that the village is also that way. I hope that we find Rax before reaching it or things might get complicated.

"Sis!"

"Rax!"

A young boy comes running at us from the trees. Xania seems happy to find her brother safe, she tries to step forward to meet him, but I don't let her get past me. The boy stops in front of me and looks up at my face, I crouch slightly and then punch him on the stomach sending him flying until he crashes against a tree.

"Eeeh!?" Xania watches in shock as her 'brother' falls on his back, reverting to the usual blue-skinned and lanky body of a shapeshifter.

"That was a shapeshifter?"

"You couldn't tell? You were working with one of them before and he was trying to impersonate your brother."

"But that transformation was perfect. How could you tell?"

"Perfect? He didn't look anything like Rax. The eyes were half a millimeter higher, the ears were a full millimeter shorter, the nose was a bit less pointy..."

"Ok, ok, I get it. You never let anything less than perfection get past you."

Wind mages, illusionists, and shapeshifters. Are the demons that entered the forest some kind of spy squad? Well, if that was the best that they can do there's no way that any of them will be able to trick me, at least not if they transform into someone I know. I guess I'm good at detecting illusions.

A few minutes later we run into another two elves.

"Are you the one who's been helping us against those invaders? We would like to invite you to our village."

I throw a punch at their faces with each of my hands and both shapeshifters get knocked out at the same time.

Are these guys even trying? I know that I said that they needed to transform into someone I don't know, but there's no way that a real elf would invite me to their village or even talk so casually to me in the first place.

Still, punching them when they looked like that was oddly satisfying... Uh, that's not something that I should be thinking.

I ask the trees once again if they have seen Rax. I hope that they cannot be deceived by shapeshifters; I don't think that they can.

"Xania, there's a problem. It seems that your brother is in the elf village."

"That's better than the demons catching him. Do you think that they won't give him back to us?"

"They will if I'm insistent enough, don't worry. But I don't want to go there at all. I guess at least we don't need to hurry anymore."

I signal Xania to stop with my hand.

"Is something wrong?"

"There's a demon ahead. He made himself invisible with some magic, did he think that I would not notice him?"

"Most people tend to not notice things that are invisible..."

The demon throws two objects at us, I can sense some wind magic on them. Both me and Xania manage to duck in time to avoid them, which is a good thing because several trees get cut down when the weapons fly back to their owner.

A figure wearing a dark green cloak materializes after turning off his invisibility. Now I can see what he has on his hands, are those boomerangs? That's an unusual weapon.

"Luna, I've seen that guy before, I think that he's a demon lord. Watch out, he could be dang... what am I saying, you're Luna, of course he's not dangerous."

"Xania, so you have decided to betray us." He says.

"I think that it would be more accurate to say that you are the ones who betrayed me."

"That woman next to you. Is she the so-called 'queen of darkness'? Her intimidation skill is certainly strong, but it won't work on me."

Intimidation skill? What is he talking about? I'm not doing anything.

"Just so you know, there's no way that you can beat her," Xania warns him with an exasperated tone. The cloaked demon turns to look at me and we make eye contact for the first time.

"S-stop that! I told you that it's not going to work! If you are trying so hard to intimidate me it must mean that you must not be all that strong."

"I'm not trying to intimidate you. All I'm doing is standing here."

Without saying another word, he throws his boomerangs at me. With my new skill, I can actually predict their trajectory, I wonder if I can catch them with my hands...

I place one of my hands in front of one of the flying weapons, but it cuts my fingers in half, those things are sharper than I thought. I see a smile on the demon's face, but it disappears the next moment as my fingers stop falling and move upwards instead, getting reattached to my hand.

Next, he aims for my face. If I'm not mistaken, those things are only sharp on the edges. If I can grab them from the right angle and with perfect timing, I think that I won't get cut. I can at least calculate the correct place and time, will I be able to do it?

...

No, I wasn't able to do it. Both of the boomerangs hit my face head-on, but at least they couldn't get past my skull. It seems like my body is just not fast enough to keep up with my mind.

"I see..." My spells are much faster and more precise. As expected, a mage should focus on magic to fight after all.

"What do you mean you 'see'? You have those things going through your eyes..." Xania's voice sounds defeated for some reason. She seems to be following the same pattern as Nera of just giving up after getting to know me for a while.

"I didn't mean that literally."

The boomerangs vanish and appear again in the hands of the demon, is that a skill to recover one's weapons? When he sees my eyes regenerate in an instant he stares at me looking like he doesn't know what to do.

"Use that attack again."

"I... I give up, I don't..."

"Use that attack again, please."

"Yes! Please spare my life!"

Why is he so scared about me asking him to do something? I even said please.

This time I'll use a small mana push to stop the attack. A mana push is nothing more than using one's raw mana to create a force, it doesn't even count as a spell so I've not even considered using it in battle until now. I know that many other mages use it for its casting speed so I should have probably tried this sooner.

The boomerangs are sent back. I was only planning to stop them, but it seems like I used a bit more strength than necessary and they end up piercing the ground right in front of the demon, who falls on his butt.

I walk to him slowly, so that he doesn't get even more scared than he already seems to be.

"Thank you for helping me test a few things. I don't need you anymore."

He fainted... didn't Xania say that this guy was supposed to be a demon lord?

Xania gets closer and looks at him with a thoughtful expression.

"These guys seem a bit too much just to capture my brother, and they also attacked those elves. Are they trying to take over the forest? But why would anyone want to do such a thing? Is a lot of work for very little reward."

"Maybe that Kalroth guy wants to control all of the demon wasteland?"

"That could be... if that's the case, you might have saved this forest by defeating these guys."

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing."

If I'm honest, I really do not like this place. The way that other elves treat me makes me want to hate them back, and their way of living stands against everything I believe in. But I know that hatred never leads to anything good, I need to stay rational and not let my emotions get the better of me.

It's just that... I actually think that getting rid of this forest would be doing them a favor. If they were forced to leave they would get to experience what freedom feels like, perhaps then they would consider changing their ways.

Uh, just thinking about that makes me feel like a part of me is going away from my body. Of course, that's all only my personal opinion. It would be far too arrogant of me to assume that my way of living is the correct one, and it's not like the elves are hurting other people by staying in their forests. I have no right to force others to change their ways, and those demons have even less of a right. I won't let them destroy this forest.

"Luna..." Xania taps me on the shoulder and points at some trees that are being transformed into dark trees. It seems like a bunch of my mana just expanded around me. So that's what I felt leaving my body.

Now that I look around, the trees that already had an element are unchanged, but there's a lot of normal trees being transformed, further than I can even see. What's really weird is that some strange purple fruit the size of my head seems to be growing from those trees.

"What is that?"

Some of the fruits fall to the ground, and from inside, small monsters come out. They look just like the imps I summon.

"Luna, is that supposed to happen?"

"No, I've never heard about anything like this..."

A couple of imps run to another normal tree and start biting it. The tree then transforms into a dark tree and fruit begins to grow on it as well.

When I look around again, I see hundreds of imps running around everywhere. What's going on here?