An Owl's Rise

Evelyn flapped her wings swiftly to keep up with the black feathered owl who was administering the trials necessary to earn the Qualifications to enter the Owls Roost.

She had shot off without warning, and while it was a considerably slow speed for an owl like her that was at the peak of the awakened beast rank. Evelyn was already flying at nearly the highest speed she could keep up continuously.

Too much faster and she would have to start expending her magical energy to lower her gravity and shoot out bursts of wind to keep up and this was not what she wanted.

She was certain that just following behind this black feathered owl was going to be the easiest part of this trial and that she was going to need to conserve her magical energy for later.

Luckily, she did not speed up just yet, and once she had reached the canopy of the forest she leveled out and began flying straight through the jungle.

Hot on her tail feathers Evelyn made sure to stay as close as she could, in order to not lose the examiner, and to keep the other owls that were catching up from having an easy time attacking her.

One wrong move and their attack might hit the black feathered owl, and that was likely to cost them their lives.

Continuing to fly through the jungle the examiner slowly began to speed up as she went, and deftly moved through the trees making it difficult to follow her.

Along with this the dense fog still permeated the entire area making visibility even for these owls to only be a few hundred feet at best.

Still Evelyn did her best to keep up, but as the examiner passed around one of the trees, an opening presented itself for one of the owls that had decided to direct his malice of the snowy owl at Evelyn.

A bolt of fire shot out of his head and right towards Evelyn as she was going to round the tree the examiner had just passed by.

However, as she sensed the incoming threat, she had to pull her body up and sent of gust of wind in front of her which reversed her momentum.

The bolt of fire flew right in front of her, and she could feel the heat coming off from it.

Clicking her tongue she had hoped that none of the other owls would target her since they really needed to keep their focus on the black feathered owl who was leading the way.

But this owl with orange and red plumage was not worried in the slightest about catching up if he fell a little behind and figured that Evelyn would be easy to deal with quickly.

Afterall, he was a peak fiend beast that had grown his power in a near perfect environment. As his family unlike Evelyn's, was still alive and quite powerful.

He had been given all of the best resources since he was young, and his parents were even awakened beasts that had once been a part of the Owls Roost themselves until they had left to raise their family.

Spinning his body around flames began to bust out of him and six large streaks of fire shot off towards Evelyn.

Seeing this she was very surprised as this attack was by far the most complicated one she had seen any beast unleash.

Even her parents magic had not looked this clean and precise, and the only thing she had seen that was superior was the magic used by the human that had beaten her parents.

But as powerful and controlled as this owl's magic was, it made little difference to Evelyn.

The six streaks of fire hit her and exploded on impacted, creating a large blast of flames that engulfed the area.

His face full of surprise the owl that had attacked Evelyn thought that she would at least try to dodge and ultimately fail, but instead she had just continued hovering there and took all six streaks of fire.

Quickly though a smirk replaced his surprise, as he figured that this poor dumb mid-tier fiend beast had simply been too weak and slow to even try to avoid his attack.

Yet as he flew by the area that was still covered in smoke and smoldering fire, his body suddenly lurched downwards, as it became nearly four times heavily.

Then flying out of the flames with her talons aimed in front of her was Evelyn.

There was not a single scratch on her from being swallowed by flames, and she flew forward like a missile.

She had sent herself forward with a powerful gust of wind and was increasing her own gravity, making the force behind her attack much stronger as she fell down on the owl that had just attacked her.

Her talons pierced right through his dense feathers and slid deep in his flesh as she landed on top of him.

Naturally he was astonished to see this happen for a number of reasons. The first of which was that Evelyn was still alive.

Even a mid-tier awakened beast should not have been able to come out from that attack unscathed if they took it head on like that, and a beast at Evelyn's level should have left nothing but charred remains.

However, she was not even injured and had countered attack with more power than a mid-tier fiend beast should have been able to.

It was practically inconceivable for her talons to have sliced through the feathers and flesh of this orange and red owl so seamlessly.

His defensive abilities should have protected him, and Evelyn's attack should have only left a shallow flesh wound at best.

Yet they sunk in deep and had even pierced one of the orange and red feathered owl's lungs.

He began coughing up blood and felt a searing pain in his body where Evelyn had jammed her talons in.

Unfortunately for this owl that Evelyn had just dealt a devastating blow to, she was not done yet.

She quickly removed one of her claws as the two of them plummeted and jammed it into her adversary's chest.

Stabbing into his heart, she felt a burst of warm blood on her foot and a dark smile appeared on her face.

Pushing off from the now dead owl that had attacked her, she released her increased gravity and stared down at her defeated foe as he plummeted to the forest floor below.

She then looked up at the other owls, many of whom had slowed down, or even stopped in shock seeing what had happened.

'Maybe this will teach them not to mess with me.' Evelyn thought.

She had just easily dispatched an owl at the peak of the fiend beast rank, and this showed to all of the others that she was not to be taken lightly.

Of course, she had won due to her overwhelming advantage of the common element of fire and a very well-timed sneak attack, but that did not make it any less impressive in the eyes of those who had witnessed her feat.

Still, no one stuck around too long, as the examiner had not slowed down at all during this scuffle and was flying away.

'I really wish I could get his beast core, but I need to prioritize this trial.'

Giving herself a quick boost with a gust of wind, Evelyn took back off towards the examiner in order to reclaim her spot in the lead.