An Owl's Rise

Turning her head around Evelyn looked towards the fallen fox she had just cut through with one of her ignis wing blades.

Yet as she did, her entire body started feeling incredibly faint and she feel towards the ground with a thud.

She had used up all of her magical energy in that last attack and now her body could no longer keep going.

\'No, I cannot go down here. Anneli and Katrina still need me.\'

Opening up her storage cuff, she pulled out the strongest stamina and magical energy replenishment items she had and quickly swallowed them.

Within just a few moments she felt a relieving sensation through her being as she started gaining a bit of her magical energy back.

Still, it was not an immediate process, and even the six pills and potion she took at once were going to need around five minutes to fully restore her. And she was likely to feel quite sick not long after from overconsumption.

\'I just have to keep going no matter how hard it is on me.\' Evelyn thought as she picked herself up.

Now that her head did not feel nearly as rattled and her vision had come back into focus, she looked towards her opponent to see what condition they were in.

As soon as she saw them, she let out a sigh of relief. The gray furred fox she had been fighting was no longer moving at all and the life in its eyes were gone.

The injury she had inflicted on it was simply too much for it to try and recover from. Her heavenly flame had vaporized some of its blood, and the organs on the left side of its body had either exploded or burned up from the heat.

Even for as tough as beasts, especially those in the awakened rank and beyond were, that level of damage was simply just not something they could take.

With the certainty that her fight was over, Evelyn looked towards the raging battles that were happening not too far away from her.

Anneli was fighting the leader of the foxes who seemed to be using her magic to create tricks with the moonlight, but Anneli\'s fire and water magic were doing well to protect her and cause widespread damage. It seemed that the two of them were fighting on relatively equal terms.

On the other hand, it was clear that Katrina was on the back foot.

She was taking on two peak awakened rank beasts, who while weaker individually than Katrina, were at the same rank and overpowering her together.

It was clear that she had taken on the hardest battle wanting to relive the burden off of Evelyn and Anneli.

\'I am not sure how much I can do, but while I still have the protection from the talisman Melisandre gave me, I need to keep going.\' Evelyn thought as she analyzed Katrina\'s battle.

Just because she had won her own fight did not mean that the battle was over, and if any of them fell it would be the end.

With a bit of her stamina and magical energy now recovered, Evelyn took flight again and headed right over to where Katrina was fighting two of the foxes.

When she arrived, she made sure to fire off a big attack, accelerating herself claws first towards one of the foxes that had black fur with bluish white stripes.

The fox noticing Evelyn\'s charge only gave her a quick look of contempt before creating a wall of ice in between it and Evelyn.

Unable to stop, she impacted the wall and sunk into it, causing it to crack in multiple places.

However, while this was impressive in its own right, she did fail to break through, and in the next instance the ice began bending and turned into a sphere around her.

It began constricting, trying to completely crush her.

Thankfully, the barrier from Melisandre\'s talisman was still active, and the ice as it tried to crush Evelyn shattered apart.

Being freed from the attack, Evelyn caught the fox completely off guard as it was sure it had just easily killed the little fiend beast that had reckless charged it.

In that moment Evelyn created a blast like a shotgun, unleashing several hundreds of flaming needles around her.

It was an omni directional attack that was pretty much impossible to deal with at lose range. So, instead of dodging, the fox decided to jump in and take the attack in order to deliver a finishing blow to Evelyn.

It tanked through the flame needles that broke through its defenses and pierced into its skin.

Then as it got close enough to Evelyn with movements she could not hope to keep up with, it opened its large jaws and chomped down.

Yet as it did, the barrier around Evelyn stopped its attack. Which scraped against it worthlessly.

\'Got you.\' Evelyn thought with a wide grin.

She had been preparing something just in case this fox tried to get close to her, and with the slightest tap of her right foot planted her gravity trap on the fox.

In the next instance it suddenly felt a great weight pushing down on its body and it began plummeting towards the ground.

At the same time Evelyn used her own gravity field to increase the weight of the fox even more and it smashed right into the ground.

Unfortunately, Evelyn went with it, as she was still trapped tightly in its jaws even if it could not break through the barrier around her.

And to make matters worse for her, all the magical energy she had replenished had been used up and she was back to running on empty and feeling woozy.

Looks like I did enough though.\' Evelyn thought as she watched a large shadow descend down on the fox she had just knocked down.

While she had taken ahold of its attention Katrina was able to have a one-on-one with her other opponent and came out victorious.

Now she came flying in and pounced on the shaken fox Evelyn had brought down and pierced her talons into it.

As this happened it retaliated and began recklessly freezing the area.

Ice began creeping up Katrina\'s body and Evelyn was completely covered by a thick coating.

But before long, Katrina began lighting up as electricity crackled off of her body and fire engulfed all of them.

It quickly became a battle between fire and lighting, against ice. in which the winner would be the one to survive.

In the end, after around six seconds of struggling, the fox could no longer keeping going as its body seized up from the electricity.

With its resistance over, Katrina\'s fire and lightning overpowered the ice in the area, and all that was left of her opponent was a charred and sizzling corpse.

"Katrina your left foot!" Evelyn said as she used what little magical energy she had to make a connection.

Looking towards her ally and friend, Evelyn saw her left foot was now gone. Having been frozen and broken off.

"Yeah, looks like I will need some specialized healing to restore this. But no need to worry, I will be fine." Katrina said while putting on a tough façade.

Nevertheless, it was quite clear to Evelyn that Katrina was in rough shape. With her now missing foot not being her only injury.

She had been taking on two foxes at the same rank as her, and while she had kept up with them, it was clear that her injures were no joke.

Sadly, there was nothing that Evelyn could do in this situation but grit her beak and watch as Katrina took a healing potion.

The two of them did not have long to recover though.

Just a moment later they heard and felt a loud crash nearby and saw the broken form of Anneli in the middle of a large crater.

Both of her wings were now bent out of place, her beak was shatter, and one of her eyes had been gouged out.

It was clear that her battle had been intense, and the injuries she had made what Katrina had incurred look negligible in contrast.

Panic began to set in for both Katrina and Evelyn. With Anneli\'s collapse here it meant that she must have lost her fight and that the leader of this group of foxes\' must have won.

Within just a moment they spotted the form of their strongest opponent in the sky, coming down from where she and Anneli had been battling it out.

Except, as they focused on her body, they noticed that it was missing something vital. Her head appeared to be ripped clean off.

Soon enough the body hit the ground with a loud thud and a splattering of crimson blood all over the place.

\'Where is her head?\' Evelyn thought as she looked at the decapitated body.

Swiveling her neck around, she took in her surroundings and swiftly found what she was looking for.

In Anneli\'s claws, ripped out at the neck, was the head of leader of these foxes.

It seemed that while it appeared at first hat she had lost, in their last desperate struggle she had actually come out victorious and taken the head of her enemy.

Rushing over, both Katrina and Evelyn forced themselves over to their fallen comrade and began pouring healing potions down her throat and all over her body.

She had chunks of flesh missing all over and her feathers were completely disheveled.

These wounds were the worst Evelyn had seen since she watched her parents being destroyed by the human\'s experiments with the Aethersphere.

Truly it was a miracle Anneli was still alive, and with the immediate treatment with healing potions from Evelyn and Katrina she was able to escape death\'s door.