An Owl's Rise

Having appeared in an unknown forested area Evelyn quickly began swiveling her head around and taking everything in.

Certainly, she may not have been planning on participating in the battle so that she could watch what Rehni and Bylur were capable of, but she still needed to stay on guard in case she got attacked.

'Oh, here they come.' Evelyn thought of seeing three owls flying towards them.

Their three opponents had taken up a V formation with the largest one flying in front to act as a shield.

It was clear that they already knew ow to fight together, unlike Evelyn's team which had not had time to develop any strategies or even practice together.

Sure, they had been on the expedition in the same squad but that was quite a bit different. Plus, Bylur only joined them on the last day and at the time none of them were at the awakened rank.

There was a huge difference between how they were now that all of them had evolved.

'Looks like all three of them are only at the low tier. I suppose that makes sense with them being fairly low ranked anyway.'

Once she was finished observing the situation Evelyn leapt back and took up a position a few dozen feet above and behind Bylur and Rehni.

She wanted to have a good vantage point, and just in case she had to step in she was ready to do so.

'They actually seem to already have a good idea on ways to work together.' Evelyn thought, watching Bylur and Rehni's opening moves.

To start Bylur whipped up a dense flurry of snow that obscured the area and Rehni began sending out thin metal wires and attaching them to the nearby trees.

This immediately turned the environment to their favor, and if the enemies rushed in they would certainly have a disadvantage in the zone filled with snow and iron threads.

Sadly, it was not going to be that easy and the opponents did not recklessly charge in.

They had been in a number of matches before and were not simple meatheads that went right for their opponents.

A win came with it a monetary reward, but a loss meant injuries that would need time to heal and a huge blow to their rank and egos.

A few seconds after they stopped, they came up with a plan to counter Bylur and Rehni's and took to the air.

From above they began launching attacks into the obscured area that was covered in a perpetual cloud of snow.

It was a simple but affective attack as Bylur and Rehni were forced to leave the area they had prepared or be crushed by falling boulders of earth that all three of the enemy owls were dropping.

Of course, Evelyn, who had been hiding in the snowstorm as well had to flee and found that all three of their opponents had decided to come after her since she had flown in the opposite direction of Bylur and Rehni.

'I suppose that they want to pick me off first.' Evelyn thought.

Naturally she had been identified as the biggest threat since she was at the mid-tier of the awakened rank.

Using her wind magic Evelyn deftly avoided their three-pronged assault and kept ahead of them.

Her relatively small size made her more agile than the three far larger owls attacking her, and their magic, while not bad, was too slow to hit her so long as she had her guard up.

'Looks like they are still not that well versed in team battles.' Evelyn thought as she led them around by the nose.

The owls attacking her had gotten so fixated on their chance to take out the biggest threat that they had neglected Bylur and Rehni.

This proved to be a big mistake as they were slow to react to several blunted spears made of ice flying at them.

Hastily they deployed shields made of earth in front of them to absorb the blows, and Evelyn used this chance to move farther away from them and take up her position as an observer again.

And when she turned back to watch the battle, she saw the three owls returning fire towards Bylur with pillars of stone.

Yet while Rehni was nowhere to be seen Bylur was holding his own three on one and showing off that while he may have only been at the low tier like his opponents that he was actually really strong.

Any of the attacks that got near him became coated in ice and would rapidly lose their momentum and became easy for him to dodge.

It was actually an incredibly impressive technique that surprised Evelyn as it was similar to her own gravity field.

Though such a powerful spell that covered a wide area certainly took a large amount of magical energy to fuel and could not be used indefinitely.

During this time Rehni seemed to have disappeared and was not assisting Bylur in any way.

He was holding his own, but that was all. His chances of winning three on one were fairly low and without her help he was going to eventually run out of steam and falter.

And by the look on his face, it was clear they were not coordinating at all, and he was quite distressed by her disappearance.

Except, even if she was not working with Bylur, she was not going to let the opening he had made go to waste.

After he launched an especially big attack in desperation and the owls they were fighting against were forced to focus fully on defense, she made her move.

Several inches think cables of steel fell down from one of the trees and wrapped up the largest off the enemy owls who had been acting as a tank and absorbing most of Bylur's attacks with a rounded shield of earth.

A moment later his large form was dragged up into a tree and engulfed by its thick foliage.

Evelyn watching this happen went wide eyed. What she had just witnessed was akin to something that might happen in a horror movie.

Loud rumbling sounds could be heard in the tree. A clear sign that the owl that Rehni had captured was fighting back, but after an impossibly loud screech everything went still.

'Damn, she really did not hold back on that.' Evelyn thought as she felt her ears ringing.

She knew that Rehni could use sound magic, but even from several hundred feet away her attack was still loud enough to hurt.

Then, to add even more distress to their opponents, Rehni allowed the large owl she had captured to fall out of the tree and dangle from multiple steel cords.

Just one look was enough to unnerve the other two that remained. Their comrade's eyes were rolled into the back of his head, and blood was pouring out of his ears.

It was not long after Rehni's successful ambush that she and Bylur won the battle.

The other two owls were not able to put up much of a resistance with their mental state broken by Rehni, and Bylur for the most part simply overpowered them.

'Looks like they are quite above the curve as I thought. Those three I would say were probably just a bit stronger than average, yet they still won while being outnumbered. It seems that I picked a good pair to be my teammates.'