An Owl's Rise

After both sides had launched their initial attacks, Evelyn's team and their opponents were still in pretty much the same position from the start of the match.

None of their attacks had managed to break through each other's defenses and now they were back to staring each other down as they made new plans of attack.

The only problem was that Evelyn could tell they were at a disadvantage.

Their opponents had far greater mobility than they did since every member of their team could fly through the storm without issue.

Two of them had a water affinity and being surrounded by rain was actually a huge boon for them and the one with the wind affinity was doing the same thing Evelyn was but on a smaller scale.

Meanwhile, Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni were stuck within Evelyn's wind barrier and had to move together as a unit.

This limited their mobility greatly, which was one of their best assets.

It was quite difficult for them to initiate any sort of attack and left them waiting for their enemies to make the first move while they tried to counter.

For nearly three minutes they continued to trade probing attacks that did not amount to much, before the opposing team finally made a big move.

The three of them broke off from trying to assault Evelyn's team and flew higher up into the air.

Once they had reached around a kilometer into the sky they began rapidly flying around in tandem and creating a far more powerful phenomenon than any one of them could make on their own.

A huge flood of water began congregating around the two that had water affinities while the third created a tornado that sucked up all of the water.

Soon they had a giant mass of wind and water which they dropped down on Evelyn's Team.

"Use your strongest barriers! Our only hope is to block it!" Evelyn shouted out to Bylur and Rehni who were caught up in a daze seeing such a powerful attack coming for them.

The attack coming for them was far stronger than anything they had taken in any other match and was their first time seeing such a devastating combo.

It was certainly simple, but the sheer mass and force behind it would be enough to kill them all if they did not do everything they could to defend.

As quickly as they could they worked together to create a three-tiered shield. Using Evelyn's wind barrier which she morphed into the shape of an umbrella, followed by Bylur's ice magic, and Rehni's metal magic.

This created a thick and powerful barrier that they could only hope would take the attack for them.

When the water tornado hit there was a resound explosion and their barrier began being pushed back almost immediately.

'Damn! It is not going to hold!'

Immediately Evelyn could feel her wind which was at the front of their barrier faltering and knew that it was only a matter of time before the torrent of water and wind smashed into them.

However, Evelyn had another card to play, even if she had planned on keeping it under wraps.

'It will probably be impossible to notice in this situation anyway. And we will likely lose if I do nothing.'

Steeling her resolve, Evelyn sent an immense amount of her magical energy into the Aethersphere, and for the first time in several months activated her gravity magic.

'Reverse Press.'

Decreasing the gravity in the area around her, Evelyn lowered the mass of the water crashing down on them and the force behind it dropped significantly.

Thanks to this intervention their shield managed to block the attack successfully, and the moment they were out of danger she brought gravity back to normal.

"Evelyn, did you just use your gravity magic?" Rehni asked her having felt herself get lighter for a few seconds.

Evelyn had already made it clear that she had no intention of using anything but her wind magic as her other two types were a bit too eye catching, and she did not want others to know that she had such rare abilities.

Yet just now she had used what could be considered her strongest power to save them. Despite the fact that it could stand out.

"Yes, I did. I doubt that it will have bene noticeable to anyone but the two of you. From afar it probably just looked like our shields held out and repelled the attack. Now let us not worry about that for now. We managed to survive but our opponents are still unharmed. We need to focus on them instead." Evelyn said as she reformed her wind barrier back into a sphere.

Luckily it seemed that they had a moment to recollect themselves as the opposing team was stunned that their strongest combination attack had been so thoroughly blocked.

Naturally they were not used to their enemies coming out unscathed from such a devastating attack, and it had taken no small amount of magical energy to create.

"They are taking magical energy replenishment pills. While they do that, we should do the same." Evelyn said catching sight of the bottles each of their opponents had taken out.

Swiftly, Evelyn, Bylur, And Rehni swallowed the pills that Evelyn had prepared for them.

In only a few instances they felt the magical energy they had expended being restored and were not far from being back to peak condition. At least in terms of magical energy.

Still, the fight had not gone much of anywhere except to slowly be exhausting both sides.

Neither had been able to deliver a decisive blow yet, and right now it seemed that it was going to be a war of attrition.

But Evelyn knew that they would not win this way.

Rehni and Bylur were strong, there was no doubting that. But they probably could not hold out as long as their opponents if they stayed on the defensive.

"We are not going to win at this rate. Drink the potions I gave you and go in for the attack without worry. I will support both of you." Evelyn said resolutely.