An Owl's Rise

Having taken her from as a full owl Katrina now towered over Evelyn and Bylur.

It was shocking enough that they were slow to react to her next attack and failed to block it entirely.

Without any concern for the minor damage, she would take from the wind barrier filled with ice shards created by Evelyn and Bylur, Katrina flew right at them while crackling with electricity.

Her left claw slammed hard into Bylur and sent him flying up towards the ceiling, but by the time he hit he could not longer feel anything as the lightning around Katrina had already knocked him out.

Evelyn on the other hand was not hit nearly as hard. Though still, Katrina's right wing clipped her and sent a large enough jolt of electricity into Evelyn to paralyze her for a couple of minutes.

In only a few moments Katrina had completely revised the situation and easily defeated both Evelyn and Bylur.

This left only Rehni who was stunned still by what she had just seen.

She had never before seen a tyrant rank beast go from their humanoid form to beast form and the change was enough to leave her stupefied for nearly six seconds.

Unfortunately, after that she no longer had the time to stare up at Katrina in a daze, as Katrina set her sights on her final opponent.

In a desperate attempt to fight back Rehni launched several powerful sonic attacks while also creating metal wires around her to defend against Katrina's electricity, but her resistance was futile.

Even wither far lager form that took more magical energy to fully defend herself, Katrina had no problem with solely dealing with Rehni's attack and barreled right towards her with a shield of magical energy in front of her.

Along with her shield she launched a barrage of pure magical energy attacks that were not impeded by Rehni's wires and swiftly overwhelmed her.

In the end, Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni were all collapsed on the floor once again and completely defeated.

After a couple minutes of her body twitching and spasming uncontrollably, Evelyn regained her monitor control and stood back up. Her head hung low.

She had thought that the strategy she had come up with would help them to fight Katrina, but they only achieved marginally better results from their first bout.

'But she certainly is big in her owl form. I really can see why it is more convenient to move around in a humanoid form that is significantly smaller.' Evelyn thought craning her head up to look at Katrina.

Yet the large form before her swiftly shrunk back down to the size of an average woman. Albeit one with owl wings, pointed ears, and eyes that were a color no human had.

"I must commend you for your ingenuity Evelyn. I image that strategy was yours?" Katrina said to her.

"Yeah, I came up with it, but really I do not think it warrants any praise. I mean you handedly defeated us again." Evelyn said, a sorrowful expression on her face.

She had clearly been hoping for better results in their second match.

"No, I would say that you and your team did exceptionally better than the first battle. I actually had to get a bit more serious this time. You even made me change my form mid battle which understandably caught you all off guard. Of course, I would not say your battle plan was perfect. Allow me to give you some criticism and advice, since I am pretty sure we are done for the day." Katrina said, glancing over at the still unconscious Bylur and Rehni.

To start she praised Evelyn's auditability and ingenuity with creating the raging snowstorm and loud echoes that inhibited Katrina's senses.

"I had to use a considerable amount of magical energy to spread out a layer over a wide area to find where all of you were. In a larger battlefield like the ones used in the ranking hall this strategy could be even more effective depending on what type of terrain it is used in." Katrina said.

She then went on to give some criticisms about the positioning that Evelyn and her teammates had taken.

In her opinion when fighting a clearly stronger opponent it was best to stick together and support each other.

Certainly having positioned Rehni on the opposite side so that they could pressure Katrina from two angles was not a bad plan, but had they all been together their defenses would have been superior and they could have more readily kept her at bay.

"Had all three of you worked in conjunction to create a barrier I would have had a much more difficult time breaking through. Even a single punch at my full power could not break a conjoined effort from the three of you." Katrina noted.

Katrina continued to point out the small flaws she found in Evelyn's plan, and their lack of flexibility when she had suddenly transformed.

In a battle filled with magic one could not be stunned for even a single millisecond by a surprising development if they wanted to win.

"Finally, there is something that I have noticed that you are personally doing that hurts your combat ability. You are unconsciously holding yourself back Evelyn." Katrina said with a sharp look in her eyes.

Tilting her head in confusion, Evelyn was already aware that she was holding back.

Naturally she refrained from using her heavenly flame or gravity magic. But when she said this, Katrina just shook her head.

"No, I mean that you are keeping the power of you magical energy restrained. I can tell that you are not using your full power and are trying to seem weaker than Bylur and Rehni. I would say that the wind magic you displayed after just evolving is stronger than what you used in either of our matches despite having more magical energy and control now. I understand that you are trying not to stand out, but if you keep restraining yourself to this degree, you will forget the power that you are truly capable of."