An Owl's Rise



A heavy crash shook the hedge maze behind Evelyn, and she could sense that Aralee was fighting the plant monster that had been disguising itself as a wall. 

However, despite her little sister fighting a dangerous enemy on her own, Evelyn did not dare turn around to even take a brief glimpse.

The bramble dragonfly in front of her felt far more dangerous than the false hedge wall, and she was certain that if she took her eyes off it for a second that it would deliver a deadly blow.

'Let's see how it handles this. Gravity hammer.'

Using her newest and most devastating gravity magic, Evelyn focused all of her power into a one-meter radius circle above the bramble dragon fly and sent it crashing down on top of it.

Yet, her attack did not connect. The instant her magic began to take shape, the tangle of plants shaped like a dragonfly shot backwards and away from the effective area of Evelyn's attack.

'It actually dodged it!' Evelyn thought in surprise. This was the very first time anything had avoided her gravity magic.

During the single moment Evelyn was stunned by the monster's absurd perception and speed, the bulbs on its head that looked like eyes began to contract and a powerful jet of the liquid within was launched out of its mouth.

Evelyn was caught off guard by this sudden attack and hastily formed a shield of magical energy in front of her to deflect it.

She shuddered when the blast of liquid hit her shield like a speeding bullet, and a web of cracks formed through the shield she had created.

But the immense power and speed behind this attack was not the only thing that made it fearsome. Out of the corner of her eye Evelyn saw some of the liquid hit the walls of the hedge maze and the afflicted areas began to turn black and shrivel up.

Immediately Evelyn was able to tell that this liquid was likely some type of poison that worked on contact, and she highly doubted that it only affected other plants.

After the initial shot the bramble dragon fly began rapidly firing its poison shots.

Luckily, Evelyn had already seen this attack before and was confident that she could dodge it now as long as she stayed focused. Or at least, this is what she thought at first.

The bramble dragonfly was not an unintelligent enemy and was not continuing to target Evelyn. Instead of all its shots were targeting Aralee who was engaged with the false hedge wall and was in no position to deal with the high-speed attacks coming at her from behind.

'Damn it!'

Watching the first shot go by her and hearing the pained cry from her sister, Evelyn realized what was going on and had to jump in the path of the reaming jets of poison.

She used all of her power to maintain the shield in front of her, but the monster was not going to simply sit still and batter away at her.

With its incredibly agility it changed potions after every shot and forced Evelyn to do the same if she did not want to let Aralee get hit again. 

The bramble dragonfly was also slowly closing in on Evelyn and making it more and more difficult for her to receive its attacks.

Evelyn only solace in this treasonous situation was that she could still hear the sounds of battle behind her. Cleary Aralee was still alive, and even if she was poisoned, it was not debilitating yet.

Unfortunately, Evelyn situation was not improving and was slowly getting worse.

It was taking all of her focus to defend, and she could not muster up any offensive magic to strike back with while maintaining the magical energy shield in front of her.

The bramble dragonfly was slowly getting closer to her and each of its blasts of poison were becoming stronger. 

Normally Evelyn could just back up in line with the monster's approach, but behind her was the giant wall monster that Aralee was fighting, and bringing their two battles together would only make things far more chaotic and dangerous.

This left Evelyn few options, and it was not long before she had to bet on a risky maneuver to get herself out of the situation she was in.

'Now!'

When the bramble dragonfly had gotten close to breaking through Evelyn's defenses, she dropped her magical energy shield and tilted her body to the side to avoid being directly hit by its incoming attack.

The jet of poison impacted into her armor in one of the thickest areas and ricocheted off into several directions.

A bit of the poison did spray onto Evelyn as it hit her armor, but she ignored the incoming searing pain and kept her focus trained on her enemy.

No longer needing to maintain her shield, Evelyn concentrated all of her magical energy into her heavenly flame and wind magic to propel herself directly towards the swift monster.

At the same time, she extended the horns on her helmet and aimed to pierce through the bramble dragonfly.

Evelyn was moving incredibly quickly and had lured in the monster as close as she could. Avoiding her attack should have been impossible, but the bramble dragon fly once again showed off its extraordinary agility.

The monster twisted its body around and got out of Evelyn's path despite how explosive her acceleration was.

As she passed by the creature her horns only connected with its left front limb and tore it off.

Sadly, this was not much of an injury for the bramble dragon fly, and as Evelyn was flying by it, unable to stop her momentum, it swung out with its barbed tail and slammed it into Evelyn.

Before she knew exactly what had happened, Evelyn felt herself slam into the wall of the maze and bounce off onto the ground where she slid until heavily hitting the wall at the end of the corridor and coming to a painful stop.