An Owl's Rise

Nearly a week went by for Evelyn as she continued hunting and gathering materials within the Velinis Desert.

Many creatures that she was after were quite elusive and many times she would have to track her prey for several hours before finally catching up to them.

'I finally found some but of course it has some guards.'

From above Evelyn had spotted the rare magical plant she had been searching for.

It was growing on a large ledge of a nearly sheer cliff that protruded out of the desert.

This magical plant was quite beautiful with thick triangular leaves that spread out in a start pattern with long sharp spines protruding out of it and a large yellow flower sprouting out of the top of it.

It was a necessary ingredient for the highest quality stamina potion that Melisandre had taught Evelyn to make, and quite valuable just by itself.

'One, two, three, four, five, six. That should be enough. I need three for one of my missions, but I can keep the other three for myself.'

Of course, it was not going to be as simple as collecting the plants.

Sitting on the ledge right next to them were four huge sheep.

Yet these were not the classic white fluffy kind that humans sheered for their wool but instead the tough muscular kind with short fur and huge horns.

And unfortunately, as Evelyn had found them just a little after dawn, they had easily spotted her from the light that was beginning to illuminate the desert.

Still, they could not really do anything to Evelyn who was hovering around five hundred feet above them.

They could have tried taking shots at her with their magic but that would just be a waste of energy and they felt no threat from her so long as she stayed high above them.

'Two high tier awakened ranks and two low tiers. Overall, they are one of the stronger groups I have come across in the desert and it could get a bit dicey if I fight them all at once.' Evelyn thought as she circled around.

She was trying to decide if a fight was worth it or if she might want to search elsewhere for an easier battle.

Though in the end she had already been searching for this magical plant off and on the entire time she had been in the desert, and this was the first time she had come across any. If she passed up this chance, she could waste days trying to find more.

'I at least have one advantage. My rank does not truly represent my power and they do not know that.'

With her choice made Evelyn slowly lowered her altitude towards the desert sheep.

When she got to around a hundred and fifty feet above them the sheep got up and took defensive stances.

The earth around them started to shift and form into numerous spikes and they prepared to send a volley of attacks at Evelyn should she get any closer.

'Wind Blade.'

To start things off she targeted down one of the high tier sheep with a relatively weak attack compared to what she normally used.

She wanted them to believe that she was just a cocky low tier awakened rank beast and that they could deal with her easily enough.

Her attack was easily blocked by the sheep's' earth magic, and they returned fire at her.

This song and dance went on for nearly three minutes as Evelyn would firing off comparatively weak wind attacks and then dodge the sheep's retaliation.

Eventually one of the high tier sheep got frustrated and charged towards Evelyn to either shoo her off or kill her if possible.

'That is right. Come get me.' Evelyn thought with a smile on her face as she turned around led the sheep away.

During her supposed retreat she made sure to stay low enough to the ground and not fly too fast to allow the sheep to keep attacking her and not forget the rage she had induced by assaulting its home.

Soon enough she had it around a thousand feet away and it launched a large attack at her that forced her to fly up rapidly to avoid.

After that it felt she would get the message and turned around to return to its family and continue protecting their treasure.

'I suppose this is far enough.' Evelyn thought.

With the sheep's back now turned to her Evelyn no longer attacked with any restraint and poured out her magical energy into her heavenly flame.

The desert sheep that had been chasing her immediately noticed the spike in her magical energy and turned around to see her create a massive sphere of crimson fire.

Using her wind magic Evelyn began spinning the flames around and speeding them up and when she felt the attack had the power behind it she wanted she increased the gravity around her and used her extreme press on the sphere of compressed wind and flame.

Like a burning meteor Evelyn magic feel down onto the sheep that had begun running away when it felt her true power.

When Evelyn attack was only a couple of seconds from hitting the fleeing sheep, the apex beast of the desert knew it could not get away and tried to defend instead.

Its body quickly became coated in metal, and it created a large dome of earth around it.

BOOM!

With a resounding explosion Evelyn's magic attack that combined all of her powers hit the dome of earth, collapsed in on itself and a spray of sand and rock spread out for hundreds of feet.

Once everything had cleared, Evelyn could see that the ground was molten and in the middle was the desert sheep clinging to life.

By using its metal affinity to strengthen its body it just managed to avoid being killed by the blast, but it was in terrible shape despite living.

Third degree burns spread over most of its body, and it was wheezing from being overheated.

Without immediate attention from a high-quality healing potion or entity that could use powerful life magic it was sure to die.

'Wow, that did more than I thought it would. This is the first time I have tried using everything at once in a single attack, and I have to say that the results were impeccable. The only problem is that took nearly twenty percent of my magical energy in one attack.'

Evelyn was shocked by the power that her all out attack had and for a few moments just stared at the large molten crater she had created.

The fact that the sheep had survived this even if it had great defense was a testament to how powerful it.

The loud sounds of distress soon took Evelyn's attention over her own power, and she noticed the other three sheep running towards her

It seemed that they were concerned for their comrade and were rushing over to aid it.

But as touching as this scene was, Evelyn had no intention of letting any of them go now that she had chosen them as targets.

For the next six minutes she and the sheep had a hit and run battle where they traded magic attacks until she finally was able to fell the final high tier awakened rank sheep.

It went down with a loud bleat of a death cry as the blood loss from the numerous wounds Evelyn had inflicted on it brought it to an end.

'That was a bit difficult. These were not your average awakened rank beasts. They were all of a higher quality like I am.' Evelyn thought while huffing and puffing.

The three sheep coordinating together put up a pretty good fight against her and now that the desert sun was higher the heat was getting to her and her magical energy was at only around thirty percent.

Nevertheless, she had won the battle that should have had her hopelessly outmatched by the difference in numbers and rank.

Now that the guardians of the magical plants she wanted were dead Evelyn headed on over to collect her prize.

Of course, she did make sure to pull out all the sheep's corpses and horns as well since they were valuable materials.

'Ever so carefully dig out the roots.' Evelyn thought while pulling out the first plant.

She needed to make sure not to damage them, or worse mess up and get pierced by their poison laced needles.

However, when she was trying to pull out the second one, she felt a new presence approaching her.

It was not as strong as the high tier sheep, but she could tell it was not a weakling.

'A mid-tier beast of some kind. Must have been attracted by the battle.' Evelyn thought as she turned around to face the new foe.

Except when she saw them, she just looked at it in a daze for a moment since it was not what she was expecting.

Before her was a tiny owl that was less than a foot tall despite being at the mid-tier of the awakened rank.

With a quick glance she looked towards its feet to see if it was wearing an identification cuff, but it had nothing on it.

'I guess it is an enemy then.'

Standing up straight and spreading her wings Evelyn let out an intimidating screech to try and get the other owl to leave. She was already tired and did not want to go through another battle if she did not have to. Especially against a member of the same species.

"Please wait! I do not mean you any harm. I only want to ask for your help, oh great one." The tiny owl said using wind magic as it slammed its head into the ground in a show of subservience