An Owl's Rise

Seeing the figure coming towards her, Evelyn started to panic a bit and looked around to see if there was any way she could get away.

Sadly, she was just way too high in the sky right now to make a dash for the tropical jungle below before the beast would intercept her.

Quickly she decided that her best recourse to avoid a battle was to fly up and hope that the creature descried to return home when she got far enough away.

But when she turned her head back, she saw that it was still coming for her at a high speed that matched her own.

Coming to the conclusion that she had no real chance to get away, Evelyn stopped ascending and flew down to meet whatever was coming.

'Maybe it will be friendly, and it just wanted to come any investigate what I am.' Evelyn thought, trying to stay positive.

Though as she got closer and was able to make out exactly what was coming for her, she knew that there was no hope of a peaceful resolution.

Flying into the sky towards her was a giant stag beetle the size of a semi-truck.

She already new that bugs were very aggressive, and apparently never reached all that high of intelligence, even when they made it to the awakened rank.

Of course, there were likely exceptions, but that did not change the fact that whatever was coming towards her seemed hostile.

'Let's see how you like this. Jet javelins.'

Creating six short spears of made of her heavenly flame, Evelyn wrapped them up with wind and shot them out like missiles.

This was one of her best attacks, and she was hoping to deliver a decisive blow quickly and end the battle before it really began.

But the giant stag beetle was more agile than she thought it would be and spun around to avoid the flames coming at it. And as it opened its pincers, it unleashed a blast of compressed wind towards Evelyn.

Seeing this, it was clear that like her, this huge stag beetle had a wind affinity.

'Blowback wall.'

Conjuring a large wall of wind in front of her, Evelyn watched carefully as the stag beetle's attack impacted her defensive magic and waited to see what happened.

Fortunately, its attack ended up being weaker than her wall, and quickly the wind that had been fired at her was redirected.

This time the stag did not dodge, however, and took its own attack head on.

Tch!

'It has some type of wind barrier.' Evelyn thought seeing the reflected attack be deflected.

Flying around to keep out of its physical range, Evelyn analyzed more about her opponent as they traded ranged attacks.

Quickly she was able to tell that it was an awakened beast, and one at the mid-tier at that.

It definitely did not have full control over its magical energy like Evelyn did, though. As its magic was far sloppier than hers.

'I might be in more trouble if it could properly use magic. But as long as I stay away from its pincers, I should be able to win.'

Turning her body down into a nosedive Evelyn shot towards the ground and the giant stag beetle followed.

It seemed very intent on killing Evelyn who had flown over its domain.

'That's right, continue following me. I just need a little longer.' Evelyn thought as she prepared to strike.

Then when she was ready, she released a surge of magical energy in the air and slowed her speed down.

The stag beetle, thinking it had her, accelerated in a huge burst with its pincers wide open ready to grab her.

But when it passed over the area Evelyn had released magical energy, its trajectory was forcefully changed.

In its haste it had unknowingly run into a gravity trap Evelyn had set, and it was suddenly made many times heavier, along its point of greatest attraction as directed away from Evelyn.

It looked almost like it had bounced off an invisible wall and began rocketing towards the ground at a dangerously high speed.

Somehow it did manage to right itself before impacting against the ground. Thanks in large part to how high they had still been in the air.

However, Evelyn had never expected the ground to settle this battled for her, and she was rapidly descending while twisting her body around.

Looking up, the stag beetle no longer saw the much smaller owl, but a huge raging tornado of fire coming down on it.

All of its instincts began to send it panic signals and it used a gust acceleration to try and fly out of the way.

Yet it was already too late, and as she got close enough Evelyn let loose the strongest magic attack she currently had available to her.

'Crimson Twister.'

Watching her attack being separated from her, Evelyn saw it consume the giant stag beetle that had attacked her and blast its body into the ground below.

The stag beetle for its part tried to resist the attack using the strongest barrier it could create. But as it was completely engulfed, the air around it began to rapidly heat up and its carapace started to ignite into flames even before Evelyn's attack reached it.

Quickly its resistance waned, and the heavenly flames closed in and turned the giant stag beetle into charcoal

When the dust cleared from her attack, Evelyn could only see the blackened corpse of the stag beetle, along with a rapidly colling molten glass surface made in the sand where it had impacted.

'Wow I have never seen exactly how much destruction that attack can cause.' Evelyn thought.

The area for a couple hundred feet around where the twister had touched down was devastated, and plants not even actually hit by it had burst into flames just from the heat.

Luckily Evelyn had not created a massive forest fire, as the heavenly flame burned so incredibly fast that it did not actually have the capacity to spread easily once she cut off its supply of magical energy.