An Owl's Rise

Evelyn feeling her entire body broken, could hardly hang onto her consciousness.

The backlash from using more of the Aethersphere's power than her body and the already damaged item could handle was more than she ever could have anticipated.

However, the immense pain she was feeling was suddenly dulled a bit as a soothing sensation began washing over her body.

'What is happening? Is my body shutting down because the pain is too much to bear?'

Believing that she simply could not take anymore. Evelyn took the fact that her pain was starting to ease a bit as a sign that she was dying.

But her senses did not start to fade away like they had last time she died, and she realized that this was not what was going on.

She struggled to open her eyes, and when she did, she was surprised to see Bylur dumping potion after potion on her body and using his life magic to unleash pulses of healing energy.

And when he saw that Evelyn was awake, he started placing potions up to her beak as well and letting her drink them.

This helped to fix her broken body even faster, but the quality of potion that Bylur had on hand was not strong enough to fix all of the terrible wounds that currently permeated Evelyn's body. Even with the added effect of his life magic.

Still, it was at least capable of keeping her from dying on the spot which certainly would have happened without his help.

"Thank…you…for… saving…me." Evelyn said with immense strain over the magical connection Bylur had made with her.

Truly she was grateful for his help and knew that without it she would have met her end again.

"Don't force yourself to communicate. I do not know what happen to you, but your body is a wreak. It is a miracle you are alive. Now brace yourself, I am going to get you out of here."

Slowly and carefully, Bylur began positioning Evelyn on his back so that he could carry here off of this hellish mountain.

"AGHHHH!"

Suddenly an ear-piercing scream erupted from the huge plumb of smoke that was left in the wake of Evelyn's final attack.

"DON'T THINK THAT WAS ENOUGH TO COME CLOSE TO TAKING ME DOWN!"

Roaring as loudly as she could, Hollis emerged from the smoke that had been obscuring her and fixed an enraged glare towards Evelyn.

No longer was there any amount of composure in her face that was warped completely in wrath.

'How is it still alive after all that!?' Bylur thought in astonishment.

He had witnessed Evelyn's final attack and never figured anything could survive being engulfed by such a devastating inferno.

Except not only was the empress dryad not dead, but her injures were mostly superficial.

Certainly, she did have scotch marks all over her body, but they were only at the surface level. With the only major damage that had been done being that her left hand was missing.

Yet even the little bit of damage Evelyn had given her all for and broken her body in the process of achieving was already healing at a rapid rate.

This was simply the overwhelming difference in power between them. Even with the boost from the unleashed potential potion Evelyn's power fell quite short of being able to kill an entity this strong.

Panic setting in, Bylur who literal had Evelyn's life on his back took off and began flying away as fast as he could.

He knew that trying to fight was foolhardy and that escape was the only option.

"You will not get away from me!"

Vines began exploding out with tremendous speed from Hollis' body and headed directly for Bylur.

Doing his best, he used his magic liberally to create blocks of ice that impeded the vines while also doing difficult aerial maneuvers that were only more challenging with Evelyn on his back.

"Just…leave… me…I…am… her…target."

Feeling that she could not drag the snowy owl down, Evelyn asked that he simply abandon her and save himself.

Of course, in response he told Evelyn to stay quiet to conserve her energy and leave everything to him.

For nearly a minute in an astonishing display, he did manage to keep ahead of the vines chasing him and keep Evelyn safe. But in the end, it was not something he could keep up, and his magical energy gave out as he was hit hard by one of the vines.

It took everything he had just to keep Evelyn on his back, as he lost control of his momentum and crashed hard into the ground.

Now his own injuries were quite bad, and he found that one of his wings were sprained. Making it so he could no longer get back into the air.

Though even if he had been fine, it would not have made a difference in this situation. The enemy he had been doing his best to avoid was now positioned right above them with thousands of vines spread out around her body.

"This is the end for the two of you. In honor of your struggle against me, I think I will preserve both of your corpses as trophies."

Raising her hands Hollis prepared to deliver the final blow with all the vines around her vibrating as they charged up for one last attack.

BOOM!

Before the attack could be unleashed though, a colossal explosion of flame suddenly assaulted the outside of the barrier that had been preventing Evelyn and her squad from escaping the area.

Then with a resounding crash, like breaking glass, the barrier fell apart and the immense blaze shot down on top of Hollis.

It seemed that this powerful attack which had saved Evelyn and Bylur from being skewered was going to spread out and kill them instead.

Except, the raging flames did not even touch Evelyn or Bylur, and actually formed a protective dome around them.

"WHO DARES?!" Hollis screamed as she jumped out of the flames and looked for their source in a fury.

Quickly her eyes trained on the origin of the attack, and she saw the humanoid owl with dark blue wings standing right in front of Evelyn and Bylur.

"Melisandre!"

Completely shocked, Evelyn could not believe her eyes. Standing in front of her was her master who should have still been at the Roost.

However, before Evelyn could say or do anything else, the empress dryad resumed her attack and launched a massive beam of light at them.

"Why don't you cool off and give us a minute."

Waving her hand Melisandre created a torrent of water that shot off in the shape of a giant serpent.

When the spell impacted the blast of light from Hollis, the two battled it out for a few moments, before Melisandre's won out and began wrapping up the empress dryad.

"There, that ought to give us a little bit of time." Melisandre said as she turned towards Evelyn and Bylur.

"You did a good job holding out until I got here. Now take these and leave everything else to me." Melisandre said as she handed two golden potions to Bylur and Evelyn.

She then turned to face her opponent who was close to ripping off the water serpent restraining her.

"Wait...how…did…you…get…here?" Evelyn asked.

"Your message got through to your leader who relayed it back to Roost and asked for aid. The other higherups of the Roost are still debating if the threat is credible, but I trusted you and flew over as fast as I could. There is no way I am just going to let my treasured disciple die fighting a monster that outclasses her when I can help it." Melisandre said with a confident smile.

After that she waved her hand and a whirling barrier of water surrounded Evelyn and Bylur before she took off to face down Hollis.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. I just had a couple things I need to do first." Melisandre said as she floated around three hundred feet away from Hollis' face.

At this point the empress dryad had broken out of the binding spell Melisandre had used and was eying here warily.

"A peak sovereign beast. Now this is unexpected. However, it makes no difference. I have killed beasts that are stronger than you in the past. If you value your life, you should leave those two. It is not worth dying over just two fiend beasts."

Hearing this Melisandre began laughing, and said, "Spare me your weightless threats. I am not so blind that I cannot see you are bluffing. Truly your rank is higher than mine and equivalent to a calamity beast, but do not think I cannot see how injured you are. There are cracks all through your soul that have yet to heal. I am certain you cannot even use half of your true power right now. In your current state you stand no chance against me."

Grinding her teeth, Hollis' frustration was rising. Melisandre was completely right that she could use far less power now than when she was at her peak over two hundred years ago.

In her current crippled state, she could at best use around forty percent of her power. But after using so much energy to erect a wide scale barrier and having taken a few damaging attacks, her limits were closer to thirty percent.

"Even so, I am still stronger than you. I can understand wanting to protect that fiend beast since she has assimilated a heavenly flame, but I will have it. If you stand against me, I will simply remove you."

Chapter 158 Melisandre's Intervention