An Owl's Rise

It took Rehni and Bylur nearly ten minutes to finally regain consciousness after taking Katrina's lightning attack.

Both of them were stiff from their muscles spasming and they could not even stand still.

"Here take these potions and rest for fifteen minutes. Then we will try again." Evelyn said, holding out two potions to both Bylur and Rehni.

A look of fear and defeat was on their faces though, and they clearly did not want to be forced back to health by potions just to take another brutal beating.

In their eyes the battle they had just had with Katrina could hardly be considered training and was more like a one-sided beatdown.

None of their attacks had even gotten close to landing, and most of their time had been spent squirming around trying not to get hit.

"Evelyn, why are you so enthused to continue this? I cannot see us getting stronger by simply being repeatedly crushed by your associate." Rehni said, a despondent look in her eye.

That one match was enough for her to realize the gap between the three of them and Katrina. She had not even tried all that hard in the battle and had beaten the three of them with ease.

Bylur was also in agreement. While he normally would always side with Evelyn, he could not see how them fighting a tyrant rank beast would help them to get stronger.

The difference in sight between them was just too great. The only thing he felt they were learning was the immeasurable difference between the ranks.

"I see, you two have never really had to learn from defeat." Evelyn said.

She had lost plenty of fights, both out in the wild, and against Katrina and Anneli.

For her, getting back up and striving to find a way to beat clearly more powerful opponents was a given.

Bylur and Rehni on the other hand were too stuck on the fact that they could never stand up to others that were at a higher level.

Certainly, Bylur was angry and disappointed that he had lost to Devurg, but he could only lament that his opponent had been at a higher tier.

Had they been at the same level surely, he would have won. All he needed to do to get stronger was continue advancing.

'They are not even trying to see the benefit of this training. I got glimpses of our failures to work properly as a team, but they have it in their minds that we are surely going to lose anyway since Katrina is at the tyrant rank and none of us are.' Evelyn thought, understanding the mindset of her friends.

"Listen up both of you. We need this training more than you think. Just that one bout was enough for me to see that our teamwork is only impressive on the surface level. Sure, we threw out an attack with a lot of power, but Katrina broke it down with ease and sent it right back towards us. What we need to do right now is truly figure out how our powers work together and the best actions we can make as a team rather than individually. When the rain of electricity came down on us, we each prioritized defending ourselves and Katrina just continuously crushed us individually. We had not really been acting like a team in that moment." Evelyn said sternly.

She then reminded them about the combined attack they had taken in their last match as an example of better teamwork.

"Their affinities may have matched up better together than ours do, but their attack was far better than what we just used I am certain of that now. To block it we combined all of our powers, but we would have easily been overrun if I did not use my gravity magic to bail us out. We then only won because we managed to separate them into one-on-one fights and used our trump card potions. As a team we are not nearly as coordinated as they were."

Once Evelyn had finished her impassioned speech, Bylur and Rehni could better understand where she was coming from.

Sure, they had practiced some combinations and maneuvers together, but they had mostly just been sticking stuff together that seemed powerful.

In terms of concrete teamwork, they were actually still pretty lackluster.

It was not like they had assigned any roles other than Evelyn was on support with her wind magic, but often times they just ended up fighting on their own anyway.

"Let us try again, and this time we need to work better together as a team. We were thrown into disarray the moment our first attack was blocked, but we need to not be shaken up so easily. Even if we are going to lose, we need to strive to hang on longer or even get some of our own hits in. Once we get used to fighting Katrina and Anneli, Devurg and his team will not feel like a threat at all."

Nodding their heads, Bylur and Rehni could feel Evelyn's passion, and the despair they had been feeling from having to fight a tyrant rank beast had lessened considerably.

"Are the three of you ready to go again now that you have had your little pep talk?" Katrina said.

Naturally she was ready to continue whenever and had been waiting for Evelyn to rally her teammates.

"Yes, and this time we will last longer and not let you toy with us the entire time." Evelyn said confidently.

Rising back into the air Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni prepared for another match with Katrina.

To start, she let them make the first move again.

This time though, instead of simply launching a big move out the gate, Evelyn suggested that they use another move that would give them a greater advantage over the battlefield.

The air around Bylur began to become thick with mist as he chilled his surroundings and soon snow began falling all around him.

Swiftly it became quite thick, and once it was at an acceptable amount Evelyn whipped up a heavy gust of wind.

In only a few moments a heavy snowstorm had covered the entire training room and visibility had become extremely poor.

Of course, Katrina could still easily pinpoint Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni's location by using her acute hearing to pick up the subtle sounds they were making, but not for long.

Just a couple seconds after the snowstorm had been whipped up, echoes began bouncing around the area. Making it impossible to pinpoint the location of anything via sound.

This was thanks to Rehni's sound magic and a suggestion from Evelyn.

She figured that the best way to deal with a far stronger opponent was not to try and out muscle them with powerful attacks, but to obscure the area.

It had already been proven that the strongest combination attack they currently had was unable to even touch Katrina and was actually quite flawed.

Instead, she had come up with the idea to cut off Katrina's senses so that she could not so easily target them as she had before.

'Hm, this is certainly a better approach than last time. I can tell that Evelyn came up with this strategy. The other two are certainly not as adept at this kind of thinking. Now what do I do here? I could simply send out a wave of fire that would destroy this snowstorm, but most peak awakened rank beast could not so easily accomplish such a feat.' Katrina thought while trying to figure out her plan of counter attacking.

Currently she could only vaguely gauge where Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni were, and just wildly attacking was likely not to get her anywhere.

In the end she decided to spread out a thin layer of magic energy over the area and use it to perceive what was going on instead of relying on her senses that were being obscured.

This was an ability that took a lot of magical energy, but it was not something that was too terribly difficult to use once one had the hang of it. Even Evelyn could use this technique just fine when she was only fiend beast. Though her range was far inferior to what Katrina was currently capable of.

"So, that is what they have done." Katrina mumbled after getting a full read of the area with her spread out magical energy.

All around her she was now surrounded by thin and sharp wires that had small ice sickles jutting out of them.

If Katrina were to simply fly around recklessly, she would find herself being sliced up before she got far.

There was also the added bonus that her lightning magic would get redirected into the wires and harmlessly be carried away into the walls and ground.

Still, this was only a minor inconvenience for Katrina and one she knew how to get rid of easily enough.

Using the advanced power, she had discovered with her lightning affinity upon becoming a tyrant rank beast she sent out a repulsing electromagnetic wave that would blast the wires away.