An Owl's Rise

Having taken an early lead thanks to Devurg and his teammates recklessness, Evelyn's team had managed to heavily wound Trine and practically take her out of the battle.

At the moment Kless was trying to keep them at bay with a barrage of sonic attacks, while Devurg helped the injured Trine, But Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni were not simply going to let their advantage go to waste.

'Sound based attacks are normally pretty annoying to deal with, but thanks to Rehni we do not have to worry too much.' Evelyn thought.

While the overall magical energy that Rehni had fell slightly below Kless her control over her abilities was significantly better.

She was able to intercept his sound-based attack and weaken them to the point of being harmless with relative ease and far less magical energy.

"Hurry up an take the potions I gave you both. We need to press the attack now." Evelyn said to Rehni and Bylur.

The two of them formed up quickly behind Evelyn after she said this, and while they drank the potions she spread out a wide magical energy barrier to protect them.

This left them vulnerable to being rushed since two of their team members were preoccupied, but in order to do so, Kless would have to attack them alone, or Devurg would have to abandon Trine. Either way it would be too big of a gamble.

Instead Kless tried to pressure Evelyn with a more powerful attack than the cover fire he had been shooting off.

A missile made of sound blasted out from in front of his body and headed right for Evelyn.

Yet despite the incoming attack she did not falter and poured in more magical energy into her barrier. Holding nothing back.

The attack impacted hard against Evelyn's barrier, and a deafening sound echoed through the area, but other than a few cracks where the attack impacted, nothing of consequences happened.

Naturally this shocked not only Kless who had launched the attack, but also Devurg and Trine who were watching from afar.

Being only a mid-tier awakened rank Evelyn had successfully blocked Kless' full power attack when he was two tier above her.

And it was not a small magical energy barrier she was maintaining around herself. She had also fully protected Bylur and Reni who were behind her.

"Evelyn we are ready." Rehni said after discarding the last potion she had consumed.

A smile on her ace Evelyn began pulsing with magical energy and released a heavy gust of wind that enveloped Bylur and Rehni.

The magic she was using now was similar to what she had used in their last match that finally ranked them up into he top five thousand teams, but now she was far more proficient with it and did not constantly have to focus to maintain the spell and could use other magic alongside it.

Now fully buffed up by potions and Evelyn's support magic, Bylur and Rehni flew into action against their shaken and weakened opponents.

Flying behind them Evelyn lowered the gravity around them to increase their speed further, and faster than what their enemies thought imaginable they were right on top of them.

Bylur had headed directly towards Devurg to settle the score from their previous duel, and Rehni had moved to take on Kless.

Evelyn positioned herself in between the two of them, but kept her focus more on supporting Bylur since his opponent was stronger, and while Trien was injured, she had received a healing potion from Devurg and was beginning to recover.

Swiftly, Rehni began pressuring Kless who used the same type of magic as her.

She had just consumed three potions from Evelyn that increased her swiftness, durability, and the amount of magical energy she could wield.

All of them were simple potions that buffed base abilities but they were heavily refined and the highest quality that Evelyn could make.

Under the effects of these potions and the added mobility that Evelyn's wind magic support was providing her, Rehn held a clear advantage over Kless despite him being far larger than her and of a higher rank.

While Rehni dealt with Kless, Evelyn and Bylur were taking on Devurg and the injured Trine.

Bylur was trading blows with Devurg, with both of them launching heavy attacks at each other.

It was a violent and bloody close quarters battle with rocks and ice flying around.

And despite Bylur being smaller and physically weaker he was easily holding his own against Devurg now, instead of how easily he was dealt with before.

The way he was fighting could even be considered reckless but Evelyn was maneuvering around to prevent Devurg from landing a solid attack on Bylur by forcing him to deal with her wind magic.

At the same time, she was also constantly unleashing wind blades at the nearby Trine who was trying to help Devurg.

Evelyn's blades of wind would easily slice through the vines and branches Trine was trying to control and forced her to seek shelter in the cave that Devurg had made in the side of one of the stone spires.

'Looks like Bylur has worn Devurg down quite a bit. They have both taken about the same amount of damage, but Bylur can heal off any light injures easily enough with his life magic.' Evelyn thought as the battle continued.

Things had been going well for them thanks to their opening trap working so well and allowing them to cripple one of their enemies.

"Bylur, you have done enough for now. Go help Rehni. I will hold these two until you both get back. Make sure to hurry up though, you do not want me to get injured right?" Evelyn said.

At first Bylur seemed reluctant to leave since he was finally getting to beat up on Devurg, but this was one of the strategies that they had come up with and he knew to follow Evelyn's orders.

Anyway, he felt that if he performed ell that he could score some points with Evelyn, and certainly did not want her to get hurt.

With great haste he disengaged from Devurg and flew over to where Rehni was battling it out with Kless.

Just like his fight she was winning, but it had become a war of attrition.

They were not strong enough to crush their opponents in one hit, especially since they had been focusing heavily on defense.

"On no you don't, I am keeping you here until they are finished. Since you are both weakened now, I should have no problems." Evelyn said to Devurg who tried to rush to follow Bylur.

She had moved in between him and launched a volley of wind blades. Some at him and some at Trine who was still trying to recover from her punctured wing.

In a minute she would likely be able to fly again, but until then she was grounded and forced to take any attack that came towards her.

Devurg grimaced at Evelyn and glanced between Trine and Kless.

If he left Trine alone Evelyn could possibly take her out, but it was clear that Kless was not going to hold out for much longer being attacked two on one.

Devurg himself was pretty worn out from his fight with Bylur and the frost covering his body was slowing him down in two ways.

Not only had it made him a bit heavier but the cold was starting to slow down his reactions.

If he was in peak condition he would have tired to push past Evelyn and help Kless to form back up with him and Trine, but right now he knew that was not possible.

The only chance he could see to win was to take Evelyn down now while she was alone and then face Bylur and Rehni afterwards with trine.

This decision meant that he would have to abandon Kless and allow him to be defeated, but it was the only chance towards victory that Devurg could see.

'Oh, looks like he is getting serious.'

Seeing the visible wave of magical energy coming off of Devurg Evelyn could tell eh was about to use a powerful spell.

However, despite all of the power Devurg was amassing Evelyn remined completely calm.

Soon a large spherical mass of rock had formed in front of Devurg and it began to wriggle around.

Five serpent like heads formed out of the stone that was moving fluidly, and each one fixed itself to towards Evelyn.

"You should feel honored. This is my strongest spell stone hydra, and I am going to use it to crush an upstart like you." Devurg said to Evelyn.

The five serpentine heads then flew towards Evelyn and began chomping down their large mouths that were easily wide enough to swallow her whole.

Except as ferocious as the attack was, Evelyn nimbly evaded it and still had the leeway to fire off her own attacks back at Devurg and Trine.

In fact, the five hydras made of rock seemed to only be a minor inconvenience that was forcing her to move around a little more.

With unparalleled grace and speed Evelyn dodged around the each of the hydra's heads like she knew where they were going to come from before they started moving. And this was exactly what was happening.

She had seen this move used in some of the recordings of Devurg's matches and figured out how it worked.

It would take an immense amount of focus to control all five heads simultaneously at one time, and Evelyn noticed that there were actually set patterns for their movements.

After committing each pattern to memory, she knew exactly how Devurg's magic was going to move.