An Owl's Rise

Channeling her magical energy into the Aethersphere, Evelyn prepared the new ability it had given her.

In terms of raw power, it was definitely the best it had, and she as certain that it would be useful.

'Extreme Press.'

The second Evelyn used this new magic she felt even the massive amount of magical energy she possessed after evolving draining away. But that was a necessary price to use such power.

A vibrant circle of glowing purple energy swiftly surrounded Melisandre, and she looked at it curiously before suddenly begin slammed into the ground.

Even the ten times gravity she had been feeling before was nothing compared to this. Which pushed down on her with even greater power that compounded along with Evelyn's gravity field.

This new power of hers allowed her to create a focused increased or lessened gravity attack on single targets that were within her gravity field's range and hit them with far greater effects.

Its only downside was the immense amount of magical energy it required, but it made practically everything within twenty meters of Evelyn her area of attack.

'Looks like even Melisandre cannot take that much easily. Though I should stop before the floor gives out.' Evelyn thought, happy to see how her new power worked.

But before she could, Melisandre exploded with magical energy, and she froze up.

A waterspout then formed under Melisandre and lifted her up despite the heavy gravity pouring down on her.

Now that she had a platform that would not collapse under her, she looked towards Evelyn with a sharp glint in her eyes.

"Truly, this is more impressive than I thought. I think even some low tier tyrant beasts would struggle under this much pressure. Now let's see if your defense has gotten any better."

Hearing this, Evelyn immediately tensed up and jumped off the ground and into the air to better evade.

She had fought a bit with Melisandre, though never all that seriously. But the look in her master's eyes right now made her afraid.

And in response to her terror, Melisandre created a large ball of water in front of her which she filled with fire.

It was similar to the boiling meteor shower attack she had used before. Though much smaller and only a single ball instead of hundreds.

When Melisandre fired it off, Evelyn's mind began racing as the projectile rushed towards without caring for the ten times gravity it was flying through.

'Extreme press and reverse press.'

Pouring out her magical energy with no restraint, Evelyn created two more circles with which to use her power. One which she laid in the path of Melisandre's attack, and another she placed right below her.

In an instant the projectile launched by Melisandre shifted downward as Evelyn hit it with her strongest increase in gravity. While at the same time doing the reverse for herself and shooting upwards no that she was as light as a feather.

By a hair's breadth she avoided the attack as she flew towards the ceiling, and it was forced towards the ground.

A loud boom followed, and she looked behind her to see the floor of the room carved out where Melisandre's attack had impacted.

After her shock had worn off Evelyn could only turn her gaze towards Melisandre and fix her with an incredulous look.

"What were you thinking?! That could have killed me!"

Naturally Evelyn was a bit angry with suddenly being assaulted with such a powerful attack. Especially after she had just made a recovery from her last near-death experience.

"Oh, I doubt an attack on that level would have done all that much damage to you now. I think you must not realize just how tough you have gotten. Here allow me to show you."

In a flash Melisandre had created another ball of water and fire, but this one flew out much faster and Evelyn had no time to really defend against it.

The next thing she knew shew as being reintroduced to the ground and skipped across it like a ball since the gravity around her was still lowered.

'Ow.'

Feeling sore in her chest where she had been hit, Evelyn just wanted to role over and pass out.

Still her eyes quickly shot back open when she realized she had not died or been seriously injured.

"See, what did I tell you. You have become more durable than you thought you were. Before that attack would have probably ripped into you, but now it just gave you a hefty bruise."

Once she had finished making her point, Melisandre splashed a healing potion on Evelyn and the damage she had taken faded away within a few seconds.

"Was that really necessary. You could have just told me that I was able to take hits better. Anything you attack with scares me now that I know what you are really capable of." Evelyn said as she got up.

"Oh no, I think that was very necessary. Now you know exactly what you can take and can gage what attacks are really a threat to you. Also, I want to make sure you do not get conceited just because you got stronger. There are still thousands of owls just within the Roost that are still more powerful than you, and out in the world there are many, many more. Even I have to be careful not to let my power here in the Roost go to my head. I may be among the strongest here, but there are easily several hundreds of beings that I would stand little chance against outside of the Roost."

Receiving Melisandre's warning, Evelyn could only grit her beak in frustration, because she knew her master was right.

She had gotten a little full of herself with her new gravity power she had obtained, and it showed when she let herself get caught up in momentarily knocking Melisandre down.

"Anyway, I have to say that your powers really did catch me off guard. I do not think I have ever seen anything quite so unfair. It works on your opponent no matter what the difference in your level is and all the tricks I tried did notion to get rid of it. Even your heavenly flame is not quite that oppressive in that I can still at least block it with magical energy as long as I use enough. So, in that regard I recommend that you try to limit you use of it as well. It is quite the mysterious power even if it is not all that showy. Some might start asking questions should they find out about. If possible, I recommend you just stick to wind magic for the most part. It is pretty common, especially among birds, and no one will bat an eye at it."

Nodding her head, Evelyn agreed to adhere to Melisandre's warning. She figured that so long as a fight could be settled with her wind magic, that she would use it over her other flashier powers.

"Good, make sure to keep everything I told you in mind. I want to make sure you have enough time to get stronger so you can protect yourself. Now go get cleaned up and get some rest. Tomorrow we are going to see the leader of the Roost. You have to thank her properly and after what I told her about you, she wants to meet you personally."