An Owl's Rise

Waking up after her exhausting previous day, Evelyn let out a long yawn.

Shaking her body off and creating a gust of wind around her, she blew off all of the dust that had settled on her body while she slept.

'Okay, time to get out of here. I need to get away from that massive flower and the snake protecting it. As well as increase the distance between me and that infernal lab.'

Hopping out of the abandoned nest she had spent the night in, Evelyn spread her wings out and flapped them around a few times before leaping back into the air.

She did not know how far she needed to travel to escape these woods, but she had every intention of heading in one direction until she made it somewhere else.

However, unknown to her was that as she left her temporary shelter, a pair of people who were out specifically looking for owls spotted her.

It was truly bad luck that she had got their gaze, but for these two people it could be considered quite fortunate.

'Huh what is that sound?'

Suddenly hearing what sounded like a sharp whistling sound, Evelyn turned her head around in time to see a harpoon coming right for her.

Spinning around and taking evasive action, she just barely dodged being impaled on the sharp and sleek metal rod.

Looking towards the source of this attack she saw two humans, a male and a female running after her.

Except unlike what the people who had captured and confined her before were wearing. These humans were wearing a white military uniform.

'Those must be some of the people that attacked the facility. I suppose that means that they were after the Aethersphere that was put inside me.'

Seeing as how she was being pursued by unknow assailants, Evelyn could only conclude that they wanted her divine item.

Turning her head back around she picked up her pace and lowered the gravity around herself.

While last time she had not been fast enough to escape the humans that hunted her, this time she hoped things might be different.

Yet as she began gaining on the humans that were after her, one of them began casting a spell.

"Accelerate."

After the female human that was chasing Evelyn cast his spell, a soft white glow surrounded her and her partner.

The two of them sped up dramatically with this spell, and Evelyn soon had them hot on her heels again.

'Damn it they are persistent.' Evelyn thought as she banked to the left to avoid the harpoon being thrown at her again.

With fleeing not seeming to be and option, Evelyn began racking her brains on what to do.

She did not even consider the notion of fighting them, as she had seen her parents lose spectacularly to a single human in the past.

Of course, these two were actually not as strong as the man who beat her parents, but she had no way to know that.

The fear and trauma she had of humans made her see them as major threats to be avoided at all costs and to go after only if they were already on the verge of death.

'Agh why could they not just leave me alone?'

Continuing to dodge attacks from these two, Evelyn was beginning to feel the pressure.

The man had now stated using magic as well, and every time he completed his spell, a shard of glass shot right for her.

'At this rate I am going to run out of magical energy and will get caught.'

Having to use gusts of wind while also lowering her own gravity to keep ahead of these humans, Evelyn was burning through the magical energy she had.

Eventually she was going to run out and that would be the end for her.

But as she continued dodging the human's attacks much to their annoyance, she came up with a plan.

It was incredibly risky, and she figured that it had a high chance of getting her killed.

But she would rather die a quick death while trying to survive than to be captured again.

Abruptly turning she starting going in a different direction than where she had been fleeing to before.

There was a certain location she was aiming for now, and if she could make it there, she might just have a chance of ditching these two persistent humans.

Increasing the output of her wind bursts and lowering her gravity, Evelyn boosted her speed again.

She knew she could not keep this up for long, but she wanted to cover as much distance as possible quickly to avoid being hit by any attacks.

Luckily her increased speed also forced her pursers to speed up, and now they were spending most of their energy chasing after her and could only send out the occasional attack that had no chance of hitting.

Weaving in and out of the trees, Evelyn moved quickly and purposefully towards her destination, which the humans had failed to notice because of how intent they were on catching her

While they were not certain that she was the one with the object they had been told to retrieve. This was the first owl they had come across that had managed to continue to avoid them for this long.

Also, she seemed to have some sort of strange power and was manipulating magic quite well for a recently ascended fiend beast.

'There it is. Hopefully it does not kill me.'

Flying out of the woods and into a large clearing, Evelyn was now out in the open in the area around the massive red flower that reached high into the sky.

Though that was not the reason she had come back here, but instead for the beast that was protecting it.

She was hoping that the humans would turn tail and run the second they saw the snake the size of a freight train.

'I am just a speck of dust. I am just a speck dust.' Evelyn thought as the serpent's eyes bored into her.

Naturally it had sensed the entities that were moving towards its location and turned its head toward them when Evelyn appeared in its clearing.

But when it saw what was chasing after her and recognized that they were humans. Tts eyes narrowed and it let out a murderous aura.

It had dealt with humans in the past, and it hated them

Immediately it understood what the owl that was flying by was trying to do.

As soon as the humans chasing after Evelyn entered the clearing they realized where they were.

They had been too intent on chasing Evelyn and had realized too late where they were being led.

Freezing in fear, they stared in horror at the ruler of the deadlands and the beast that had claimed the treasure that had drained the majority of the mana out of this area.

No longer were their minds on the owl they had been pursuing, and all that consumed them was an all-encompassing fear that ordered them to run away.

Yet before they could even take one step, the colossal serpent swung its tail so fast that it was unperceivable, and a loud shockwave resounded thought the area as it broke past the sound barrier many times over.

In an instant the two humans that had been chasing Evelyn were turned to mist and dust as the serpent's tail connected with them.

It was an overwhelming display of power, as with one simple lash of its tail it had obliterated the two humans that had been after Evelyn.

Following its attack, she watched the forest shake, and the area around where the serpent's tail had impacted had left a huge scar in the ground.

Gulping, Evelyn felt the serpent's gaze turn back towards her, and she thought that any moment now she would be on the receiving end of its tail.

But after just giving her a menacing glance, it lowered its head back down and nodded back off to sleep.

It was going to give Evelyn a freebie this time since it understood what it was like to be chased by humans.

However, if she tried the same stunt again, it would not be so friendly.