An Owl's Rise

'Damn it! Get away from me!'

Unleashing as large a gust as she could Evelyn blew back four of the large jungle spiders that had jumped at her along with two shots of thread that aimed to entangle her.

As they moved deeper into the spiders' territory, their attack became far more frequent an coordinated as the prey dwindled down.

Now even some at the peak of the fiend beast rank were attacking Evelyn, and if not for her ability to lower gravity she certainly would have been overwhelmed.

By making these hefty spiders around a fourth as heavy as what they normally would be, she was able to blow them away with her wind magic, but otherwise it certainly would not be enough.

Along with these increased and more ferocious attacks, she was getting farther and farther behind the examiner, who showed no signs of slowing down as she just barreled through without any issue.

As for the other owls they had started making teams to keep each other safe, but Evelyn had found they did not want her around.

Either because of her low rank, or the fact that they had a degree of malice towards her for their assumed connection she had to the snowy owl.

Still, she kept at it and let her rage drive her forward as she used her wind and gravity manipulation to keep up.

'Screw these stupid spiders. I swear when I learn how to control my heavenly flame I am coming back here and burning them all down to the ground.'

Spinning out of the way of another spider, Evelyn was beginning to get tired of this and wondered how much longer they would be in their territory.

This was only the first trial and the examiner had nearly culled half of the original participants, who were currently being chowed down on by the hundreds of spiders in this area.

Yet a glimmer of light shown through after around another two minutes of struggling, when she saw that the webs that had been spread all over the trees in this area began to lessen.

She figured that they would be exiting the spiders' home soon, and hopefully be done with this first trial.

Unfortunately, with Evelyn was lagging behind now, only ahead of one group of owls that was made up of the majority of the high tier fiends beast owls that were left, a large form descended from the trees to block their path.

Stopping abruptly, she only just barely avoided being caught as this huge form lashed out with one of its legs that had a ball of webbing on it.

This ball of webbing then flew off past her and hit one of the other owls and exploded.

It was like this spider had just launched a web grenade, and with one quick move it pulled in the owl it had caught.

Unfortunately, while she had dodged its first attack, this huge sixteen-foot-long spider had no intention of letting the straggling owls get by and positioned its body between them and the exit.

'An Awakened Beast.'

Looking at this spider there was no doubt in Evelyn's mind that it was a beast that had evolved beyond the fined beast rank and was a low tier awakened beast.

It exuded a powerful aura similar to the other awakened beast she had seen, and she could instinctively tell it was beyond her.

And along with its much larger size, this spider had a far more pronounced green patten over its black body, and a number of spiky protrusions on its head that looked like a crown.

Venom dripped down its long fangs, and as Evelyn starred at it, she thought that it almost seemed to be smiling.

In a flash this spider queen aimed its abdomen forward, and a large web shot out over a wide range of area.

Going into a nosedive Evelyn dove towards the ground, sending out a gust of wind behind her to accelerate faster.

But she quickly saw that she was not going to be fast enough to escape this way and changed her strategy.

Her mind racing, she examined the web falling towards her looking for the largest opening.

It was like time slowed down for her as she did this, and within less than a second, she found her escape route.

Flying towards this opening she tucked her wings in and sucked in her gut to make herself as small as possible.

Just barely she slipped through this hole in the webbing and came out the other side without being caught.

Her smaller relative size to the other owls had finally come in handy here, as none of the other owls could have ever hoped to make it through the opening as Evelyn had.

Nevertheless, all but three of the other owls were now caught in this web and secured as food. While Evelyn and the others were still trapped in between the spider queen and her minions.

Moving forward they would somehow have to get around the giant spider in their way that was at a realm far above them, and behind them the horde of its minions lying in wait.

The other three owls though all opted to take their chances on the weaker spiders they had already gotten by. and flew back the way they came. Deciding to try and preserve their lives over passing this trial.

Except just as Evelyn expected, they were caught and injected with venom almost immediately.

The only reason they had made it this far was because of the spiders had split their attention on the other trial going owls.

Now that they only had the three targets there was no way they could avoid the assault of hundreds of spiders.

'It is waiting to see what I do.' Evelyn thought as she hovered in the air and stared down the queen spider.

She could see that it was enjoying this hunt, and that it wanted her to make the next move so that it could crush her attempt at escape.

'The only path for me is forward. I am going to push through even if it kills me.'