An Owl's Rise

Evelyn went wide eyed as she watched a spear made of water firing towards her.

Time seemed to slow for her as her mind processed how to escape, and her body began moving to get out of the way.

She tried creating a gust of wind in front of her not only to push herself away but to also redirect the spear of water.

However, she had been caught completely off guard and barely had any time to take defensive actions, causing her to be unbale to fully evade the attack.

The water spear quickly pierced into her left wing as she tried to get out of the way, and she felt a searing pain where it hit.

With a large hole now punctured in her wing Evelyn began spiraling down towards the water where she was certainly going to be at a horrible disadvantage.

Yet before she hit the surface, she flapped her right wing wildly while using her wind magic and just managed to throw herself away from the pool of water and onto its banks.

She smashed down hard against the muddy edge where the ground met the water, and quickly she was covered and mud and her own blood that was pouring out of her now horribly injured wing.

After all of her success, it had only taken one moment of carelessness and overconfidence to bring her down.

Still, she was not dead yet, and she pulled herself up out of the mud and began running on her legs to get away.

With her wing as badly injured as it was, flying was certainly no option, and even just trying to run away was causing her a great deal of pain while also making her blood flood out faster.

But had she not gotten up any faster it would have been the end for her, as the master of this pool rose up out of the surface and slammed down onto the ground where she had been only a few moments prior.

Hearing this Evelyn turned her head all the way around while still moving her body forward and she saw a huge snake that had just surfaced from the pool.

It was a very large snake that resembled the appearance of an anaconda, though it had dull blue, green, and brown scales on its body giving it a pretty decent camouflage for the jungle.

Along with its impressive size, Evelyn could see that its stomach was currently bulging a bit, presumably from the other owl that it had recently eaten.

Watching it start to slither towards her, she felt a sense of fear and panic taking over.

The snake was quite obviously faster than her while on land, and her injury only made it less likely that she could get away.

It had been a long time for her since she felt this way, like a cornered animal.

Her recent growth in strength and victory over numerous beasts at a higher rank than her had started to make her feel untouchable.

Unfortunately, for as strong as she had gotten now, she was the one that had been caught off guard this time, and it could very well end up with her losing her life.

'Damn it. I should have been more cautious when approaching the water. But I am not going to die, not here and not ever again.'

With no option left Evelyn turned around to face the snake that was closing in on her with hungry eyes.

Apparently the one owl it had eaten was only enough for its main course, and now it was looking to have Evelyn for dessert.

Evelyn though was not going to be made a meal so easily, and when the snake reared back its head to lunge at her thinking it had cornered its injured prey, she increased the gravity around her as much as she could.

The snake's attempt to lunge at her instead ended with it getting a mouthful of dirt. as its head plunged into the ground when it entered Evelyn's gravity field.

Then while it was stunned from this, she stoked up her heavenly flame with her magical energy and sent a burst of it flying forward.

Sensing the danger coming towards it the snake used its own magic to protect itself. Creating a shield of water in front of its body and blocking the incoming fire.

An explosion of steam erupted from where the flames and water met, and the air was quickly covered by the expanding water vapor.

A moment after this happened the snake began screeching in pain and thrashing its body around wildly. Since while its water had protected it somewhat from the flames, it had been unable to fully dissipated the power of a heavenly flame.

Seeing this Evelyn grimaced, as she had been hoping that this attack would have been enough to kill the snake that was at the peak of the fiend beast rank, but it was apparently quite tough.

Sending more magical energy into her she prepared to unleash another burst of flame and hopefully finish off her current enemy.

But before she could it dove back into the pool of water where it had made its home.

With the threat seemingly having ended, Evelyn sucked the magical energy and the crimson flames she had created back into her body.

She had already expended a great deal of her magical energy just using the first attack, and as this trial was not over yet, she still needed to conserve her strength.

Looking over at her wing she winced seeing the open wound that exposed her flesh and bone.

It was pretty bad, especially for an owl such as herself since it prevented her from flying.

Nevertheless, beasts were actually pretty tough in this world, and her magical energy had already gone to work at healing her body.

The bleeding had stopped, and it no longer hurt quite as much now that she was no longer moving around.

Still, it was pretty bad, and it would likely take her at least a couple of weeks to heal on her own to the point where she could fly at all.

That right now was most defiantly not an option, so she pulled one of the storage amulets the had buried into her feathers out and took out one of the healing oils that her brother had left her.

Yet as she was going to apply the oil, a loud splash caught her attention, and she watched the snake surface one more from the water.

This time it was not going to underestimate Evelyn and had surrounded itself with four spears made of water which it prepared to launch at her.

Seeing this she began to panic and conjure her heavenly flames as well as whip up some wind in defense.

Saving her magical energy now was going to be of no use if she died, so she gave it all she had.

Soon the water spears went flying towards her, and she sent her strength into her legs and jumped to the side to avoid what she could.

Though even with her best efforts two of them were coming right for her, one aimed at her head and the other her torso.

Unleashing the accumulated wind and heavenly flames she fired out three blasts, two to intercept the water spears and another to take out her enemy.

The spears impacted with the flames and wind causing another large explosion of steam as the water was heated rapidly.

This caused Evelyn to be blown away, and she went flying trough the jungle, until after traveling almost three hundred feet she impacted against a thick tree that stopped her momentum.

It was incredibly painful as she felt her body bend and break against the tree and there was no doubt that she had just broken something.

She then slid down the tree leaving a red stain as she did with the wound on her wing having reopened.

Her head was now shaken and her vision blurry, preventing her from being able to see properly.

But she still strained to look towards the pool of water to see if her last desperate attack connected.

As her vision slowly started to clear up, she could see movement around the pool and fear began to take grip over her.

If she had failed to kill the snake, there was no doubt it would be the end for her.

The wounds she had taken were just too much too much for her to fight back now, and even if she was less injured, she barely had any magical energy left.

However, as her fear grew and grew as she anticipated the snake coming for her, it never did, and eventually she saw that its body was floating on the surface of the water, no longer moving.

Her final shot had managed to connect and seared through half of the snake's neck, leaving it not instantly dead but with no hopes of surviving.

The movement Evelyn had seen were its last death throes before it ultimately died.