An Owl's Rise

After dealing with the first of the large snapping turtles that were inhabiting the pond for of soothing lily pads Evelyn quickly got to work on the next two.

While they were more cautious after their friend had been killed by her, they did not possess very high levels of intelligence and when Evelyn started stealing the lily pads, they had no recourse but to attack.

Unfortunately for them, this led to the same outcome as their friend, and they were floated up into the air where Evelyn first cooked them before dropping them from a few hundred feet and allowing gravity to finish them off.

'Whew the biggest one with the spikey shell gave me a bit of trouble with those blasts of water, but it was nothing I could not deal with.' Evelyn thought as she watched the final turtle crash into the ground and quickly expire.

While all of the turtles had been at the high tier of the fiend beast rank, this turtle seemed to have been a unique specimen similar to how Evelyn had evolved differently due to the Aethersphere's influence.

Nevertheless, she had managed to win with relative ease once she lured the turtles out of their pond.

'Now to collect what I fought for.'

Flying back to the now undefended pond, Evelyn quickly grabbed up all thirty-four of the soothing lily pads and placed them into her storage amulets.

'That was quite the haul if I do say so.' Evelyn thought happily.

She was quite proud of her accomplishments, and she had secured even more materials than she needed to complete her mission.

'Now for the turtles. I do not know if they have any uses, but I might as well take them.'

However, as Evelyn went to pick up the corpses of the turtles, she found that a scavenger had already found one of them.

Picking through the steamed corpse of the first turtle she had killed was a large vulture looking bird.

It was easily larger than Evelyn was, being around eight feet tall, but it was only a mid-tier fiend beast.

The thief never stood a chance as she swopped down silently and pierced right into its head with her talons as it was about to rip the core out of the snapping turtle.

'I need to be more careful about leaving things lying around. Time to clean everything up quickly and get out of here.'

Having nearly had one of her kills stolen from her Evelyn quickly stored the vulture's and the snapping turtle's corpse away before picking up the other two.

Once she had all of her spoils, she quickly left the area not intent on waiting to see if anything else might show up to investigate the rucks she had caused.

'This seems to be a safe enough place.'

Landing on top of a large flat topped tree Evelyn felt she was in a decently protected area as it was high off the ground and obscured from the outside by the tree's thick leaves.

'First the lily pads, then the beasts.'

Evelyn pulled out the lily pads and began breaking them down as she only needed their flowers and roots.

She carefully used her talons like knives and cut away the roots and flowers, before storing them in the preservation jars that Melisandre had loaned her.

'That is what I need for the mission. Now the rest are for me to use personally.' Evelyn thought as she finished carving up the first three of the lily pads.

The next dozen hours she spent breaking down the remaining lily pads and the snapping turtles that had once been guarding them.

For the vulture she simply removed its core and tossed its body away knowing she had no need of such a weak, and frankly revolting beast.

Though as soon as she was done and was no longer focused on her work, her stomach began growling loudly as it demanded more food.

'I suppose that it had been a while since I last ate, and I have been exerting myself. I guess it is turtle for dinner.' Evelyn thought.

Swiftly she took some of the turtle meat she had carved up, and using her heavenly flame gave it a good roasting before chowing down.

'Mmm, I have never had turtle before, but this is pretty good.' Evelyn though as she tore large chunks of meat away.

Soon she had already eaten several pounds of meat from the turtle and was feeling satiated.

'Now for dessert.'

Taking out two of the cores she had just obtained Evelyn plopped them into her mouth and felt the magical energy inside break down and nourish her body and cores.

'Ah that was good. It had been too long since I last ate some other beast cores. But now it is time to get back out there. I can rest once I have obtained the last things I need from this area.'

Taking back off into the sky Evelyn headed back towards the shore of the lake and began looking out for her next target.

It was already well into the night and nearly dawn, and if she did not find what she was looking for now she would have to wait till dusk tomorrow when it was most active.

'There is the first one.'

Spotting the type of beast she was looking for, Evelyn scanned the area for any sort of threats before swooping down to capture her prey.

Surprisingly, even though she made no noise and attacked from its blind spot, the beast she was after jumped to the side as it sensed the impending danger to its life.

It then let out a snort and the mud on the bank of the lake rose up and fired at Evelyn.

Seeing the large glob of mud coming for her, Evelyn created a large gust of wind that dispersed it and sent it flying away from her.

However, while not a speck of mud got on her, the prey she was after had begun running away into the forest.

'Damn, I am not being out done by a capybara.' Evelyn thought as she flew after it.

She chased the large four-legged rodent through the forest, and with her gravity and wind magic was able to catch up even though it was doing tis best to shake her.

This time she took no chanced and sent out a fast-moving wind blade before circling around and coming at the capybara with her talons ready.

If it tried to dodge the wind blade it would end up in her talons, while if it did not it would suffer quite the wound.

Yet in what Evelyn thought was a foolish move, it tanked the wind blade and went on a counter offense by firing out a large chuck of the ground towards Evelyn.

Having to evade she spun around rapidly and shot higher up into the air where she could dodge attacks from the ground better.

Looking down at the capybara she could see that the large gash her wind blade had left was already healing and would be completely gone in a couple of minutes.

'Great, the blood that I need to make healing items is making this more difficult than I thought it would be.

Watching the capybara rapidly healing, Evelyn was pressing her mind to think up a new plan of attack.

Certainly, she could try roasting it with her heavenly flame, but she needed it as intact as possible since its blood was a valuable ingredient in alchemy. If she burnt it to a crisp there would nothing left for her to harvest.

On the other end her wind was a bad matchup against its earth affinity and natural healing abilities.

She needed to hit it with a definitive blow to prevent it from recovering while also avoiding any of its counter attacks.

'There it goes again.'

After having a stare down with Evelyn for a dozen or so seconds the capybara took off again, its natural instinct to flee taking over.

It was a creature that survived by avoiding conflict and using its bulk and healing to shake off any persistent predators like Evelyn.

Still, she was not going to let it go and chased it down again, not willing to let it escape.

'Try running when you are four times heavier.'

Increasing the gravity around her Evelyn flew in close and the capybara immediately felt the effects of her gravity field.

It practically came to a screeching halt as its legs began to carve into the soft dirt around the lake.

Nevertheless, even as its body became much heavier and it could not longer flee, it did not stop trying to defend itself.

A dome of earth quickly encapsulated it before Evelyn could attack. Making it so that she would have to break through its defenses before getting to it.

'Looks like it is perfectly content to wait things out until I get tired and give up. Unfortunately for you, now I have all the time I need.'

Going around the earth dome Evelyn set up a number of gravity traps around the capybara, and when she was ready, she flew high into the air and focused on her wind magic.

Then when she had built up all the power she could muster, she sent down a gale force wind on top of the earth dome and it began to crack apart as it was buffeted.

As this happened the capybara countered just as it planned and sent the breaking dome of earth firing off in every direction like the shrapnel from a grenade.

Evelyn was forced to avoid the fast-flying pieces of earth and in the opening the capybara took off again.

Yet before it got far it hit one of the gravity traps Evelyn had set, and its full force sprint soon turned into a leap that sent it helplessly floating into the air.

Now that it was off of the ground it would be unable to use its earth affinity to its fullest, as it would take it far more magical energy to create the earth from nothing than simply manipulate it.

Flying in for the kill Evelyn with her vastly superior aerial maneuverability dodged the desperate rock attacks from the capybara and scored a clean hit with her talons.

She sunk them into its neck before dragging it up into the sky where she used the same trick she had on the turtles and dropped it from an impressive height.

The crash on the ground left the beast limp and nearly dead. Its natural healing powers were trying to recover the damage, but they had no chance of succeeding and were only slowing down its demise.

In the end though it was another slash from Evelyn's talons that finished it off, and she quickly took her prey up into the trees where she drained its blood into numerous vials.