An Owl's Rise

Days went by as Evelyn gathered the other materials she needed to complete her missions for the Roost and Melisandre.

She had collected everything she needed expect for the last item on her list and she was poised to get it today.

'I need the nectar from a large flower called a Rakus, which apparently is carnivorous.'

This was the item Evelyn was the most trepidatious about gathering since she had no idea how dealing with a carnivorous plant might go.

It was apparently not an inactive type of plant either and hunted for prey by uprooting itself and walking around.

'I just need to be careful and extract the nectar at night when they are less active. As soon as I get this done, I will be finished with everything I need to do out here.'

Searching the southwestern area of the glowing woods where these Rakus flowers were supposed to be most prominent, Evelyn found that there were none to be found no matter how long she searched.

'Where the hell are they? Have they may be moved areas. or did something wipe them out?' Evelyn thought as she was starting to fear she would not find her target.

Eventually though as she circled around the area and headed east, she did come across a Rakus. Well, the remains of one.

'Damn it, someone else is out hunting them. And they are not just taking the nectar but killing them. At this rate there might not be enough to go around for me.'

Feelings of panic setting in Evelyn frantically began searching for any living Rakus flowers, but only found a trail of destruction left by whatever else was after them.

It appeared that the entity or entities going after the Rakus flowers were making sure to kill all of them and were doing so with extreme prejudice.

'Did some awakened beast decided that they were an eyesore or something and is just going around and exterminating them.?'

Seeing the carnage around it was hard for Evelyn to imagine it was being done by a single creature unless it was at a higher rank.

Though when she eventually came across one of those that were killing off the Rakus flowers she felt her rage building up inside.

'Humans,' Evelyn thought with malice practically oozing out of her.

Her experiences with humans in both of her lives were mostly unpleasant. With her brother being the only one that she could truly say she did not hate.

She had been tortured by people in both her old and new life and had those she cared about killed by them.

Certainly, she knew that not all people were bad, but frankly she honestly did not care about that right now.

'They are humans and getting in the way of my goal. I have no reason to not kill them here and now. Anyway, I am sure that if they saw me, they would try to kill me for my beast core. I am simply going to do the same.'

Switching her current target from the Rakus flowers to this group of humans, Evelyn watched them closely from a safe distance.

She may have been angry but that did not mean she was going to be reckless.

If these humans were obviously stronger than her and she had no chance against them she would have to abandon her plan to take them all out.

'Looks like a group of five. Two of them have what look like halberds, one has a sword, another a large hammer, and the final one has a bow.'

Taking note of their weapons Evelyn figured that the ones with the halberds and the one with the bow were the most dangerous to her due to their longer reach.

Still, she was not sure how adept at magic they were, but she figured they were probably around the equivalent human rank to her since fiend beasts predominantly inhabited this area.

'Their magic is not really impressive. They seem to just be using basic spells and I have only seen two of them using elemental spells. I believe they are all around the mid to high tier of the acolyte rank just a I thought.'

Getting a good assessment of the humans after watching them fight a few times, Evelyn was now confident that they were not out of her league.

They were certainly weaker than the man that had beaten her parents, though stronger than the ones that had chased her and her brother around.

Nevertheless, there were five of them and their coordination was pretty good from what Evelyn could see.

They would not be caught off guard easily or taken down without putting up a good fight.

'I need to take out he guy with the bow first. He is using some sort of wind magic spell to keep aware of their surroundings and he is the only one that could probably hit me while I am flying in the air.'

With her first target located Evelyn waited patiently for her time to strike.

'Ah there is a Rakus Flower.' Evelyn thought as she spotted the large flower.

Currently it was resting but its purple red flower petals and tall stem that stood twenty feet tall made it hard to miss.

Naturally the humans that were out here hunting these flowers took notice of it as well and got into formation to attack.

They always led with the same combo as far as Evelyn could see.

The two that could use elemental magics and not just basic physical buffs would attack from afar, and then the others would gang up on the flower and attack with their weapons.

'Right before he lets loose the arrow I will swoop in for the attack.'

Leaning her body forward and getting poised to attack, Evelyn waited for just the right moment.

Then when the archer pulled back his arrow and the tension on the bow string just began to loosen, she dove towards her target.

Flying quickly and silently she went unnoticed until she entered the range of the archer's detection spell.

He turned to see what the intruder was and saw Evelyn coming right towards him.

Right now he was vulnerable, his friends all attacking the Rakus Flower while he was in no position to counter attack against Evelyn's swift charge.

'That is not going to stop me.' Evelyn thought as she saw him draw a large hunting knife.

The man tried swinging at her, but she looped around the slash and ripped her talons into his neck, before flying by.

In just a manner of seconds the man had gone from begin the hunter to the hunted, and now a fountain of blood was pouring out of his neck.

He tired to slow it down by pressing his hand against the injury and went to grab a healing salve at his belt.

However, the blood loss was too great, and he fell to his knees and passed out before applying the medicine.

Not long after he fell his fiends noticed that he was on the ground bleeding out, but Evelyn had already retreated into the trees and was not visible.

The young girl that was wielding the hammer left her friends who were fighting the Rakus Flower and went over to the fallen archer.

She had a look of distress on her face, and it was obvious that she cared for the man that was on his last leg.

Unfortunately for her, she soon met a similar fate as Evelyn swooped down on her and caught her completely by surprise.

A blow of heavy wind knocked her over, and Evelyn fell down on her and jammed her talons into the girl's back.

They slipped in deep and punctured many of her organs, causing her to go unconscious swiftly and die not much later.

This just left the other three who now noticed Evelyn.

Two of them disengaged from the Rakus Flower while the last one was keeping it busy.

"Icicle needles."

After completing a quick hand motion and saying the name of the spell, the other human in their group that could use elemental magic shot an attack at Evelyn to get her away from his companions.

The other one was running right behind the barrage of ice needles with his halberd ready to strike whichever way Evelyn went to flee.

Yet she had no reason to even try to avoid this attack since it was going to be unable to hurt her anyway.

She simply released her heavenly flames and covered herself in it.

Before the icicle needles could even reach her, they vaporized. Unable to get near her.

While the two humans were stunned by Evelyn suddenly bursting into flames, she leapt off the corpse of the girl she had just killed and pressed the attack.

She flew right by the guy with the halberd, easily dodging his wild swing and slammed one of her wings into him as she flew by.

The heavenly flames coating her seared through his armor and into his skin which began bubbling from the extreme heat.

He quickly collapsed onto the ground and began screaming from the intense pain of the third and second degree burns on his stomach.

With another person from this group of humans down for the count, Evelyn made her way to the one that was capable of ice magic and was wielding a sword.

He tired casting another spell and sent a slash of ice towards Evelyn, but she easily dissipated it with her heavenly flame.

When she was in range, she lowered the gravity in the area and forced the man to his knees with a blast of wind before sinking her blazing claws into his neck.

By the time his body hit the ground he was already dead, leaving only one last human to be dealt with.

'Looks like he ran away.'

Looking towards the Rakus Flower Evelyn could see that it was now dead and the final person that had been fighting it has fled.

But Evelyn was not going to let them get away so easily and flew up high to locate them.

'There you are.'

Spotting them hurriedly running through the forest Evelyn went into a nosedive and focused the wind around her.

Then when she was around forty feet away, she stopped abruptly and sent out a wind blade.

Her attack cut through the air with impeccable speed and sliced straight through the fleeing man.

He never even stood a chance as it cut through his leather armor and into his back.

'Yep, that killed him for sure.'

With her wind blade having gone clean through, the man was split open with his blood and organs having fallen out. Giving him zero percent chance of surviving.