An Owl's Rise

With a smug expression on her face Evelyn continued to evade Devurg\'s attack while launching some of her own to pressure him further.

\'Oh he is starting to get more reckless.\' Evelyn noted as she continued to dodge the stone hydra that Devurg had made.

The strongest magic that her enemy could wiled began moving more erratically and no longer was following one of the set patterns that Devurg had made for it.

He had clearly noticed that Evelyn was predicting his moves and was instead manually controlling his spell.

However, Evelyn could only see this as a very desperate move.

The reason that Devurg had created set attack patterns for his magic in the first place was because of how difficult it was to control, and while Evelyn no longer knew how the stone hydra was going to attack it did not make much of a difference.

\'I suppose now is the best time for my new spell.\'

Seeing that Devurg was expanding a considerable amount of focus to attack her with his own magic, Evelyn decided now was the time to go on the offensive herself.

The air around her began to shimmer, and quickly she had formed a dozen small spinning blades of wind.

She had shaped them in a circular fashion like a chakram and each one was easily sharp enough to slice into even the toughest awakened rank beast.

Sending them down towards Devurg, Evelyn began her own assault against him that was very difficult to evade.

Her attack lacked raw power, but it made up for that in its nimbleness and difficulty to deal with.

Swiftly Evelyn managed to inflict several shallow cuts on Devurg\'s body and was beginning to wear him down.

Small trickles of crimson were falling off his body, and every second that went by Evelyn caused more of Devurg\'s blood to spill.

Unfortunately, her time easily overwhelming Devurg did not last long, as Trine returned to the battle.

Thanks to the healing potion she had received she was able to fly again after only a couple of minutes and launched a barrage of thick roots at Evelyn.

This gave her very few options to mauver around as she now had to avoid two ever proliferating attacks.

Eventually despite knowing that it was coming from having seen them use this strategy in previous matches, Evelyn found herself caught in a web of stone and wood.

It was quite the precarious situation, and she would have been a bit worried if the calvary had not arrived.

Before Devurg and trine were able to attack after catching her, Bylur and Rehni returned, launching powerful spell that freed Evelyn from her entrapment and forced their opponents to worry about defense.

"You two both certainly took your time. I nearly had to get completely serious to get out of that situation." Evelyn said to her teammates.

"Sorry, Kless led out for longer than we thought possible. He did not go down until Bylur froze his entire body solid. Though, I still think that you took on too much risk for this strategy. There was no reason to be so reckless." Rehni said, a chiding tone in her voice.

"I do not even have a scratch on me. Anyway, having me hold these two here after we weakened them and letting the two of you defeat Kless was the plan that had the greatest chance of success."

Unable to refute this, Bylur and Rehni said nothing more, but they were not exactly thrilled that Evelyn had pushed so much risk onto herself.

"How!? How did you all get so strong in such a short amount of time!?" Devurg shouted towards Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni.

It had only been around half a year since he last fought Bylur and easily defeated him. Yet now his team was the one on the ropes. Unable to do much of anything.

"All we did was work as hard as possible to get stronger. Perhaps if you did the same instead of thinking this would be an easy win, you would not be the ones losing right now." Evelyn said, a smirk on her face.

After that she backed Bylur and Rehni up as the two fo them took the front lines and fought against Devurg and Trine.

Naturally Bylur continued his battle with Devurg and this time it was even more one sided.

In only a matter of a few minutes their opponents were breathing heavily with wounds all over their bodies and their magical energy nearly depleted.

In the end to save what little face he could and to avoid any serious injuries Devurg surrendered. Understanding that he had no chance of winning.

After that an automated message signaling the end of the match sounded and Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni were declared the winner.

A bright light then engulfed them as they were warped out of the separate dimension the battlefield had been created in and brought back to the room within the Ranking Hall.

"Looks like our victory is official." Evelyn said, holding up her identification cuff.

The number that displayed their team\'s ranking within the hall had shot up and they now had the rank that Devurg\'s team previously occupied.

"To think that our rank would shoot up over three thousand places in one match." Rehni said.

Their team was now ranked number one thousand five hundred eighty-four. Putting them among some of the stronger awakened rank owls of the Roost.

Most teams of a similar or higher standing were already at the peak of the rank, but none of them were, Showing just how powerful they all really were in compassion, and the potential that they had.

"Yes, we made a great deal of progress today, but we cannot get too comfortable, there is still a long way for all of us to go together." Bylur said.

"I am surprised to hear that coming from you, but you are right. We still have the Legget Faction to deal with. They are the reason Devurg was after us in the first place." Rehni said.

The discussion having turned to their next enemy, the smile on Evelyn\'s face vanished.

"This certainly is going to be a bit of a tough road, and we are likely to have more factions target it. But with the two of you by my side I am sure we can get through it together. I have never been happier to have friends I can rely on."

Bylur and Rehni agreed with this sentiment and told Evelyn that they would aim for the top together.

"Now we can talk about our future goal more later. We need to go and obtain our prizes for winning. Devurg owes us a lot of credits and we need to make sure he honors the contract and disbands his faction."

Nodding their heads, Bylur and Rehni went along with Evelyn and they began making their way towards the Ranking Hall\'s infirmary, where the expected to find Devurg and his team.

Luckily their assumption turned out to be correct and when they arrived, Devurg and Trine were receiving healing, and Kless was being unmelted.

Among these three there were also several dozens of members of their faction and when they spotted Evelyn, they fixed her with nasty glares.

\'If only looks could kill I would surely be dead several times over. Though if that we the case, I would not have gone through everything I did.\' Evelyn thought, shrugging off the hostile gazes being sent her way.

The level of resentment she was feeling was nothing compared to the sheer rage and pain she had felt in the past, and the glares she was currently receiving were nothing compared to the ones she had given when her new parents was killed.

Without any hesitation Evelyn approached the crowd of visibly angry owls and pushed her way directly to Devurg.

And as much as the members of his soon to be gone faction wanted to tear Evelyn apart, they knew better.

They were currently within the Ranking Hall, and the head healer in the infirmary was a high tier tyrant rank owl and would swiftly intercede if a fight was to break out.

"You lost. It is time to honor the contract we singed. Either that, or we can see how the Roost will settle this. I imagine that the deal will be better for us in that case though." Evelyn said, a confident glint in her eyes.

If Devurg broke the contract not only would his faction be disbanded but he along with Kless and Trine would be exiled from the Roost.

Grinding his beak, it was clear that Devurg was not at all happy about how things had turned out.

But he had no recourse but to accept and held out his identification cuff towards Evelyn.

"There I have transferred the agreed upon twenty million credits to your team\'s account. I cannot disband my faction here, but I will do it within three days. You are free to check up on us if you do not believe me." Devurg said, anger and sorrow seeping into his tone.

"Very well, that should suffice. I will check back in three days to make sure your faction is disbanded and that you do not try to revive it in some way by making someone else the leader."

The twenty million credits added to her team\'s account and the promise that Devurg would disband his faction Evelyn left the infirmary with Bylur and Rehni in tow.

The moment they exited however they were met with a cord of owls.

Among them were some that simply wanted to congratulate them, others that were slightly ranked above them giving them words of barbed words of warning not to let one victory go to their heads, and a final group that wanted to recruit them.

It took them nearly two ours to get thought the crowd, with those trying to recut them taking up the most time and taking several refusals to give up.

At the end of it all there was just a single owl remaining that was at the peak of the fiend beast rank.

She had been patiently waiting her turn to speak to them and was seemingly very nervous since she was the only fiend beast around and trying to talk to those that were well above her rank.

Seeing her, Evelyn froze up and went wide eyed.

In front of her was an owl that look extremely similar to her mother from this world.

At first Evelyn thought she might be hallucinating, but it was clear that Bylur and Rehni could see her as well.

"I never thought I would see you again after the day you and the rest of our family disappeared. But I finally found you sister."