An Owl's Rise

She knew that spiders would often inject their venom into their prey and leave them paralyzed for quite some time before eating them alive.

And judging by how many owls this large queen spider had captured there was a good chance she could end up in its pantry for a while, suffering in agony.

'How they hell do I get around it. Its body is huge, and it can shoot out webs that will likely get me if I am not fully on guard, and even then, I could easily get caught. I guess I could charge it and up the gravity and hope that is enough to rip it off the web it is dangling from, but I doubt that will work.'

For nearly half a minute Evelyn continued staring down this queen spider while trying to come up with any feasible method to get by it.

Unfortunately, while the queen spider had been patiently waiting to catch Evelyn as she made her move. It was starting to get antsy and was preparing to make a move of its own by firing out a large web she had no chance of escaping from.

Seeing this Evelyn realized her time was up, but as she was panicking, she had an idea.

She knew that spiders could easily navigate their own webs and rarely got stuck in them, but this queen spider was preparing an especially large net that was incredibly sticky.

With its wide area it was likely that if she got caught up in it instead, Evelyn would hopefully get at least a few seconds where it was distracted and could fly on by.

'It is already probably too late to catch up to the examiner, but if I can get by, I should at least be able to live.'

With a rough plan in her mind, Evelyn shot towards the Queen Spider flying up above her.

There was very little room in this situation as she was dangling down from the treetops, but she was going to need the height advantage for her plan to work.

Of course, there was always a risk that the queen spider might decide to physically lunge at her in which case she was probably screwed, but taking this gamble was all she could come up with.

Luckily her bet seemed to work out as the queen spider launched a wide range net at her that there was zero percent chance she could escape from.

But this was exactly what Evelyn had wanted, and since she had escaped the last web net by slipping through one of its gaps last time, the queen spider had woven it even tighter together this time.

However, this only helped as it gave the web more surface area and as Evelyn lowered gravity to lighten the webs and sent out a strong and wide gust of wind as she could which bounced the web back towards the queen spider.

And the second its momentum changed, she switched her gravity control to increase it and the web barreled back down at the queen spider.

In an instant Evelyn had reversed the situation and had caught the spider in its own web, allowing her to fly by as it began trying to shake the web off.

Smiling, she thought she had made it out home free. There were no other spiders in her way now, and even as fast an agile as the spiders were, they would never be able to keep up with her full flying speed.

Though as she was about to exit the edge of the spider's territory, something completely unexpected happened. The tree began to move on their own and she was hit hard by a branch.

Except this branch did not send Evelyn flying, but instead was covered in a very sticky webbing that entangled her and put a stop to her apparent escape.

Her reversal on the spider had been turned around again in one move she had never considered.

Yet as she thought about it, she now understood that this must have bee the queen spider's magical affinity.

She had not seen any of the other spiders use magic so she had forgotten to account that they should be able to.

In fact, all of the spiders here had an affinity for nature magic, though the queen was the only capable of actually doing much.

Their normal abilities were already so strong they had little reason to use their relatively weaker magic, but Evelyn had been completely caught off guard by this.

Now she was stuck in a web that had her tightly bound and she could see the queen spider expertly pull off the last of her webbing that Evelyn had knocked back at her.

It had only taken a few seconds for the expert weaver to get out of its best netting, and now it was slowly approaching Evelyn to allow her a chance to feel more fear.

'No, no, no, no!'

Struggling to break free Evelyn like every other owl just found herself being entangled further, and soon she could not move at all.

She tried increasing gravity, but this only cause the branch to droop a bit and it and the webs held strong.

'Damn it all. I cannot die here like this. I did not want to do this since it might kill me, but if being smart won't work, it's time to be reckless.'

With her well thought out and executed plan not having worked, now Evelyn was left with one reckless plan that she thought was likely to fail.

Still, she would rather go out in a huge explosion than be eaten by a giant spider.

Closing her eyes, she focused on her beast and mana cores, and sent all of the magical energy she had left towards the crimson heavenly flame and began growing its power within her.

She had so far refrained from using it as her control over it was abysmal and it could easily set the jungle on fire which she doubted the examiner was going to appreciate.

Nevertheless, it was do or die time, and if it gave her a one percent chance of survival, she was willing to set herself and the jungle ablaze.

Yet as she stoked the flames with her all for the first time, something abnormal happened.

Every other time she had used its power she had been afraid of what it might do, but this time she let it go unbound and without any fear.

In fact, all her hopes were thrown upon it, and it began to resonate with her feelings.

It quickly wrapped around her mana core and began infusing its power into it, growing in power as it dyed her human mana core.

Then it happened, Evelyn let out all she had, and her body burst into crimson flames.

Normally this would have looked like a suicide attack, as she was engulfed in flames, yet an eerie calm surrounded Evelyn as she was engulfed by her heavenly flames.

Just now she had made the power her own, and it had accepted her in her moment of desperation.

The webs around her soon burned away and she was once again free from her binding.

Cautiously the queen spider jumped back as Evelyn burst into flames, as fire was her greatest weakness.

'It is time to end this.'

Opening her eyes, they were now glowing crimson just as her body was, and she shot forward towards the queen spider.

Right now she felt invincible, and her goal shifted from escape to attack.

Letting out a defiant screech the queen spider shot more webs at Evelyn, but they burned to ash before they could even touch her.

Currently she was the embodiment of all these spiders' greatest weakness, and their natural abilities were useless against here.

Still, the queen spider was not done yet. She began glowing and the jungle started shifting as she exerted her control of it.

Dozens of branches began closing in around Evelyn and their leaves striped away as they began sharp as spears.

Spinning around and moving better than she ever had, she dodged out of the way, weaving through the branches and burning away those that close to her.

Then when she was twenty feet away for the queen spider who was frantically doing all she could to keep Evelyn away, she spun her body around and sent out a twister of crimson fire that was carried by her wind.

In a frantic effort to protect herself, the queen spider pulled the trees around in front of her to block the fire twister coming for her.

BOOM!

As the crimson heavenly fire hit the trees it created a huge explosion that rocked this area of the jungle.

Even the fog that permeated the area was blown back and vaporized, leaving a completely open space that was clear for the first time since Evelyn had entered the fog.

A number of trees had now caught fire and the other spiders had fled the area in fear of their natural weakness.

However, as the smoke began to settle, Evelyn looked out and saw that the Queen spider was still alive.

But while she was alive, she had not gotten out unscathed.

Half of her body was horribly burned, and she was missing three of her legs on her right side, along four of her eyes having exploded as the water in them had been rapidly heated.

Staring her down, Evelyn who was still covered in crimson flames stood her ground as if daring the queen spider to continue attacking.

Luckily her bluff worked and the ruler of this part of the forest scurried away to heal her wounds.

Letting out a sigh of relief she stopped supplying the heavenly flame with magical energy and it quickly died down.

She had used everything she had in that last attack, and just keeping those few flames around her body had been all she could do as a means of deception.

Had the queen spider attacked her again, there was no doubt she would not be able to offer any resistance.

Unfortunately, even though she had somehow beaten back the threat of the spiders, she was now left with a new problem.

She had no idea which way the examiner had gone, and she was lost in middle of the jungle.

'I guess I will just have to pick a random direction and hope I get lucky.'

However, as she was about to flying in the direction she had chosen, something happened within the fog.

Parts of it began to coalesce and started glowing in small sphere that seemed to be leading her down a certain path.