An Owl's Rise

'To think that she could move through that hellscape so easily. Even when I was stealthy, I normally got into a fight every couple of hours. But she got us out of there without any problems.'

Once they reached the top of the gorge Lucia gave her farewell to Evelyn and reminded her one last time that she would be waiting for her to deliver the high-capacity storage magic tool.

After that she descend back into the gorge and left Evelyn alone once again.

'Well, that was certainly an unexpected encounter, but not wholly unpleasant.' Evelyn thought as she watched Lucia disappear from view.

She then turned her head southwest in the direction of the Velinis Desert which was her next location.

There were a few more items she needed from there. Though not nearly as many as she had required from the Elmot Gorge.

It was also not quite as dangerous. Being a place that was on average only able to support beasts up to the mid-tier of the awakened rank, and with spots that were richer in magical energy being highly contested by the beasts within.

'It is already nearly sunset which is the best time for me to get started. During the height of the day, it will be too hot and bright for me to operate, and the creatures I am looking for will be resting and in hiding.'

With a few flaps of her wings Evelyn set off into the air and began the short journey to the nearby desert.

By the time she had arrived the last few glimmers of sunlight were fading away and a slightly less than half moon was taking center stage in the sky. Giving off more than enough illumination for Evelyn to see clearly.

With her eyes trained to the ground she began searching for the beast that was her target, and luckily with the unobstructed view she had of the desert from the sky she spotted it soon enough.

It was moving fast and leaving a dust trail in its wake and in front of it was the prey it was hunting down.

'So that is what a roadrunner looks like. I never saw one in person back on earth, but there was a famous depiction of it in a cartoon I used to watch.' Evelyn thought as she watched from above.

The roadrunner was just about to catch up to its prey, which Evelyn could see was a large snake that was trying desperately to get away.

Of course, like most beasts on this world the roadrunner was large than its Earth counterpart and stood around seven feet tall. Being closer to the size of a raptor.

In comparison the snake it was after was nearly fifteen feet long, but its rank was lower than the roadrunner who was one of its natural predators.

'Looks like the fight is about to start.'

Keeping her distance from high in the sky, Evelyn watched the roadrunner catch up to its prey and the hunted snake turned around to make a last stand for its life.

It tried using some type of acid magic and at the same time spitting venom at the roadrunner, but the roadrunner was too fast and nimble to be hit.

Soon enough it had maneuvered around the snake, and with a quick swipe of its claws decapitated the snake and splattered blood all over the desert.

'That was over pretty quickly. I honestly expected the snake to put up a better fight.' Evelyn thought as she observed.

With its prey now dead, the roadrunner went to work on tearing apart its meal and going straight for the best part.

It shoved its beak deep into the snake's thick torso and began tearing through its flesh in order to rip out its core.

In that moment when it was distracted Evelyn went into a nosedive and accelerated with extreme speed.

She even went ahead and increased the gravity around her to descend faster and controlled the wind to lessen her air resistance.

Yet despite initiating what she though was a perfect sneak attack, at the last moment the roadrunner with incredible agility jumped back and shot dozens of feet away from Evelyn.

Her claws hit nothing but air, and in her surprise, she nearly missed the timing to swoop back up and almost smashed into the ground.

'A quick little bastard isn't it.' Evelyn thought while breathing heavily in relief from her narrowly avoided crash.

The roadrunner itself was looking at her with a smirk. As if mocking her for even trying to come after it.

It was a high tier awaken rank beast that was near the top pf the food chain in the desert. While Evelyn was at the low tier just like the snake it had just killed, so it was feeling pretty confident.

To wipe the smirk of its face Evelyn created a barrage of flame needles in front of her and fired them off like a shotgun blast.

The roadrunner sensing how dangerous Evelyn's flames were bounded away in a flash. Leaving the place it had been standing right before Evelyn's attack hit.

Thin holes in the desert sand were carved out where Evelyn's flame needles hit, and it quickly melted into glass which reflected the moonlight.

Though while this effect was enamoring, Evelyn had other worries at the moment with the roadrunner firing back with its own magical attack

It had begun running in a circle at high speed and whipped up a dust devil using its wind affinity.

The tornado which had picked up a load of sand went flying right towards Evelyn and the suction behind it was pulling her in and preventing her from gaining altitude.

'It certainly is crafty. Most other birds would find it difficult to escape this even if they can fly far batter than that roadrunner.  However, I can easily counter this.'

Pouring out her magical energy, Evelyn began spinning around herself and sent a counter twister towards the roadrunner's.

The two forces of wind and the opposite rotations they had caused them to wear down on each other until they both collapsed.

A powerful wind expanded out as the two tornadoes fell apart and a plume of sand shot up into the sky.

'Got you. Extreme Press.'

Using the chaos of their two attacks colliding Evelyn managed to get within range of the roadrunner that had been keeping away from her and hit it with the strongest gravity she could.

Its normally light body that could run across the desert then became several times heavier and the sand around it failed to support its weight.

It sunk in deeply before it could even react and was buried in a hole until it hit a bed of sandstone around nine feet deep.

The roadrunner in a desperate attempt tried using its wind magic and physical strength to pull itself out, but every time it blew the sand away more filled in on top of it.

'Looks like my gravity magic is especially effective in the desert. The ground is too loose to take the sudden increase in pressure, and anything that cannot fly well will just end up swallowed by the sand.'

Her target now incapacitated; Evelyn decided to not prolong its suffering as it constantly had to use its magic to keep the sand from suffocating it.

When an opening presented itself, she fired off a swift compressed bullet of her heavenly flame that was further accelerated with her wind magic.

The roadrunner was unable to defend against the swift and unexpected attack while it was distracted trying to keep the sand from consuming it and its head was blown off before it could react.

The moment her target was dead Evelyn released her gravity magic and swooped down and created a strong gust of wind to prevent the body from being buried by sand.

Swiftly she dove into the hole and with her talons pulled the roadrunner's body out.

'That went pretty well. Now I need to pluck its feathers and preserve them.' Evelyn thought as she made her way over to a large flat rock she had spotted earlier from the sky.

She needed the roadrunner's feathers as a main ingredient in making an agility potion as they contained an oil on them that when made into a potion would allow for one to increase their reflexes and speed.

After Evelyn had finished the meticulous work of plucking off all of the feathers, she carefully removed the beast core and stored it away along with the snake's core that she had picked up as well.

'I suppose that now is a good time for dinner.'

Puling out a long spike Evelyn pierced the prepared carcass of the roadrunner and began roasting it with her heavenly flame.

The smell of cooking meat soon spread through the desert and some scavengers came by to investigate. But none of them were even at the awakened rank and ran when they felt Evelyn's aura.

'Ah, now that hit the spot. It was a little tough, but it tasted pretty good. The tips on using certain herbs that Lucia told me about really did make a difference.' Evelyn thought once she had finished eating.

Now that she was full and the night still young, she launched herself back into the sky and went on the hunt for more ingredients.