An Owl's Rise

Yet despite their trap being destroyed, this was not outside of Evelyn's expectations.

The moment Katrina had released the electromagnetic wave, she along with Bylur launched their own attack.

Large icicles covered and propelled faster by wind shot down towards Katrina and left her no room to escape.

Unfortunately, this attack was easily blocked as Katrina waved her left hand above herself and created a barrier of magical energy that shielded her from the falling masses of ice.

Like rain hitting an umbrella the wind propelled icicles shattered and pounced off of Katrina's mana barrier. And while they did leave some cracks not a single bit of ice or wind penetrated Katrina's defenses.

It was certainly not the desired result that Evelyn had been hoping for, but it was to be expected, and not the end of their attack strategy.

From her position below Katrina, Rehni launched a wide and powerful blast of sound.

The snowstorm began to move more violently in the wake of this sonic blast and was actually the only indication that something was even happening.

Evelyn had advised Rehni to lower the frequency of her sound attack so that it could not be heard but still had the same amount of force behind it.

Now the blast of sound she had launched was at a frequency below what owls and for that matter, most creatures could hear.

Still, Katrina had been keeping close track of Evelyn's, Bylur's, and Rehni's movements with her thinly spread-out magical energy and could tell that something was coming for her.

In response she spread out another barrier of magical energy below her to absorb the attack coming from below.

Except the sound blast, even though it lost a good amount of power, continued to spread out and shook Katrina.

Her entire body was not encapsulated by the magical energy barrier, and she was unable to block all of the force behind the blast of sound by putting a barrier in front of it.

Nevertheless, while the attack did cause her a bit of discomfort and she felt mildly sick from taking the infrasonic attack, it ultimately did no real damage to her.

Katrina, like every other being that could control their magical energy, was enhancing her body with it and was able to easily take shocks that would have knocked out a normal owl.

A hit was a hit though, and Evelyn did feel a bit proud of the strategy she had come up with after their first crushing defeat.

She was not able to be excited about her team landing a hit for long sadly, as Katrina started her counterattack.

To begin she launched the same rain of electricity attack she had used in their previous match and began flying towards Evelyn and Bylur to disrupt their defenses.

Bylur especially was vulnerable to his attack due to his large size and Katrina was aiming to punish that weakness.

Except when she got closer, she noticed that instead of Evelyn and Bylur having their own individual barriers set up to block the falling sparks of lightning.

Instead, Evelyn had made a whirling wind barrier around them while Bylur had created a magical energy barrier to block the electricity coming down on them.

Since they were not fast or nimble enough to evade Katrina's physical strikes, they figured it would be best to fully focus on their defense and layer their barrier together.

'It is better than before but that is still not going to stop me.' Katrina thought, flying forwards and punching at the dual barrier with about seventy percent of her physical strength.

As her arm entered the wind barrier, she could feel herself being repelled, but it only slowed her down a little.

But before she reached the magical energy barrier that Bylur had set up, it disappeared of his own accord and instead was replaced by hundreds of shards of ice that he had been preparing to launch.

These sharp and dense pieces of ice like razor blades were absorbed into Evelyn's wind barrier and began slicing into Katrina who had willingly entered the area.

Even with her enhanced physique and dense skin, the ice and wind combined were able to put small scratches on her as her arm traveled through them.

This left Bylur who was above Evelyn open to being hit by the failing electricity to some degree, but they had successfully managed to cause some damage to Katrina's arm.

In fact, Evelyn had even put herself in harm's way and received the weakened punch with her feet.

Despite focusing on her magic for the most part, Evelyn's physical strength was also well above what most beasts of her rank had and her relatively small size made it all the more surprising.

The force behind Katrina's punch certainly hurt a bit, but it was restrained and weakened by going through a barrier already, so Evelyn successfully caught it with her claws.

She then moved to clamp down on Katrina's arm and pierce her arm, when something wholly unexpected happened.

Katrina's arm disappeared from Evelyn's grasp before she could dig in with her claws. And it was not that Katrina had withdrawn her arm, it had actually completely vanished.

Shock was evident on Evelyn, and Bylur's face, and it was clear why to anyone who could see what had happened.

Katrina's appearance had suddenly changed completely, and she was now in the form of a nearly thirty-foot-tall owl.

This was an ability that all tyrant rank or higher beasts had access to, but one that Evelyn herself had not been expecting.

Normally, for convinces' sake, tyrant rank beast that had used a human's magic core as a catalyst for their evolution stayed in their humanoid form. Their full beast forms were simply too large to conveniently move around in at all times.

But in the middle of a fight there were disadvantages and advantages to each form.

In this moment Katrina decided to turn back into her owl form to not only avoid Evelyn's attack, but also set up for an overwhelming counter.