An Owl's Rise

The lizard had naturally noticed that more power and nutritious beasts were hiding in that tree when Rehni and Bylur moved and used their magical energy to wake the others and thought it was going to receive a hardy meal.

Little did it know though, that it was headed towards a fierce battle rather than a group of helpless beasts.

"Okay everyone out and start ascending. We need to get out of its range before it arrives." Evelyn said giving out orders quickly.

Going first were Bylur and Rehni, followed by Verrader and Aralee, and lastly Evelyn and Otis.

The tyrant rank lizard seeing the six owls shoot out of the large tree began to smile happily, until it noticed Otis.

With but a single look this lizard was able to tell that Otis was at the same rank as it and would not go down easily.

Certainly, it was closer to the mid-tier of the tyrant rank than Otis who had only very recently evolved, but the tyrant rank lizard was still far from reaching the next tier.

It had advanced through the ranks carefully by eating tons of beasts weaker than it and staying on the fringes of the forests of giants.

Now however, a new tyrant rank beast had invaded its territory and it was having to judge what actions to take.

In the end, it could not give up the alure of eating Evelyn, Bylur, Rehni, Aralee, and Verrader who were all at the awakened rank.

Its plan was simply to quickly catch as many of the lower rank owls as it could in its mouth and then run away without fighting Otis. And if Otis wanted to chase it down, it knew of areas were other tyrant rank beasts had made their home and would lead Otis into one of their den's to force them to fight each other.

Was this a great or well thought out plan, no. But just because the tyrant rank lizard had what could be considered conciseness and a level of intelligence close to that of a human's, it was a beast that had lived its entire life out in the wild and was not learned in any way. Never had it expected the owls above it to deploy complex strategies and wield magic in ways it had never seen before.

"Aralee, Verrader, I want you two to focus on attacking. This is a good chance for both of you to get some combat experience against a stronger foe. Bylur, Rehni, and I will focus on defense and support, but do not get careless and let your guard down. Otis, I understand you probably want to test out just how well you match up to another tyrant rank beast, but I want you to stay on the sidelines. If it seems like it is too much for us or the lizard tries to retreat, I want you to intervene. But otherwise stay above us and watch out for any other threats."

After Evelyn had given out her instructions, she dove down leading the charge and the others followed her. With Aralee and Verrader feeling a sense of trepidation.

There first showing of their skills on their new adventure together was going to be against a tyrant rank beast, and both of them felt certain that even their best attacks would likely not do more than put light scratches on its tough skin.

Nevertheless, not trying would be worse and with the others giving them support all they could do was try their best.

To start Verrader began crackling with electricity using his power as a horned storm owl.

When he had built up as much lightning as he could control, he dropped a large bolt on the lizard that had been spitting globs of acid at all of them from below.

Thankfully Evelyn, Bylur, and Rehni had bene working hard to defend Verrader and Aralee and they were able to unleash their attacks without worry.

The powerful bolt of lightning crashed down on the tyrant rank lizard that had not made any move to dodge, and for a moment its body shuddered.

Unfortunately, despite Verrader having put his all into his attack he had only caused a small burn mark where the bolt had hit and stunned the tyrant rank lizard for a single instant.

He then felt the powerful beast an entire rank above him glared at him and exert its aura on him. Causing him to seize up in fear.

A huge stream of acid then blasted up towards him and he was ill prepared to evade or defend.

At the last second though, Evelyn moved right in front of him and used a powerful wind barrier to disperse the acid.

Still, some drops managed to push through and Verrader watched Evelyn's body begin to let of a sickly looking steam as the acid ate through her body.

Watching this made Verrader feel a pain in his heart since he had just forced his sister, who had forgiven him even after all he had done to take an attack that was meant for him.

"Get your head in the game. Don't let its intimation get to you." Evelyn said to Verrader as she popped open a healing potion and splashed it over her body.

It was at this moment that Aralee finally let loose her own attack which she had spent a good deal of time preparing.

Her new evolution had granted her an affinity for a rare type of magic called momentum magic.

Using this magic, she could slow or speed things up depending on how she deployed it.

In some ways it was similar to Evelyn's gravity magic, though that was only in the perceivable phenomenon they created, since the two powers were fundamentally different.

Aralee had spent her time spinning around and creating a speeding twister around herself that was made up of sharp wind blades.

Using her momentum magic she had managed to generate more force than she could with only her wind magic and dropped her most impressive magic attack on the tyrant rank lizard that had its attention being drawn by Bylur and Rehni.

The tornado of wind blades hit the lizard's body and the ground beneath it began to cave in and smalls slices appeared on its skin. Causing slight dribbles of blood began flowing out of its body in a few places.

It was a pretty powerful attack for a low tier awakened rank owl to release, but against a tyrant rank, a few scratches was the best Aralee could do.

After that the tyrant rank lizard began a furious barrage of acid attacks to try and kill any of the annoying owls that were flying around it and making it difficult for it to target them individually.

"Aralee, Verrader, look at how that lizard is attacking us. It is simply blasting away using its superior magical energy to launch powerful attacks. It has no control or finesse." Evelyn said while avoiding the acid attacks and using her magic to defend against the ones that would have hit Verrader and Aralee.

"Both of you have just been doing the same thing, trying to hit it with your strongest attacks. Except, against an opponent with this much greater power than you, that is never going to work. It can shrug of your best attacks every time. You need to focus on controlling your magical energy and hit it in a weak spot. I do not expect either of you to be able to deal a definitive blow, but I expect you to do better than just getting into a slugfest with an obviously stronger opponent."

Feeling the sting of Evelyn's chiding, Aralee and Verrader wanted to do better, but they were unsure of what to do.

Their best attacks had been shrugged off easily and their opponent had boundless energy compared to them.

Eventually though, the hint Evelyn had given them hit for Verrader and he made a simple strategy with Aralee that he hoped would be more effective than simply trying to blast away at their opponent who could easily outlast them.

With more careful control and aim Aralee created two wind spears and launched them towards a specific part of the tyrant rank lizard's body.

This attack had far less power than her last one, but by simply choosing a different area to target, she was able to do even more than before.

Of course, the place she had aimed for was the lizard's eyes. For most creatures no matter how strong they got their eyes would always remain a weak point, and on such a giant creature they made for an easy target.

The lizard noticed the attack coming and reflexively closed its eyes to protect itself.

Aralee's wind spears bounded off its scaled eyelids without doing any damage, but that was never her intention. Her goal had been to rob the lizard of its sight for a moment so that Verrader could target another weak point.

Lightning crackled around his body once again, but instead of one concentrated bolt he fired off two and while it was difficult to control electricity he directed it towards and opening in the lizard's body.

Naturally the tyrant rank lizard sensed the attack coming for it, but without its sight it was unable to read the trajectory before Verrader launched his lightning and could not move fast enough to get out of the way.

The two bolts flew right into the tyrant rank lizard's nose and the inside of its head received a painful jolt.

This time, instead of just shuddering once, the lizard spasmed violently as the signals from its brain were disrupted and the inside of its nose and mouth suffered electrical burns.