An Owl's Rise

However, while it may have seemed that all the people gathered to bring down the Roost were working in concert, that could not be further from the truth.

The Tyrannis Union was a loose alliance of many sects that each held their own spheres of power and ideologies. Far from a monolith that moved towards a singular goal.

At times the sects even fought amongst each other, and the weaker ones were crushed and absorbed. And this battle against the Roost was no different. 

Each sect was participating for their own glory and advancement, and the greatest achievement to be won was capturing what many had come to call the Golden Owl.

Few knew just how powerful the item within Evelyn was, even among the upper brass of the Tyrannis Union, but most high-ranking members at least knew she was the foremost prize to be captured.

The reward for bringing her in was immense on a personal scale, and for the sect of sects whose members could claim to be among those that were pivotal, the profit would be great.

Many of the weaker sects among the union were sending in all of their best after her, the chance for their status to increase was too great to pass up.

Of course, this inevitably led to some degree of infighting among them. Everyone wanted to be the one to catch the Golden Owl. 

No one was blatantly firing off magic at their competitors, but if their wide scale attacks happened to catch their 'allies' as well, that was not their problem.

This led to a chaotic situation of several dozens of powerful individuals all at least at the low tier of the magi rank which was equivalent to sovereign beasts were fighting for the best position to attack Evelyn as shew as eld around the area.

Except, not a single one of these human experts had been able to get close to Evelyn so far, in large part to how uncooperative each faction was with the other.

It also did not help that whenever anyone got too close to the comparatively low ranking group of owls being led around by Melisandre, a team of coordinated attackers would swoop in and slow the pursers down before swiftly flying back into a more defensible position.

This left a large group of the strongest fighters within the Tyrannis Union floundering about and contributing almost nothing to the overall battle. Just as Melisandre and the other Hall Masters had planned.

Unlike the Tyrannis Union was rife with sabotage amongst themselves in the pursuit of glory, the owls of the Roost were all working together with an outstanding amount of coordination. 

While there were many factions within the Roost that were normally uncooperative with another, in the face of an overwhelming outside threat all other grievances had been tossed aside. Now was not the time to let petty differences allow them to be taken out.

'What are they playing at?'

Floating above the battlefield a singular man was intently watching Evelyn's movements with a spyglass.

He was a handsome man with pale blue hair that looked almost like silver and two different colored eyes, one a deep purple and the other golden. This was Diomed, the leader of the Deamhain Sect that had originally possessed the Aethersphere.

It had been a stroke of luck for him to obtain a divine item and keep concrete information from spreading about his acquisition of it.

Unfortunately, a blunder on the part of the subordinates he had put in charge of researching the item in a remote region had caused it to move beyond his reach.

In a stroke of luck though, he had been able to track down the beast that wandered off with the divine item too good for it and nearly had it in his grasp.

But just before his spy delivered Evelyn to him, all communications were cut off, leaving Diomed in the dark and unsure of the situation.

With how uncertain things had become this left him with no choice but to reveal the existence of the item to the rest of the Tyrannis Union's upper brass. His sect alone would not be enough to wage war on the Roost and time was of the essence.

When he was still getting reports from Verrader he had learned the owl in passion of his divine item had been growing at a rapid pace and waiting too long could allow for her to gain greater power. Hoping for an ideal situation to turn things around was only asking for things to take a turn for the worst in the future. 

Evelyn clearly still hated the ones that had killed her family and tortured her and if she gained enough strength would come for revenge.

Thus, he schemed with the other sect leaders of the Tyrannis Union in order to attack the Roost and reclaim the divine item. He would no longer be able to claim sole ownership of it, but better that it was within his reach than left with a bunch of beasts.

Nevertheless, even though the Tyrannis Union had mobilized a majority of its assets for this attack and had the element of surprise, things had not been going nearly as well as anticipated.

The Roost's defenses were certainly better than expected, but so far, they had been unable to break the deadlock even after bringing down the protective barrier.

Unlike the chaos that was anticipated, the owls had formed defensive bulwarks around their leaders and were keeping any major attack at bay.

Yet, this strategy was inevitably doomed to fail. 

The owls of the Roost were encircled and had nowhere to go. Stalling things out would not turn the situation around for them unless they had a plan of some sort.

'I cannot be certain what it is they are scheming, but their continued resistance tells me they feel far from hopeless. I was hoping to wear them down a bit more before making my move, but I cannot let any of the other sects capture what is rightfully mine.'