An Owl's Rise

Bylur had already demonstrated that his ice magic could neutralize the venom magic that the azure haired man employed, and it made little sense to have him fight against one of the two unknown combatants from the Deamhain Sect.

So, instead Evelyn picked one of their enemies and she and Otis moved to face him head on.

Their target was a relatively small man whose body was hidden entirely by an oversized cloak.

His appearance was a bit unsettling, which was why Evelyn had chosen for her and Otis to take him on.

'Let us see what he can do.' 

To start Evelyn created a spread of fast-moving flame needles that she fired like a shotgun at her and Otis' opponent.

In the best case scenario, she was hoping that the man would decide to mostly ignore the attack since it lacked much power behind it.

Normally if a beast of her rank sent an attack like this at a person that was an entire rank above it would not be able to cause any damage whatsoever.

Of course, Evelyn's heavenly flame was special and could burn through just about anything. Even Melisandre would take damage if she did not use any magic to protect herself from a heavenly flame.

Unfortunately, the hooded man was not underestimating Evelyn and with explosive speed he launched himself out of the way of Evelyn's attack and fired back with a wave of pure magical energy.

"Otis!" Evelyn shouted.

Knowing her own magic would be ill suited to blocking he incoming attack, Evelyn called for her companion to defend them.

Thankfully, Otis was already used to reacting to unexpected situations and responding to Evelyn's orders. His devotion to her made him one of the swiftest to act on her commands and do so without any question.

Without wasting a moment, he put up a thick wall of sand that stood between them and the wave of magical energy.

When the attack hit the sand wall began to shake violently, but this was all part of the plan.

Otis had created his wall to be strong but malleable so that it could disperse more force without being broken through easily.

"Ugh!"

Still, this magical energy attack had more power behind it than anticipated and Otis struggled to keep it at bay. Their opponent did have significantly more magical energy than them after all.

'Still, how did he put so much power behind such a widespread magical energy attack. It should not have been that potent.' Evelyn thought, trying to understand what she had just witnessed.

Usually using pure magical energy could not pack as much power behind it as utilizing one's magic affinities, but this man did not seem to be following this rule.

'Shit.'

"Otis, brace yourself!" Evelyn shouted.

She then created a blast of fire and wind magic in front of her to accelerate herself backwards as fast as possible.

Her body slammed into Otis at an incredible speed, and the two of them went flying backwards just in time to avoid being hit by their enemy's follow up attack.

Two massive fists smashed through Otis' sand wall and cut through the air where Evelyn and Otis had been just a moment before. If not for Evelyn using her wind magic to feel the air currents around them and notice the incoming attack, she and Otis would have been hit with a devastating blow and likely incapacitated.

"Hm, I thought for sure that I would get at least one of you with that." The hooded man said.

Though, his cloak that had covered his body no longer looked overly large on him, and in fact seemed to have been stretched to its limits. Only his face was still covered by his gigantic hood.

No longer was the man barely four feet tall and thin like a twig, but the size of giant with muscles that would put even the best body builders to shame.

With just a glance Evelyn estimated that the man was now around six meters tall.

This dwarfed her despite her own large frame that was more than two meters tall.

It was commonly understood that beasts had greater physical might than people, but this man put that notion to rest. There was no doubt that he could wrestle with a beast of the same rank and tier as himself and come out on top.

'This is just great. He has some type of rare magic I know nothing about. I doubt it is just physical augmentation since his magical energy attacks are bolstered as well. This guy is going to be a pain.' Evelyn thought as she tried to analyze her opponent's capabilities.

From what she could tell of their couple of exchanges was that his magic was incredibly simple, but also terribly effective.

He was just a mass of pure power. There were no precise tricks that he was going to employ because he had no need to fight in a roundabout way. His strength was all he needed to overpower his enemies.

"Otis, focus on restraining his movements. I do not think you are going to be able to hurt him with your magic. We will have to rely on my magic to damage him, but he is wary of me. I won't be able to hit him without your help." Evelyn said over the magical connection she had established between herself and Otis.

Fortunately, Otis was not one to seek out the limelight and was perfectly fine allowing Evelyn to take center stage. He would do everything in his power to support her.

Only a moment after Evelyn finished her brief discussion with Otis, their adversary charged directly towards them.

His speed was even more overwhelming now, and his gargantuan body made his reach incredibly difficult to escape from. Evelyn and Otis were not going to be able to simply evade his incoming attack.