An Owl's Rise

The entire area had seemed devoid of life, and Evelyn did not notice any of the fungus' mind slaves until they were incredibly close to its body.

Clearly it had set a trap for them and lured them in so that it could surround the two beasts that had resisted eating its offshoots and joining its ranks.

'There don't seem to be many beasts that can naturally fly among its mind slaves. I could probably get away without any issue. The problem is Krunnen. Perhaps I could try and carry him out?'

However, as Evelyn looked down at her tortoise companion, she could only shake her head.

Even if she utilized all three of her magic affinities to their fullest, lifting up and flying away with a several thousand kilograms tortoise was not freezable.

She might have been able to get him off the ground and fly very slowly, but it would be impossible for her to get away from the hundreds of beasts that had surrounded them.

'At the very least most of them are only at the fiend beast rank. There are only seventeen we really need to worry about.' Evelyn thought as she scanned the area.

Out of all of the Mind Manipulating Mushroom's slaves, only seventeen of them were at the awakened rank. The fiend beasts would simply be cannon fodder to Evelyn and Krunnen.

Yet, while Evelyn was quite confident in their chances and not particularly feeling pressured, Krunnen was wearing a grim expression on his face.

He knew that he would not stand a chance against so many beasts, and even with Evelyn's help he could tell things were not going to be easy for him.

Evelyn could fly around and was incredibly hard to hit, while he was a slow-moving target. It was all too clear who the army of mind slaves were going to go after first.

For several seconds Evelyn and Krunnen stared down the army of enslaved beasts and waited to see what would happen.

Except after a dozen seconds, they did not make a move.

'Could they be waiting for more reinforcement? If so, we need to attack now.' Evelyn thought.

In the end though, only a single other beast that was a peak fiend beast showed up, carrying something in its mouth.

It handed the item off to a large elephant beast with dark blue skin that was at the high tier of the awakened rank and one of the strongest beasts among the Mind Manipulating Mushroom's army.

The elephant then launched the items towards Evelyn and Krunnen with its trunk.

At first Evelyn thought that it was some sort of projectile attack and prepared to intercept it with her magic, but when she noticed what it was, she decided not to waste her magical energy.

Soon two of the offshoots of the Mind Manipulating Mushroom hit the ground near Krunnen and Evelyn's position.

The message was abundantly clear. Eat the offshoots and join the ranks of the Mind Manipulating Mushroom or get attacked by its army.

"It must think were idiots." Evelyn said to Krunnen with a chuckle.

But her temporary compassion was not laughing along with her and eyeing the mushroom while considering his options.

He had already set the tracker for the other Inferno Field Rangers to follow. Even if he did willingly eat the offshoot and become a mind slave, his colleagues would rescue him when they came to destroy the dangerous fungus.

"Don't even consider" Evelyn said harshly. "I'm not going to willingly give myself over to it, and if you do, that aberrant mushroom is going to have you attack me. Do you want to become my enemy?"

Krunnen shuddered when he heard Evelyn's ultimatum.

Both of his choices had him fighting against overwhelming odds.

Luckily, it did not take Krunnen long to decide who he was more afraid of.

Raising his left front foot, he crushed the two offshoots and used his earth magic to bury them into the ground.

"You made the right decision. I'll do everything I can to make sure you get out of this alive. You still owe me a lot of information after all, and I plan to collect."

Nodding his head, Krunnen could only do as Evelyn said or he knew that his life would be in serious danger.

'Time to get a bit serious.' Evelyn thought as twisted her neck to both sides and loosened up her body.

For the longest time she had both a human's magic core and a beast core, but she had not fully realized the potential advantage this gave her.

Certainly, she had utilized the practically double magical energy capacity she had over everyone else, but at the end of the day, having more magical energy meant little if you could not properly use it.

Through her training Evelyn came to understand that there was an upper limit of magical energy that her body could utilize at one time. Trying to force more than she could handle would only injure her, as she had found out when she launched a reckless attack at the leader of the Deamhain Sect during the invasion of the Roost.

Instead of trying to use her heightened capacity to force out stronger magic, she had focused on speed.

With a great deal of focus she found that she could utilize the magical energy within her two cores separately and double the speed at which she used magic.

Of course, this technique took a great mental toll and used up a great deal magical energy, so Evelyn could not keep it up for long. Still, it gave her an astounding boost in output for a short time.

"Krunnen, just focus on defending yourself. I'm going to break through and give you a path to escape." Evelyn said before taking off.

A sonic boom followed in her wake as Evelyn blasted off with greater speed than she could normally achieve and Krunnen watched her begin to rain death down on the Mind Manipulating Mushroom's mind slaves.