An Owl's Rise

It had now nearly been a month since they entered the Verdant Warlord\'s Domain, and this was the sixth time they had encountered this creature.

Of all of the monsters in the forest it was the most difficult to deal with and would often ambush them while they were fighting other creatures.

So far it had caused them nothing but trouble and managed to slip away each time.

However, Evelyn was absolutely fed up with it and was not going to let it get away again.

She had managed to catch it off guard this time and burned most of tis body away right from the start and was aiming to finish it.

To that end she was chasing it around along with Bylur, Rehni, and her siblings, while Otis was working on something else.

For several minutes the five of them played cat and mouse with the creature as it continued to use its abilities to dart around the forest and keep away from their attacks.

"Otis, now!" Evelyn shouted once she had led the moss monster to a certain area that had less trees in it.

All at once a huge mass of sand rose up around them like a cylinder and rose all the way to the sky.

The creature tried to escape when it noticed what happened, but Evelyn and the others kept it pin down and it was not able to reach the sand wall before it had reached the top of the domain and sealed off all escape.

It now looked like they were surrounded by giant sand waterfalls on all sides that were crashing down against the earth. This was the kind of magic that Otis was capable of when eh had several minutes to prepare.

"Looks like you have nowhere to run now. You\'re not the only one that can lead others into a trap." Evelyn said, wearing a scornful smile.

Ever since they had been first attacked by this monster, she had wanted to destroy it, and finally they had it trapped.

Of course, the powerful creature that was among the strongest in the forest was not going to go down without a fight.

All of the moss in the area began gathering around it and its body exploded with extra mass. Soon it had become bigger than Evelyn had ever seen it before.

Once it had formed a moss giant over twelve meters tall it sent a large fist towards Evelyn to crush her.

Naturally Evelyn did not just float there and allow this attack to hit her, instead using all of the magical energy she had been gathering inside of her.

A large tornado quickly formed around her as she spun her body, and the flames burst out from her to create a crimson twister.

Engulfed in her magic Evelyn met the giant fist made of moss head on.

Her wind ripped it to shreds and her heavenly flame turned what remained to ash.

With a massive explosion of fire and wind she rammed into the creature\'s body and blew it apart.

Ash began to fall down like snow, but Evelyn knew it was not over yet.

This monster was crafty and was not going to try and meet her head on in a clash of power it knew it would lose.

The fact that no tokens had appeared upon its defeat was a dead give away that it was alive.

"Evelyn, I caught it!" Aralee said, excitement in her voice.

While Evelyn had taken the creature head on, her companions had been on the lookout for it trying to escape and Aralee had found it trying to hide in the hollow of a tree.

Now it\'s tiny body that was all that remained of it was trapped in a swirling sphere of wind and had Aralee\'s slowing magic placed on it so that it could not attempt to escape again.

The ball of moss tried taking on many forms to slip out of or break free of the wind shield, but with how small it had become and the magic impeding it, the creature could not get through Aralee\'s wind shield.

"Okay, move it up just a little higher." Evelyn said, directing her sister.

The plan was simply, Evelyn would engulf the wind shield with her heavenly flame, and then Aralee would release her magic and the creature would get incinerated.

Evelyn was being extra careful and having it held in the air without anything around I, so that there was no chance of escape.

"Release." Evelyn commanded once she was ready.

Aralee stopped maintain her magic and Evelyn\'s swallowed the contemptible creature that had given her and her companions plenty of grief since they had arrived.

In just a couple of seconds the monster\'s core was burned away, and it exploded into several tokens which rained down on the area.

"Wow, I have never seen so many tokens from one creature before." Bylur said watching the rain of tokens.

After they collected them all, the total came out to be twenty-two. By far the most they had gotten from one entity before. With the second most having been thirteen from large willow tree that was able to manipulate its leaves like tendrils and sucked their life force away when it it hit them.

"Finally, we managed to kill it. I was tired of having to look over my shoulder all the time for it." Verrader said.

This creature had always kept them on edge since it would show up randomly and attack them while they were already in the middle of battle. It did not happen every time, but when it did, things always become hectic and far more dangerous.

Luckily, they had only come across one such moss creature so far and figured that it was a very rare monster within the forest.

"Otis, you can let down the barrier now!" Evelyn shouted out.

All at once the continuously moving wall of sand that had been surrounding them feel, and the entire area around them shook from the sheer weight of it all.

Flying over towards them, it was clear that Otis was exhausted. He had just been maintaining a large-scale magic phenomenon for quite some time, and his magical energy was now running low.

When he reached the rest of them, he practically slumped onto the ground and was barely holding himself up. Even a tyrant rank beast had their limits.

"Good work Otis. Your contributions allowed us to catch the slipper monster and finally put an end to it." Evelyn said, commending him.

This perked Otis up and he saddled up close to Evelyn, hoping for more praise.

"Aren\'t you getting a bit too close." Bylur said, pushing his far larger body in between Otis and Evelyn.

The two of them stared daggers at each other for a few seconds, before Evelyn told them to break it up and explained what they were going to do next.

"I know that it may be early in the day still, but I think we should have a celebration in light of beating our most hated foe. Today is our last day before we head back to the Roost anyway" Evelyn said, her head held up high.

Immediately the others agreed and the six of them returned back the area around the crystal dome where they had set up their base.

Yet when they arrived something unexpected was there waiting for them.

Within the crystal dome looking to have just been transported in was a group of nine humans.

Each of them had been aware that it was possible that other beasts might discover the domain, but it had not crossed their minds that humans would. The entrance that was in the forest of giants was far from any human domains and the area was dangerous for any that were not quite powerful as beasts attacked humans with the utmost prejudice most of the time.

Still, there were now nine humans in the domain and each one gave off a powerful aura.

\'Each one of them is at the arcanist rank.\' Evelyn thought, shuddering.

The nine humans were all at the equivalent of the tyrant rank for beasts and clearly quite powerful.

Thankfully they were in the middle of receiving an explanation about the domain from the Verdant Warlord\'s vestige and had not noticed Evelyn and her companions.

"We need to get out of here. We are not equipped to fight them right now." Evelyn said, turning around and flying back into the depths of the forest.

The other all followed behind her and they hurriedly moved away from the crystal dome.

The joyous feelings they had experienced after defeating the moss monster had quickly faded away now and each of them was plagued with as sense of unease, especially Evelyn and Verrader. The two of them knew just how dangerous humans could really be.