An Owl's Rise

\'And the soothing lilies were not even real.\' Evelyn thought looking at the protrusions sticking out of the back of this beast.

It seemed to have somehow grown lures that looked startling like soothing lilies out from its back. Which were frankly far too convincing.

Even Evelyn and Adolophine who were alchemists and had seen the commonly used healing item ingredient, had never suspected that the flowers were fake to begin with.

"Leader what should we do?" Osten asked over their connection.

While Evelyn had just been attacked, she was perfectly fine and as the beast before them was terrestrial and aquatic. If they just flew away there would be no need to battle.

"We will engage. We have the numbers advantage, and it is just a peak fiend beast. But I do not believe I have ever even heard tale of a beast like this, so it could be an unknown species. It will be best if we collect it to see if it has any uses in alchemy or as material for creating other items. So, make sure not to damage its body too much" Adolophine said to everyone.

With the go ahead given the first to react was Evelyn. She was quite angry at being hit with a sneak attack even if it had not caused her any damage.

\'Gravity crash.\'

Shotting back down at the beast that had attacked her, Evelyn increased the gravity around her as high as it could go which was slightly above four times.

Along with that she created a huge and concentrated gust of wind around her which impacted the platypus and crushed it into the ground.

A huge splash of water and mud flew up into the air as the unsuspecting platypus could not react remotely fast enough to Evelyn diving in at it.

\'It is actually able to move!\' Evelyn thought in surprise.

Even while being crushed by immense wind pressure and far higher than normal gravity, the platypus raised its claws up even as its muscles and bones strained under the pressure.

In fact, Evelyn was certain she heard a popping sound from its arms as its ligaments started ripping from the stain. But it still reached up towards her to attack.

At the same time the water and earth around it began to shift and flew up towards Evelyn.

With her first attack not being as an effective restrain as she thought, Evelyn backed off as the earth and water came towards her.

Though as she did, to her and everyone else\'s surprise, the plants in the area began moving and vines started wrapping around each other to enclose Evelyn.

But before they could entangle her, she unleashed a series of wind blades which cut them up, and she retreated higher into the air where the rest of her squad were.

"Evelyn what are you doing?! Do not just charge in before we make a plan of attack!" Adolophine said, visibly angry.

When she had made the decision to fight, she did except Evelyn to simply charge in by herself without informing anyone else.

"I understand that you have probably always fought on your own up to this point and were upset that it attacked you, but we need to coordinate. We are in squads for a reason so that we can use our advantage in numbers, but that does not work if one person attacks recklessly." Adolophine said, mostly to Evelyn, but making sure that the rest of their squad understood as well.

While being berated for her recklessness, Evelyn was getting angrier herself.

She had voiced her concerns with going down to get the soothing lilies and was attacked because her worries were dismissed.

Had she not prepared accordingly and put her defenses up, she could have been horribly injured or even killed.

Then when she went in for the attack after the okay was given, she was getting chewed out for not coordinating with her team.

\'I should have just incarcerated it instead of worrying about getting it mostly intact.\' Evelyn thought, already fed up with following Adolophine\'s orders.

However, she gritted her beak and apologized for her behavior anyway, since she did not want to be kicked off the expedition.

Her main goal was to find some high-quality float stone on this continent that had never been touched by humans, and that would not be possible if she was sent back to the Roost.

\'Why is it just sitting there.\' Evelyn thought seeing that the platypus had not moved.

She was certain she had not hit it hard enough to completely immobilize it. Yet it was just tilting its head around and looking intently at all of them hovering well above it. :ike it was picking out a target.

Normally in this situation it should have tried running away by swimming into the depths of the stream and heading for the river, as it was clearly at a disadvantage here.

\'Maybe it thinks it can win? It does have three affinities which is really rare, so it must be pretty strong.\' Evelyn thought while barely listening to the orders that Adolophine was giving.

"Now begin." Adolophine said once she had finished making her plan of attack.

To start Isander the slim owl with a lighting affinity flew down near the beast and got its attention while launching bolts of lightning.

The platypus though was ready for this, and the mud around it shot up and blocked the bolt

Of course, this was all apart of the plan as Rehni came up from its blind spot and created dozens of threads made of metal, which she sent them towards the platypus.

But as if it had eyes in the back of its head, roots sprang up from the water and grappled with the metal threads. Preventing them from wrapping it up and at the same time dragging Rehni in.

Before she was pulled in though, Adolophine who was acting as support unleashed a blade of fire from her wings which sliced through the roots.

Finally, Osten the other awakened rank owl came smashing down as he had covered himself in a thick armor of earth not unlike the man that had beaten Evelyn\'s parents.

In response the platypus shot up a huge blast of water that slowed Osten down. Then, instead of trying to move out of the way with its limbs, it warped roots around its legs and pulled itself out of the way.

With a huge crash Osten smashed into the muddy ground of the bank of the creek without doing much of anything.

Except while the platypus had managed to survive an assault it honestly should not have been able to at its rank, there was seemingly no way it could react in time to the large branch shaped like a spear coming at it that was being controlled by Hawise the nature magic using owl.

Yet right before its head was pierced, the branch abruptly stopped and splintered apart.

The platypus using its own nature magic affinity had stolen control away from Hawise in a show of absolute dominance.

\'My turn.\' Evelyn thought after seeing the careful assault plan Adolophine had made failing.

She had been ordered to only act in a support position and help out as a defender just as Adolophine was.

But in the case the initial attack failed, which it had. Evelyn was allowed to make a move and deliver the finishing blow.

Spinning her body around she brought in a huge amount of wind around herself, and when she had built up enough, threw her wings forward and released the attack.

\'Whirlwind sickle.\'

As the huge blade of wind came down on it, the platypus tried bringing mud and watered up in order to counter, but found that its defenses were cut through, and soon its head was slashed into.

Surprisingly, it did not die form this. Even as crimson blood gushed out of its neck. it still kept going with a gash that was carved nearly halfway through its neck and only stopped at its spine.

\'I know I held back so as to not do too much damage, but what the hell is this thing.\' Evelyn thought, seeing it still going as if nothing had happened.

Eventually though it did fall to the relentless assault of six owls that were the same or higher rank than it. With Osten delivering the finishing blow by driving a spike of earth directly into its brain.

This caused it to finally stop moving after it had taken plenty of other hits that should have brought it down.

\'Well, so much for killing it in good quality.\' Evelyn thought, seeing how damaged the platypus was.

It has been so resilient that tamer attacks simply could not finish it off, and in the end, they had roughed it up quite a bit.

Blood was pouring out of numerous wounds, it had scorch marks from being hit by lightning, and two of its legs had been cut off by Evelyn\'s wind magic and Rehni\'s metal magic.

"That was certainly more difficult than it should have been, but we managed to win. Osten we are going to take it back to base camp right now and inform the others about this resilient species. As you are the strongest among us, carrying it will be your job." Adolophine said.

Nodding his head, Osten did as he was ordered and went over to pick up the corpse of the beast they had just beaten.

Except as he dug his talons into its body, the fake flowers coming out of its back shot out and tangles of sharp vines began wrapping around his body.