An Owl's Rise

Chapter 23 23 The Harshness Of The World Of Beasts

?Her heart beating wildly, Evelyn could not believe that she had survived.

By some miracle the giant serpent had decided to let her go and killed the humans that had been after her.

Truthfully, she thought that this was going to be the end of her, but she already knew that there were things worse than a swift death, so she had taken her chances.

However, she came out alive either due to the serpent's charity, or more likely indifference.

Soon she had flown out the other side of the clearing where the colossal beast called its home and kept going at full speed.

She was still alive, and for now her goal was to get the hell away from this place.

So, she flew and flew until her wings could carry her no more.

When she was too exhausted to continue, she found a safe place to rest and slept. Then once she was rested, she would get up and fly some more, only stopping to eat and rest.

This went on for days until the scenery around her began to change.

The forest she had always been in began to thin and turn into a sprawling grassland that spread out for miles and was dotted only by the occasional tree.

Along with this change in scenery, Evelyn could tell that the magical energy in the area was now much thicker than it had been before.

The range of the massive flower that was sucking all of the surrounding energy to itself had begun to wane.

Just breathing in the air here Evelyn felt like she was absorbing the ambient magical energy.

'Ah it is good to finally be out of those woods.' She thought, feeling a sense of relief now that she had escaped the domain that held mostly bad memories for her.

For the first time since she had been captured, she felt that the world was wide open to her and that the possibilities were endless.

Though be that as they were, she still had not much of a clue as to what she should do next.

Her knowledge of this world was sorely lacking, and as an owl she knew that she could not just try and enter a human settlement to learn even if she knew where one was.

Not to mention she had no clue about the langue of this world to start with.

Then there was also the magic that permeated this world.

Other than the fact that she could create gusts of wind and control gravity a bit, she did not know how or why it worked.

She had seen her parents use their magic more fluidly than she could, but what was really an enigma was the magic that the humans had used.

Their spells were more precise in what they did as far as she could see, but they also needed to be cast with hand gestures and words.

'I suppose all I can do for now is continue to get stronger and survive. As long as I keep going, I should figure more out as I go. For now, I should try and find a place to use as a base while I explore this area.'

With no clear direction before her, Evelyn decided to just see what this new place she had come to had to offer.

Flying around she decided to check on a tree that she had spotted on top of a hill not too far away from her current location and see if it might make a suitable base.

However, when she arrived, she found that this tree already had a number of occupants.

A group of what looked like a fusion between a possum and a wolverine were crowded in this tree.

As soon as they saw Evelyn they began growling and snarling at her. Obviously having a temperament closer to a wolverine than a possum.

'Woah.'

Dodging out of the way she just barely avoided being hit by a shot of spit from one of the two biggest of these beasts that were obviously the leaders.

When the spit hit the ground below her, Evelyn heard a sizzling sound and saw that the grass had begun burning.

'Fine I will find somewhere else.'

Not wanting to get into a conflict with so many beasts, Evelyn flew back up into the air and headed on her way.

She was not looking for a fight, and simply wanted a place to rest after traveling for so long.

Yet as she checked the next tree, she found it overrun with another group of these creatures.

Seeing this, she thought about heading back to the forest that always had a place for her to rest, but she could not bring herself to go back there.

'I will find a place soon enough; I just need to be patient.'

Continuing her search, Evelyn soared higher into the air to get a better look at her surroundings.

Except this turned out to be a dangerous idea, as a number of winged lizards that had been basking on a rock that still retained the heat of the day saw her.

Taking to the skies these winged lizards that were around four feet long, began flying towards Evelyn who had invaded their territory.

Spotting these beasts that were coming for her from below Evelyn began to panic.

There were about a dozen and a half of these lizards, and she was already exhausted.

'I am way too tired for this.'

Sick of running away, she went into a nosedive right towards these winged lizards and picked up speed rapidly as she increased her own gravity.

Creating a gust of wind around herself she crashed into around a third of the winged lizards like a cannon ball.

Then without missing a beat she spun around and raked her claws through one of their bodies and cleaved it into pieces.

Though after her opening attack, the lizards began their own, and opened their mouths.

Immediately Evelyn felt a sharp pain in her head as the lizards unleash a sonic screech at her.

With her impeccable hearing the sonic attacks hurt even more than they would have for less sound sensitive creatures.

'Knock it off!'

Flailing around, Evelyn sent out as large a gust of wind as she could to blow the lizards away.

With them now knocked off balance, she flew around as swiftly as she could while lowering the gravity around her and using wind bursts as propulsion.

Quickly she began slicing up these lizards, that while the same rank as her were all quite a bit weaker.

However, what they lacked in personal power they made up for with their large group, and soon they began swarming Evelyn.

Feeling claws rip into her, and teeth being sunk in, Evelyn began thrashing around to knock the lizards off.

But they would not release her no matter what she did. Their claws and teeth were locked into her and would not come undone.

'Okay you want to paly it this way. Then let me see who is tougher.'

Feeling her anger and panic rising, Evelyn switched her strategy and created an area of increased gravity around her.

With the gravity suddenly becoming three times greater, Evelyn along with the winged lizards began dropping out of the air.

BANG!

Crashing into the ground they left a small crater, and the lizards that had been under Evelyn lay broken and dead

The others were now shaken from the impact and had been thrown from Evelyn's body.

Jumping up she got to work on dispatching the remaining lizards by jamming her talons into them.

She had prepared herself for the impact, since she was the one who caused it and had managed to take less damage by creating a wind cushion and lowering the gravity around only her at the last moment.

Soon all of the lizards that had tired to kill her lay dead around her.

Breathing heavily, she looked around at the carnage of her latest battle and realized how stupid she had been.

This world was dangerous and flying out in the open like that just made her an easy target.

'Great, in the woods it is the humans who are after me, and here it is the other beasts. Is there nowhere that I can be safe?'

Lamenting her situation, Evelyn limped over to the nearest lizard and began eating.

She had used up all of her strength fighting them off and needed food to recover.

Once she had finished eating, she felt a bit of her strength had returned to her and turned her head towards the moon that was rising into the sky.

She did not know which direction it rose in since this was not Earth, but she decided to follow it.

Right now what she needed was direction, and the place where the moon rose was as good as any since it would lead her away from the places she wanted to escape from.

'I will live. I already died once, but this time I am going to live out a full life.'