An Owl's Rise

Seeing the form of her mother begging her to return the ideal fantasy Evelyn could not help but cry more than she ever had before.

"I really want to, but you are all already dead. In fact, I died too. This life is only a remnant of the past and a fantasy that I wished for. I have to return to reality where my new family is waiting and fighting for me." Evelyn said, keeping her heart strong and resisting the temptation to drown in her ideal world.

In the next moment she felt a sharp pain and reached up to her throat where a slash wound had appeared.

Just like the other members of her family, the fantasy was bleeding away with her last moments before being killed.

She could hear the screams of Mason, her mother, and even her father pleading with her to come back to them, but at this point Evelyn had completely drowned them out and simply allowed the image of her old self to melt away.

Slowly her skin began to fade and was replaced by feathers. Her feet became thinner and were tipped with sharp talons. Her arms became longer and flattened out before fully turning into wings. And finally, her head morphed until she was back to her form as an owl. The one she had gained after dying the first time and being reborn in a new world.

Taking a deep breath Evelyn felt herself become eerily calm, before a fierce rage burst up within her.

She could feel the heavenly flame within her swelling and the Aethersphere spinning rapidly in response to her powerful emotions.

All at once the world around her that had been created from her memories shattered and she opened her eyes back to reality.

The first thing she saw was her little sister fighting with a massive silver flower that had tangling roots flying all over the place.

Evelyn tried to move to help, but quickly realized that she was fixed in place. Her body covered with roots that had pierced into her body.

She could feel these roots were feeding on her magical energy and slowly draining her.

Thankfully as the plant monster had been using her as a source of food none of her vital organs had been damaged, and even though she had roots wriggling through her body she did not feel any pain.

The monster that had put her under its spell was secreting some sort of sedative from tis roots to keep her from feeling any discomfort and waking from the dream it had put her in.

However, Evelyn's mental fortitude and the intervention of Aralee had allowed her to snap out of the ideal fantasy she had been trapped inside of.

"Gahhhh!" Screaming out in fury, Evelyn released the power of all of her magic affinities at the same time and blasted the roots coiled around and digging into her away.

Almost instantly she felt an intense pain from the several holes left in her body from where the roots had been now that the sedative was no longer being pumped into her.

Nevertheless, the anger she felt towards the creature that had forced her to relive the deaths of her first family and herself was more than enough to get her to disregard the pain.

Without hesitation, Evelyn pulled out multiple healing potions and a bottle of mana replenishment pills and downed all of them at once.

Certainly, this was a bit reckless, but Evelyn needed to recover as quickly as possible to destroy the dream flower that had nearly taken her.

"Sister!" Aralee shouted in relief seeing that Evelyn had awoken.

When she had first arrived and found Evelyn wrapped up in roots, she had tried to wake her up and free her, but Evelyn had remained almost entirely unresponsive. The monster feeding on her then tried to capture Aralee as well and the two of them had been locked in a fierce battle for several minutes.

"Sorry to worry you like that, Aralee. I am fine now. Let us kill this thing." Evelyn said, a malicious glint in her eye as she looked at the sliver flower in front of them.

As Evelyn joined the fray, the silver flower opened up in the middle and revealed a large mouth that began spewing a blue fog from its mouth.

Seeing this Evelyn remembered flying into the foggy area of the maze and falling asleep not long after coming into an area filled with blue fog.

"So that is how you did it. However, that will not work this time." Evelyn thought, creating a wind barrier around herself and blowing the fog away.

Last time she had been exhausted from frantically searching for her friends and siblings, but now her mind was sharp and fully focused on taking out her enemy. This time she would not make any mistakes.

"Aralee, keep it slowed down and prevent its roots from getting in my way." Evelyn said, flying directly for the main body of the flower.

"Of course, sister." Aralee happily responded.

Using her momentum magic Aralee put a slowing effect on the plant monster, and with her wind magic she began cutting through its roots to give Evelyn a clear path.

'Eat this. Extreme Press.' Evelyn thought using her gravity magic to force the silver flower down.

She had noticed that it was getting ready to flee but now it was not going anywhere.

'Flare ring.' Evelyn thought, creating a circle of fire around herself and burning through the roots of the sliver flower and trapping it.

The creature let out an otherworldly sounding wail as parts of its body burned away.

Still, it was a resilient creature and Evelyn saw the silver flower that was the main part of its body begin to pulsate and glow.

'Not happening! Gravity Hammer!'

After waking up Evelyn had felt the Aethersphere growing stronger inside her and once again it had revealed a new power to her.

This new attack allowed her to focus all of her gravity magic into a focused area and smash down on it.

Unlike her other uses of gravity magic that this one was just pure power meant to crush her enemies.

The dream flower was unable to hold up to this massive increase in pressure and its body was flattened into the stone floor of the maze.

After just a couple of seconds even the sturdy stone that should have been near unbreakable began to crack under the assault of Evelyn gravity magic.

Green liquid began pouring out of the dream flower as its body was crushed and it let out another wail.

The magic that the dream flower had been amassing to attack Evelyn with went out of control as its body was being crushed into the ground and a huge explosion of slivery light enveloped its body.

In the end the monster was destroyed by its own attack going haywire while under the effects of Evelyn new gravity magic attack.

Within the small crater that Evelyn's magic had left int eh stone was four dozen iron tokens. Proving that the dream flower was most certainly dead.